Probably less a Superman review more about how hot Sara Sampaio is and a rambling freeform rant about the movie itself

The following comments may be biased due to this reviewer’s view of comic book movies. I’ve seen every Marvel and DC movie, some in the theater, and I think of them at best as fun little diversions. With one exception, The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn). And the reason none of the other superhero movies really do anything for me is because if I’m going to get excited about a movie it’s because it either moves me to tears or at the very least warm fuzzy goosebumps; or gets me to think about cinematic form in a way I never had before (plot, character, dialogue, genre, setting).

     The Suicide Squad makes me cry when Ratcatcher II flashes back that memory of her father and Harly dives with the javelin and the music underscoring it. But I also cry at, and what sticks with me more than anything else in that movie is, Starro the Conqueror’s dying words: “I was happy floating staring at the stars.” The bad guys are the heroes because they kill a bad guy who’s worse; but when they do, James Gunn gives it dignity, and the pathos wherein I empathize with that kaiju feeling bad for it being kidnapped from outerspace by Nazi scientists makes that movie better than I think any other comic book movie for me ever could be. Okay I could go on so much longer about The Suicide Squad but this is about a different James Gunn movie.
 

In Superman (2025, James Gunn) the JIMMY OLSEN-EVE TESCHMACHER story arc frustrated me because I was trying to figure out why a chick that hot who’s dating a super rich powerful asshole is so desperate for some kid who works at a paper and he doesn’t want her. He actually finds her somewhere between repulsive or obnoxious. He has her contact saved as Mutant Toes because he once told her her bare feet look like someone spilled a shrimp cocktail on the ground—great line. I do love that Portuguese Victoria’s Secret supermodel Sara Sampaio is cast as Eve Teschmacher because she’s actually hot though. I know beauty standards are subjective but a movie works a little better for me when there’s a character who’s supposed to be sexy desirable and actually is. Or is to me anyway.
     But then I realized I made the mistake of thinking of Eve Teschmacher as a person. This is a comic book movie. And James Gunn gives it the quality of resembling comic book form. Eve Teschmacher is a two-dimensional comic book bimbo who’s got a crush on Jimmy like she stepped straight out of Archie comics. (But her chronic selfietaking and how well she dresses and lives for travel all captured on her social media still makes her all the more believable in our real world.) That’s what I like best about Superman. 
     There’s a scene later when SUPERMAN is in LOIS’ apartment and outside the window the Justice Gang are fighting this thing that reminds me of Revenge of the Sith when Anakin and Palpatine are watching Squid Lake, that Superman says is an interdimensional imp. And the way Lois asks if he should be helping and Superman says they can handle it, casting it as some minor distraction not worthy of his attention further emphasizes this is Metropolis where things that don’t happen in our world happen there all the time. And happen so much sometimes it’s not even a big deal. After the screening I ran into this dude I know from work and he said the movie was something like, too much going on, disjointed. And I like that. I think it’s like our world where so much shit is going on all the time and conflicts seem to be getting bigger, more frequent, more sensationalized.
     Superman strikes this balance of comic book world and our real world. LUTHOR has this angry tirade where he’s telling Superman that he’s destroying us, while the tear spreading across Metropolis is literally going to rip the world apart and Luthor created it. He’s a hypocrite. He represents all of the bombastic fearmonger hate dealers who are constantly bemoaning what’s threatening our lives that are seen as the very same threat by the other half of the world. 
     The only thing I was disappointed about with Superman is that it felt like none of the emotion connected with me. The only part I was really struck with feeling was in the opening scene when the on screen text tells us Superman has just lost his first battle. Okay and the amazing speech at the end where he says his greatest strength is that he’s human. But the ending with his parents did nothing for me. Although in The Suicide Squad in that quick scene with Taika Waititi as Ratcatcher telling his daughter “Rats are the loneliest and most despised of all creatures my love. If they have purpose so can we all” brings me to tears every time. Maybe the difference is the Superman parents scene lacks anything for me to grasp as to what they did for him that made him who he now is. Or maybe it was because the scenes on the farm didn’t mean anything to me. I just thought they were boring.
     But anyway, at a lean slightly under 2 hours (minus end credits), the runtime and pacing of Superman are as light and frivolously free of any serious demand on our time or attention as a comic book. I love James Gunn’s universe. I love Grillo as RICK FLAG, SR. I love the PEACEMAKER cameo. I love Superman saving the squirrel. And I love the way Eve Teschmacher is like the perfect dream girl shrill voice how could that guy not be into her character. Maybe that cool detachment is what makes Jimmy so cool. And maybe there's something to say for the way Eve Teschmacher's selfies are actually what save the world. 

7/12/2025 AMC Mad Yards 8

Atlanta, GA

No One Likes a Show-off. Unless What They're Showing Off is Dope as Fuck.

My first favorite movie was Batman (1989, Tim Burton). And the one thing as a kid I could never understand was what those photos VICKI VALE took were all about. They were apparently graphic and disturbing. They were in black and white. And they were called Corto Maltese. Many years later one of the first things I used a search engine for when that technology became available was finally answering that question that had puzzled me for so long.

 

Other than Quentin Tarantino, who else has the luxury of a major studio handing over a big budget and the reigns to an R-rated, violent, profanity-laden, colorful, fun, genre pic with an eclectic soundtrack of their choosing and Margot Robbie? …The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn) is the most fun a movie could be. And in the era which began sometime in the ‘10s where Marvel took over the world and superhero movies dominated the market, The Suicide Squad is the first movie to exist in that genre yet still manage to be considered serious art.

     James Gunn’s coolest gift is the Gen X sensibility he’s used to craft The Suicide Squad with. Yes I’m talking about the penultimate group shot of the team entering Corto Maltese in the rain, in slow-motion, to “Hey” by the Pixies with the refrain of Black Francis’ wistful “chained” echoing (and echoed by Kim Deal) the subtext of the shot, but so much more. The scene in the briefing when RATCATCHER 2 asks “what is that?” and WALLER tells her “that is an overhead projector” is the key to the true nature of the movie. “Do you ever use it anymore?” “No, not really.” “So why don’t you just throw it away?” Whether we call it grunge, alternative, or indie; whether we’re talking about the music, the movies, or the fashion of Generation X, what The Suicide Squad essentially conveys is the mix of beautiful drabness and witty sarcasm found in the otherwise discarded forms (and people). And being funny as shit.

     But the thing Gunn does best is writing for an ensemble of misfits to make them all individually compelling while simultaneously building a story that uses each of them to their fullest potential in terms of both plot and character development. And being funny as shit. 

     My favorite set piece in The Suicide Squad is the La Gatita Amable. What the K. Flay song does from its opening chords while filmed in slow-motion PEACEMAKER bumps into Lloyd Kaufman, the trance-like bizarre otherworldly choreography of the dancers on stage, then into drinks at the table is bliss; along with the POLKA DOT MAN punchline “…except for the thousands of people killed in drunk driving accidents every year,” which was my biggest laugh. (Yeah it was awkward in a packed theater being the only person to laugh at that joke.) But wait there’s more: Ratcather 2 and Peacmaker’s moves on the floor; Polka Dot Man’s first sign of having fun in one of the most disturbingly awesome instances of face-replacement cgi since Chris Cunningham’s Aphex Twin videos in the ‘90s is the happiest moment in the movie, only to cut to KING SHARK outside in the most painful moment of the movie.

     The best thing about the plot is that it’s about Jotunheim and it knows it. And once the team gets there that whole final section is its own movie. In closing, The Suicide Squad is the funniest, most violent, coolest fucking movie I’ve ever seen. And I wish I'd said more about the characters: Ratcatcher 2 (the sleepy, mumbling millennial), HQ (her time in this movie does more for that character than both the other movies combined), BLOODSPORT (best costume, arsenal), King Shark (learning to make friends on his own...).

     And this other Gen X thing I think is really funny is just a guess, but like even though The Suicide Squad occurs in a contemporary setting (‘20s), it doesn’t really ever show anyone using smartphones. Except there is one scene where a character is texting and, well, we see what happens to him. But also there’s the bit about Bloodsport’s DAUGHTER wanting a watch to watch tv on, which, without making any judgements about technology or anything is clearly hilarious. Anyways.

 

8/5/2021 AMC Madison Yards 8

Atlanta, GA

DCP