‘Superman’ Is Here. Is James Gunn’s Box Office Flight a Gust of DCU Fresh Air, or More of the Same?

James Gunn’s DC Studios reset “Superman” is flying toward a potential $150 million weekend debut at the box office, with $22 million already in the bank from Thursday previews. But now that we’ve finally seen it, IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio are here to debate the movie, which swaps Henry Cavill for newcomer David Corenswet as the kryptonite-averse hero who also goes by Clark Kent. (Read David Ehrlich’s IndieWire review here.)

Anne was in New York this week to join Ryan in-studio at the IndieWire offices to discuss the movie and more, Ryan having just seen it at the Regal Times Square during the first afternoon 2 p.m. public screening. While Anne enjoyed the screwball-romantic chemistry between Corenswet and “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” breakout Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Ryan loathed the experience and found it to be another serving of superhero slop as depressing as any other (despite some winky, cheeky banter). Like other superhero tentpoles before it, Gunn’s new “Superman” descends into a 45-minute maelstrom of CGI nonsense, yet another good-vs.-evil battle that crosses times and dimensions and may be easy to follow (at least compared to other Marvel or DC final battles) but is ultimately hard to care about or invest in.

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Corenswet is plenty handsome and charming as the character originated on the big screen by Christopher Reeve and created in the comics by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. But the fact is no Superman movie has been as good as Richard Donner’s 1978 take, which Anne and Ryan can both agree on. (Same goes for another summer tentpole, “Jurassic World Rebirth,” another franchise wherein the first movie was the only true great one.) This “Superman” movie’s message of good prevailing over evil grew tiresome for Ryan, but then again, what possible psychological nuance were we expecting from a fun-in-the-sun summer blockbuster? He felt exhausted and defeated, whereas Anne found things to like about what’s going to be one of the season’s biggest films, the casting especially.

Later in the episode, and since we took a break for Fourth of July, we finally parse the New York Times’ list of the 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century, crowned by Bong Joon Ho’s historic Best Picture winner “Parasite” at #1. We factor in some recency bias for that choice — though we aren’t denying it’s a fantastic film — as well as its timely take on class disparity that is strongly resonating in America today. (The Times’ list of 500 participants included no film critics.) We offer up our own favorites, which veer wildly, though we both agree “No Country for Old Men” (#6 on the Times’ list) is a lock for any best-of-century Top 10. (Also check out IndieWire’s best films of the 2020s, which published earlier in June.)

Elsewhere, we take a look at new TV series including “Dept. Q,” a British crime thriller on Netflix from Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani that Anne loves. Ryan, however, raves about “Girls” creator Lena Dunham’s return to TV with “Too Much,” starring Megan Stalter as a Dunham-adjacent who moves to London and falls in with a quote-unquote bad boy (Will Sharpe) after a bad breakup. It’s as much a send-up of millennial culture as it is a tribute to the great British romantic comedies of the ’90s and aughts, like “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

Listen to the episode below.

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