Film Review | Superman
Empathy is this latest hero's strength, but can the movie leap the anti-Israel criticism in a single bound?

The new Superman came to me when I needed it most.
The last twelve months have been a period of immense change for me: I went through a painful divorce and moved to Brooklyn from the Midwest, where I had just spent six years building a home, bringing a beloved but difficult dog back with me. It became clear that at 29, I will be ending my 20s with none of the certainty with which I started them.
All of which is to say, I needed a hero. And while I’ve always been more of a Spider-Man guy, the new Superman movie was offering a return to the character’s sincere roots after Zack Snyder’s gritty films depicting the DC Universe, which offered a more brooding and conflicted man from Krypton.
So, I went to Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Brooklyn to check out James Gunn’s take on the character. And it did not disappoint.
First, David Corenswet, the Jewish actor playing Superman, embodies the character perfectly. His Man of Steel is not a perfect ubermensch, and his Clark Kent is an awkward, naive and kindhearted Midwestern farm boy. Still, he has all we’ve come to expect from Superman: the Fortress of Solitude; the powers of flight, super speed, x-ray vision and so on; superpowered allies like Hawk Girl (Isabela Merced), Green Lantern (aka Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion); and his superpowered dog, Krypto (whose physical model was a motion capture of Gunn’s own dog, Ozu). But as a speech at the end of the movie reveals, this Superman’s primary strength is his empathy, his humanity, his ability to feel fear, to fail and to keep trying.
[Read: “Superman’s Jewish Roots”]
Much has been made of the movie’s political plot points and their contemporary connections. While Lex Luthor (played by Nicholas Hoult) is the film’s primary villain, his actions are in service to the U.S. client state of Boravia, a fictitious Middle Eastern nation illegally annexing its neighbor, Jarhanpur. Boravia’s leader Vasil Gurkos, portrayed by Danish-Croatian actor Zlatko Burić, often feels like a hammy satire of Benjamin Netanyahu, with his conspiracy-mongering and appeals to security. As the story progresses, it’s revealed that Luthor backs Gurkos’s invasion of Jarhanpur in order to create his own nation of Luthoria. Was this inspired by President Trump’s “Mar-A-Gaza” plans shared in a February 2025 joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister? Unlikely, since filming began in early 2024. Of course, the nature of blockbuster film production is such that it’s difficult to know exactly how much of this was conceived prior to the Israel-Hamas war or Trump’s return to the White House and if/when anything was added or reshot.
Regardless, some have slammed the new Superman as anti-Israel. Personally, at a time where many Jewish spaces have increasingly demanded support for a geopolitical agenda I struggle to stand by, it was something of a breath of fresh air to see a film portray military conflict not as the evil doings of those within a nation, but rather as the consequences of militaries, politicians and arms corporations treating human lives as collateral on a spreadsheet. And speaking as somebody who has formed a complex relationship with Israel based in part on lived experience there, if supporters of Israel see U.S.-backed imperialism in the Middle East as an attack on the Jewish state, that may be indicative of a need to look inward.
There’s a lot more to say about the film’s entertainment quotient, of course. As a lifelong comic-book nerd, I loved seeing B-list characters like Guy Gardner and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) get their chance on the big screen, and I had even more love for Skyler Gisondo’s portrayal of Jimmy Olsen, offering perfect comic relief. Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane may be my new favorite take on the character, her pointed cynicism and realism providing a perfect foil to Kent’s naivete, creating a romance to root for that didn’t seem like a given throughout the film. Meanwhile, Hoult’s Lex Luthor embodies the character’s egotistical fragility in a way that feels both hilarious and tragic.
Kindness is strength. In an age where young men are drawn to the angry lone wolves and the shouting, shirtless fitness gurus of social media, perhaps a hero with that simple message is exactly what we need. And as adults living in an age of political turmoil and the persistent personal gut punches that come with it, this film has real benefits. It’s more than a bird, more than a plane. It’s super, man.
One thought on “Film Review | Superman”
Having dropped my interest in Superman even before I entered high school (September 1956), I find His continued popularity to be a fascinating commentary on American social (and political?) culture.