The ghost of Brightburn haunts this movie.
Brightburn, in case you missed it, was an “evil Superboy” movie from 2019 written by one of James Gunn’s brothers and produced by Gunn himself. Its premise: given infinite power, man will always choose evil. We’re asked to accept—without evidence—that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
This tired adage fallacy is either an unfalsifiable hypothesis at best or glorified folk wisdom at worst, but it’s generally treated as an ironclad law of the human race which is bullshit.
That mindset—cynical, reductionist—has been poisoning Superman stories for years now. Yes, a villain with Superman’s powers could potentially be a compelling threat. But that’s not what we’re dealing with here. What we keep getting instead is Superman himself corrupted by power.
Based on that — and other reasons I won’t get into — I had serious reservations when James Gunn was handed the keys to the DC Universe.
And no, it didn’t meet my worst expectations. But it didn’t come close to my best hopes, either. Gunn didn’t make a Superman movie—he made a James Gunn movie. Which, if we’re being honest, is all anyone really expected of him anyway.
So yes, this is a bad Superman movie.
But I’ll grant this much—it’s a good Clark Kent movie.
Read the whole thing at the Arkhaven substack.