By Molly Claire Goddard
11:55am PDT, Jul 9, 2025
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The reviews for the new
Superman are in! The revamped action film starring
David Corenswet and
Rachel Brosnahan is set to hit theaters on Friday, July 11. While audiences wait to see it, critics have spoken about whether the movie is a hit or a miss.
Keep reading to see what the critics are saying about the summer flick…MORE:
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Pete Hammond for
Deadline somewhat positively praised director
James Gunn for his vision — even if it wasn't totally cohesive. "Overall, Gunn might be trying to do too much here, basically throwing everything against the wall and hoping some of it sticks. More than enough does in this entertaining new direction, but at times
Superman suffers from overload, much like Gunns'
Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, which wore out its welcome with Vol. 3 where Rocket unfortunately got the
Babe: Pig in the City treatment," he wrote.
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The
BBC's
Nicholas Barber cheekily poked fun at the reboot of the classic superhero film, writing it was "bursting with geeky weirdness." Wrote the critic, "It's a shame that [James]Gunn didn't give his story more time to breathe. It's a shame, in particular, that he didn't devote more time to showing us that Superman really is the paragon that his supporters keep saying he is. [David] Corenswet is well cast. He has plenty of all-American charm both as Superman and as his mild-mannered alter ego, Clark Kent. But we have to take it on trust that he is a selfless gentleman who helps his friends and enjoys Lois Lane's company. We don't see any of that."
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David Rooney of
The Hollywood Reporter praised David Corenswet's and Rachel Brosnahan's portrayals of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. "David Corenswet makes an outstanding Superman/Clark Kent, his performance loaded with self-irony, charm and poignant vulnerability as he wrestles with doubts as to whether his mission to do good and protect humankind was based on a lie," he wrote. "Corenswet's funny, scrappy rapport with Rachel Brosnahan's whip-smart Lois Lane — possibly the sharpest and most captivating interpretation of the ace
Daily Planet reporter since
Margot Kidder — makes their every scene together a delight."
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David Ehrlich for
IndieWire had some harsh criticisms of the film and its tone, giving it a C+. "[James] Gunn is right to recognize that a certain amount of silliness is key to Superman's charm, but here it mostly just distracts from the seriousness of what's at stake," he wrote. "It's hard to make a comic book come to life at the same time as you're trying to bring life into a comic book, just as it's hard not to admire Gunn for trying. But it's even harder to care if a man can fly when there isn't any gravity to the world around him."
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Sophie Butcher of
Empire gave the movie only two stars and claimed it "just doesn't work." Wrote the critic, "Visually,
Superman is bold and bright and full of color and cosmic invention — an area in which [James] Gunn excels and a nice change from the desaturated palette of
Zack Snyder's interpretation. That keeps the film entertaining for the first hour, but the final act sinks into CGI chaos, with an unsatisfying climax, an eye-roll-inducing reveal, a restlessly intermittent tone and an insistence on prioritizing things and people we don't really care about over core characters."
