SUPERMAN (2025)***

Writer-director James Gunn (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY) has jumped ship from Marvel to reboot the DC Universe, and the first film in this endeavour really suffers from setting up the chessboard.  It's a film that is overstuffed with ideas and characters and so many aliens that I couldn't give a shit about. There's also a scrappy dog called Krypto that is presumably adorable if you like scrappy dogs (I do not) and that's basically ripped off from Terry Pratchett's Luggage - a super-powerful, super-loyal chaos agent.  As a result, the real life human characters - whether Clark Kent's adoptive parents or his Daily Planet colleagues - are given way too little screen time.  Poor Wendel Pierce as Perry barely gets a line and even Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane feels sidelined.  All to make way for alien monsters, quirky robots (come on Alan Tudyk - do something new!)  and endless gonzo fight scenes.  This far into the Marvel universe it's just all so blah.  I would rather have seen Superman rescue a cat from a tree than yet another Big Bad ripping up Metropolis.

So for much of its running time I was basically quite bored by this film. I realised about two-thirds of the way through that I would probably rather just watch Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern doing his comedy schtick in his own film. I guess that's coming.

Part of the problem is that this film needs to pick a lane in its look and feel. Is it in a contemporary near-future in which evil mastermind Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult) has super technology and sleek Marvel-style henchmen and headquarters? Or is it in a world where people actually care about newspapers, and take notes with a pencil and notepad, and record interviews on dictaphones rather than iPhones? The whole concept of the Daily Planet is basically anachronistic now and I don't think the film knows how to handle that. 

Thing is. Thing is.  By the denouement, despite all of its flaws. This film had me.  Because its core message is a good one. And a moving one. That to be kind and think the best of people and not be cynical is actually "punk rock".  And that to be human is to make your own choices and to make mistakes and to try to be better.  And that family is what you choose it to be. I want my Superman to be in day glow blue and red and to be earnest and kind.  I don't want moody post-modern dark Superman.  Superman has always been hokey and kitsch because that's what we need.  Onwards!

SUPERMAN is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 129 minutes and is on global release.

DAMSEL**

Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) returns to our small screens with a rather disappointing Young Adult-aimed feminist fairy tale. I really loved the wit and pace of MBB's ENOLA HOLMES, but this film lacks any kind of energy or pace.  It also suffers from the fact that the heroine basically has to do her escape journey not once but twice, the first time saving her own skin from a dragon, and the second time saving her little sister.

MBB plays earnest, resourceful Princess Elodie, who agrees to an arranged marriage with a Prince from a far richer kingdom to save her own people.  Problem is, that kingdom is sacrificing Princesses to assuage the vengeful nature of an evil dragon. As Elodie finds herself thrown into a dragon pit slash cave system she realises just how many young women have been thrown to their fate before her. And thanks to their wall-carved advice, she somehow manages to escape and get her own revenge.

The message of this film is admirable. No handsome Prince is coming to rescue you. The sisterhood will save you. Maybe the vengeful dragon is just hurting too. Maybe the wicked stepmother is actually wonderfully protective. Maybe the beautiful blonde Queen is the real villain.

It's just a shame that the earnest good message and MBB's high-energy performance is tethered to Dan Mazeau (FAST X)'s extremely thin and repetitive script.  I had also expected more from pace and invention from genre director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 WEEKS LATER).

DAMSEL is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 110 minutes. It was released on Netflix a few weeks ago.

HILLBILLY ELEGY

J.D.Vance's Hillbilly Elegy was something of a publishing sensation and I very much enjoyed reading his biography.  It appealed to me as a tale of a young kid born into the opioid crisis that bred Trump's base, complete with a drug-addict mum, rescued by a a battle-axe of a grandma, who somehow gets himself into an Ivy League law school and the Marines. Along the way, Vance speaks sympathetically about the social circumstances he grew up in while also criticising some of the more feckless behaviour it breeds.  This willingness to not simply to blame structural issues but also personal choices made the book controversial. 

I was surprised that the book was inspiring a narrative fiction movie rather than a documentary.  Things that might pass as credible in real life seem broad and crass and worst of all patronising when fictionalised. And there's not a little poverty porn about Ron Howard's new film. Glenn Close stars as "mamaw" complete with frizzy afro, drooping latex boobs and stomach and hideous glasses and teeth.  It's all so patronising and broad as to be offensive. And then we have Amy Adams as the addict mum Bev - another broad performance in a thankless one-dimensional role. Speaking of which, I give you poor Freida Pinto as the protagonist's supportive college girlfriend who seems to exist merely to further his career. As for the hero? He just comes across as banal and forgettable. I didn't want him to succeed - I wanted the movie to be over. 

HILLBILLY ELEGY is rated R and has a running time of 113 minutes. It was released on Netflix on November 2th.