Lamer than a speeding bullet: why the Superman trailer is cinematic Kryptonite

Oh Superman, what have they done?

Now while any new take on superheroes, any of the endless variations of these characters, the reboots and reinventions and recastings, are always fun to see in the first trailers and shouldn’t be judged too much out of context of the actual film… this new Superman looks bad. Very bad.

This is the first glimpse we have had of James ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Gunn’s DC Universe, with the former Marvel man now firmly in the hot seat at the rival comic company and with a long schedule of TV and films ahead.

And judging by the trailer, this is a firm step away from the previous DC Universe, which was dark and gloomy, mostly presided over by director Zack Snyder. It notoriously paled in comparison to Marvel’s record-breaking Avengers and Spiderman and Guardians films, which were playful and self-aware in contrast to DC painting itself into a corner with ever more serious and darker takes on Batman and Superman et al, until there was no fun left at all. Justice League? Crikey.

While Batman decided it hadn’t had enough of trying to be the darkest thing ever – and Matt Reeves’s The Batman with Robert Pattinson actually thrived in descending to Seven levels of grimness, followed by The Penguin’s success in doing The Sopranos meets Scarface in hell – Superman, now played by David Corenswet, is clearly going in a different direction…

Fair play to Gunn for making his own stamp on things, and it has worked already if you consider there’s been over 250 million views of the trailer so far…but here’s why it sucks:

1) It’s so self-consciously James Gunn

The most alarming thing is that this new Superman seems to be coloured by ego. In that, it is very much James ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Gunn doing Superman. Gunn is writing and directing, and clearly ‘doing his thing’ here. So right from the start we have “James Gunn” flagged in Guardians-style retro-cheese titles, and then, “Director of the Guardians of the Galaxy Trilogy”, as if we weren’t clear, while a Guardians-style Eighties rock guitar solo version of the Superman theme plays over the top. Then the footage of the film itself has a clear Gunn-ish garishness of characters and events (see below).

In other words James ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Gunn is making this very much Super-‘Guardians of the Galaxy’-Man which may well work, but kind of smacks of a fella believing his own hype or even being a one-trick pony.

2) The CGI dog

Now, I’m not against dogs. I love dogs! And I’m not against Krypto the dog as a character.

In fact, the bravery of putting Krypto-dog in there is pretty impressive. It’s quite a ‘f*ck you’ to the dark and gloomy place Superman had previously found himself, and was obviously put in to firmly establish the Gunn films in a new place, where anarchic fun can be had instead of just pure reverence for this all-American hero.

And yet the dog looks sh*t.

Very bad CGI reminiscent of the cat in the worst film of this year, Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle (if you haven’t seen it, don’t, under any circumstances).

“Krypto…home!” groans a pole-axed Superman on a frozen tundra, and Krypto duly takes Supe’s cape between his computer generated jaws to drag him home at speed. And boy does it look lame. I’m not being funny but couldn’t they at least have trained up a real dog for some of this? Not like it has to talk like Rocket Raccoon… or maybe it will.

3) Luthorcorp

Ah so we have another skyscraper HQ. Not Stark or Avengers towers, but Luthorcorp this time, a place for Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor to plot his wicked ways. There’s no hiding away in the sewers like Gene Hackman’s Luthor in the original films. No, this is all shiny and bright and garish, remember?

I’m positive Nicholas Hoult will be great as the character since he’s always great, as evidence by, well, The Great. And he’s suitably bald in what we see. But is there going to be much for him to get his teeth into?

4) A sass-less Lois

Alright, this is a bit harsh and an opinion drawn from ignorance but what we see of Lois is not the high-rolling, fast-talking, sass and attitude version of Lois played by Margot Kidder in the originals. She’s presented here as pure ‘love interest’, making eyes at Clark Kent then snogging him in a kitchen, and then giving Superman a cuddle.

That said, this Lois is played by Rachel Brosnahan from The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, so you hope they make the most of her world-beating turn in that and make her a whip-smart gag-fest.

5) The war-torn country

A brave little kid raises a Krypton flag in the sky as his people run for their lives from explosions all around. Apparently the country depicted is the fictional Boravia, which will be standing in for actual war-torn countries to give Superman a bit of weight. This guy will solve difficult ‘conflicts’! And not just in America! He is an American hero saving poor foreign people! Yay!

6) Mr bowl-cut

So one of the other comic book characters to appear in the trailer is a Green Lantern, one called Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), who has the worst haircut ever seen on film. The worst. And yes, that’s his hair in the comics but what’s the point in being faithful to the comics if it makes your audience laugh like crazy as the missing link between Harpo Marx and Curley from The Three Stooges?

7) Hawkgirl

Played by Isabela Merced from, er, Madame Web. I’m sorry but one look at Hawkgirl and I’m just thinking immediately of the Hawkmen in Flash Gordon. No bad thing. Or is it? Is Superman the new Flash Gordon? A laughable bomb that in later years will become a campy cult favourite?

8) The monster

Sorry, not monster, you have to say kaiju now, the Japanese term for monster. This kaiju appears to be the main baddy Superman takes on, a fire-breathing Godzilla loose in the city, but which isn’t Godzilla because that’s a different film series, but kind of is Godzilla because we have seen it all before and it’s not very exciting as a baddy is it?

9) The dying robot

So with the monsters and mysterious glowing orbs in the sky, we can see that this Superman is dealing with a lot intergalactic space things, just like in Guardians of the Galaxy folks. And it seems Superman even has a robot buddy. It’s likely to be a robot carer who has looked after Kal-El since leaving Krypton. What else could explain a slightly amusing shot of an anguished Superman holding the robot by the hand as it dies on the floor of the Fortress of Solitude? Or maybe it was a Feeld date gone wrong? Who knows?

10) Mister Terrific

Mister Terrific sounds like someone taking the piss out of comic book character, but he is in fact an actual character and apparently James Gunn’s favourite.

He’s played by Edi Cathegi here and has a nice looking mask. He’s more like a Tony Stark technology aficionado, rather than a superhero as such, and here uses some drones to create a protective shell around himself (and Lois?) in Boravia.

Which is all fine, but I can’t get over the name. Mister Terrific. What does he do? Aw, he’s just terrific.

11) DC Studios

Some of the talk has been about how we don’t actually see a title card with the name of the film. All we get at the end is the new logo of DC Studios.

The subtext is clear: this isn’t just a Superman film, it’s the start of a whole new era for DC, one which will take on Marvel in a way it never could before.

By simply turning everything into Guardians of the Galaxy.