Seen One, Take #1: Superman (2025)
Trying something different today.
Hello, everybody!
Before we get into it, please take a minute and subscribe. It’s free, and it means a lot to yours truly.
Welcome back to the blog, and if it’s your first time here, hello. Whether it’s your first time here or your 70th time here (hi Mom), today is a little different. Why?
Because this is the first in what will hopefully become a running series of ‘Seen One’ blogs. ‘Seen One’ blogs, if you couldn’t decipher from the name, are blogs that are only about one movie. For the time being, they’re gonna be movies that I’ve recently seen in theaters. I want to start doing these shorter, one-off blogs because sometimes I get behind on the movies I’ve seen in theaters, and there’s no point in waiting to write about them until after they’re out of theaters. For example, at the moment, there are 4 movies I’ve seen in theaters recently that I haven't written about yet. In my ongoing mission to get people to the theaters to see movies, I figured writing about movies in theaters as quickly as possible could be a good way to fulfill my mission.
Maybe you guys will hate these. Maybe you guys will like these. Either way, they’ll be a hell of a lot shorter than the normal blogs, and be coming out a lot more sporadically than the normal blogs (which come out very sporadically already).
And for those of you who only read the introductions of the blogs when they come out, I’ll do my best to do some short intros for these in the future, but I’ve only so much going on in my life that I can spin into something that is somewhat readable.
As always, if any of you have any suggestions on how I can make these a bit different than the normal blogs or how I can make them better, please leave a comment. I’m always open to suggestions.
Also, I’m very open to changing the name of this series if it sucks. It’s late, and my brain isn’t working.
Alright, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get on with the intro.
I’ve got a big family.
I’ve got a big family, and I’ve been lucky enough that my big family (specifically my Dad’s side) has been in my life for, well, my entire life. And when I say “close”, I mean that most of them live in my neighborhood, which I did not realize wasn’t normal until I got older. Hell, I didn’t even realize that it’s weird to be related to half of your neighborhood (I’m doing a really bad job of beating the cult allegations right now, aren’t I?). Now, when you’re related to half of your neighborhood, you can’t get away with a lot of stuff (it really is a fishbowl out there), but at the same time, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
I miss my family now that I live in Los Angeles. Something I miss very much are the most are the get-togethers. Christmas parties, easter parties, crab feasts, etc. I’ve accepted that I’m gonna miss a lot of things now that I don’t live close to home, and I have to be okay with that. However, when I was back home last week for the 4th of July (I didn’t say I’d miss everything), I found out that I was going to be missing a time-honored tradition, and I was devastated.
I’m missing cousin movie night.
*Editor’s Note: More specifically, I’m missing cuzzy movie night (that’s what our master planner, my Aunt Meaghan, calls them, so that’s what we call them too).*
There’s a reason I’m bringing up CMN for this particular blog, and that’s because the whole family’s going to see Superman in a couple weeks. I’m not exaggerating when I say my whole family. I’ve heard rumors about a theater being rented out for the occasion, but I’ll believe it when I see it. So I bring up CMN for that reason because we’re talking about Superman today. But I also bring it up because CMN will always have a special connection to Superman for me. That’s because the first CMN I remember going to was to see Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder, in 2013. If you couldn’t tell, we’ve got a lot of superhero nerds in my family, myself included.
There may have been some CMNs that we’d done in earlier years, but MoS will always be the one I remember going to first. At the time, I don’t think I realized the concept of a “bad movie”, and looking back on how I remember MoS now, it’s one of the first movies I remember seeing and consciously thinking that it simply was not as good as I thought it should be. Is Man of Steel the specific movie that unlocked the inner film critic inside me (a label I do not subscribe to)? I can’t say for sure, but one thing’s for sure: I’m sad I’m missing cuzzy movie night.
Oh, and that none of Zack Snyder’s movies really work for me.
Alright, let’s see how this goes.
Superman (2025)
AKA: Wait a second, superhero movies are allowed to be bright and colorful?
Did you know that this is the 2nd Superman movie I’ve written about in the blog?
All the way back in August of 2023, I wrote about Superman Returns.
*Editor’s Note: Sorry, you can only see those old blogs if you’re a paid subscriber. (LA is expensive).*
Superman Returns is not a great movie. I wrote that in my review at the time, and I believe it even more now. Sure, it had its moments, but in all, there really hasn’t been a good Superman movie since 1980 (Superman II). The reason for this?
Superman just isn’t that interesting of a character.
It’s not his fault! It’s his creators, and I’m using the term ‘fault’ liberally here. When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman back in 1938, he was the first comic book superhero. No one had ever created a character who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, was more powerful than a locomotive, and could move faster than a speeding bullet before, and since 1938, he’s been one of the pillars of superhero/comics. In layman’s terms, he’s the George Washington of superheroes. Or he’s superhero Jesus, whichever you prefer.
Since he was the first superhero, Superman was also set up for failure. Spiegel and Shuster had nothing to compare Superman to. No other heroes to take inspiration from, learn from, etc. So Superman is pretty much invincible, which, in the 85+ years that Superman has been around, has led him to be considered kind of lame lame. As silly as it sounds, invincible heroes are boring because they are invincible. Sure, Superman's weakness is kryptonite, and the bad guys always seem to be able to find some of the rarest elements on Earth to use it against him, but at the end of the day, it’s really difficult to make Superman engaging when in the back of you head, you know he could defeat any bad guy with a flick of his finger.
It’s also not his fault that he is constantly, and eternally, intertwined with Batman, the coolest superhero of all time (full stop). Granted, Batman didn’t start off that way, but through evolution, he’s gone from a guy dressed as a bat with a gun to a guy dressed as a bat without a gun.
A lot has changed in 85 years. But you know who hasn’t really changed? Superman. Because he doesn’t have a ton of room to evolve.
The question is always: “Who would win, Superman or Batman?” And the answer is always the same:
If Batman had time to prepare, it’s Batman, 100 times out of 100.
But that’s besides the point I’m trying to make here (watch as I land this plane). This whole conversation started with me talking about how there hasn’t been a good Superman movie since 1980. I don't think that’s the case anymore. This 2025 version of Superman is a breath of fresh air for superhero movies. Is it perfect? By all means, no, but it’s so refreshing to see a comic book-like superhero movie. Nowadays, we’re so used to these dark, drab, grey-toned movies with brooding characters who aren’t brooding at all in the comic books they started from.
*Editor’s Note: The author wanted to go on a tangent about Zack Snyder and how his style infected superhero movies, but I told him to cut it.*
All I’m trying to say is (after 1,000 words) is that Superman is a surprisingly hard character to adapt, and the attempts we’ve had for the majority of comic-book movie history have been rough (the less said about Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the better). How do you make a god-like hero relatable and interesting? How do we make him cool like Batman? The answer? Don’t. Superman is Superman for a reason. People come to Superman to feel good, to feel inspired, and to feel like there is a reason to be a good person.
Maybe I’m being too sincere and making this sappy, but that’s what Jerry Spiegel and Joe Shuster did when they created him. They were just two poor Jewish kids in Cleveland, Ohio, who, during the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, wanted to come up with a hero who defended the weak and stood for something bigger than himself. Almost 90 years later, Superman is still that symbol of peace and justice, which I think is pretty damn cool.
See, I think I tied it all together. Was that too sappy/corny/cheesy? I thought it might be. Also, I didn’t think I’d be writing about Hitler and the Nazis in this blog, but here we are.
Mount Rushmore of Generational Haters From Movies (pre-2000):
Lex Luthor (Superman)
Who/What he hates: Superman
Hater Moves: Tried to take over the world/kill Superman numerous times
The Mayor from Footloose (Footloose)
(Who I just found out was played by John Lithgow (your future Dumbledore))
Who/What he hates: Dancing
Hater Moves: Outlawed dancing in his town. Crazy play.
John McClane (Die Hard)
Who/What he hates: Terrorists/the concept of terrorism, staying married to his wife
Hater Moves: Stopping numerous terrorist attacks, numerous separations/divorces
Evil Stepmother (Cinderella)
Who/What she hates: Cinderella
Hater Moves: Enslaves her stepchild after her dad dies, locks her up so she can’t try on the glass slipper
Honorable Mentions: The Grinch (hates Christmas/happiness), teacher from Back to the Future (the McFly family name), Mr. T from Rocky III (Rocky and seemingly all white people), Ed Rooney (Ferris Bueller), The Great Hambino (kids who play organized baseball), Shooter McGavin (Happy Gilmore), Stinky Pete (Woody)
Not sure if I got them all, so let me know who I missed.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: What do you think?
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 98%
No, But Really: This is exactly what a Superman movie should be. Bright, fun, colorful, and a little wacky. James Gunn is the reason behind a lot of that, and he truly is one of the best, if not the best, superhero-movie directors of all time. I thought the casting was amazing, and while the original Superman (1978) will always be the best, this Superman is firmly in 2nd place. It’s fun for the whole family, and when that John Williams score hits, it’s as powerful as ever. It’s by no means a perfect movie, and I have my gripes with some of the plot decisions, but it feels new and creative in a way we haven’t seen in superhero movies for a long time. Superman always runs the risk of being lame; this is not.
-Yet again, I’m up at 3:00 am writing.
—Should’ve skipped watching the 2nd movie tonight and written instead
—-Go see some movies in theaters (or else)
——I love da movies.
Yay!! Finally a shout out!!! And one I’m worthy of. We will miss you Will!!! 🎥🍿🎬🦸🏻♂️
Love the name. Will miss you at CMN.