Saw it this morning with my kid, who had only seen a couple of MCU movies in the theater and the animated Spiderverse movies. He absolutely loved it. I loved it. Glad Gunn didn’t dwell on origins at the start.
My boomer dad bitched that he heard it was all political. Some things were on the nose, but the movie was written years ago and finished filming earlier last year, and all of the major themes were a staple of the comics, TV series, and movies. There was nothing new about Lex trying to drum up hatred at Superman for being an alien. That goes back four decades in the movies to the Reeves movies and arguably to the start of the comics and why the creators did what they did in the 30s/40s and it’s always been in the comics as a whole since then (it was a staple of Byrne). The invasion for land could stand in for quite a few events over the past several decades and Superman has stopped wars before. Poking fun at talking heads who one minute are praising somebody and then on a dime turn and start calling them traitors was spot on. Making fun of social media comments being created by mind-controlled monkeys was also hilarious and was the most timely (but true) event. But that was all less than 5 minutes of screen time.
The genius was Gunn was shooting a finished script unlike Snyder, and everything was plotted out well and wrapped up well. As well done as the Guardian movies. Loved the Justice Gang. So glad he didn’t have Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc. the cast was perfect. Guy Gardner, Hawk Girl, Mr. Terrific, and Metamorpho are a great way to start out things.
Loved Olsen being a ladies man. Loved that Eve had been deliberately sending him scoops and he didn’t even realize it.
Liked Guy Gardner, but Mr. Terrific was my favorite Justice character. Both felt like they walked out of the pages of the comics from my youth, and while their screen time was short, they fucking sold their characters and you knew instantly the kind of people they were just by their actions and comments. Supergirl was setup perfectly with just a few minutes of screen time. None of them felt like they were fumbling their way around trying to figure out the whole super hero thing, they were established already in events prior this movie and were comfortable with who they were.
I know what Snyder was trying to do, but Gunn has a better grasp of how to quickly get things off the ground, and that he really didn’t have the ability to play a long game like the MCU or Snyder did, and that he really didn’t need to since everybody knows who Superman is. His runway was far shorter than Snyder’s, but he got the bird in the air and on its way in a much better fashion.