Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Nolan’s films took what was then a unique approach to superhero stories and asked: What if a costumed crime fighter like Batman existed in the real world? Nolan’s concept worked — and worked so well that it heavily influenced seemingly every superhero movie that came in its wake.
And hey, there’s nothing wrong with dark and gritty stuff. I like dark and gritty stuff! I was a big fan of Matt Reeves’ recent thriller-influenced “The Batman” reboot. But sometimes, whenever I’m watching a modern comic book movie that takes itself too seriously I start to get a little antsy. “Would it kill them to lighten up a little?” is the prevailing thought. “Lighten up” is exactly what Gunn is doing with his “Superman,” a movie that adopts a wonderfully absurd comic book logic where seemingly everything and anything is possible, reality be damned.
The Nolan Batman movies went to great pains to over-explain seemingly every element of Batman’s lore and ground it in a sense of realism. Gunn’s “Superman,” in sharp contrast, realizes that since we’re dealing with a world full of superpowered beings donning capes, the sky’s the limit. Absolutely nothing that happens in this movie would likely happen in the real world — and I am 100% on board with that, because the movie sells it. At one point, some bad guys unleash a cute, tiny monster that suddenly grows into a kaiju-sized threat. There’s no explanation for how this happens, and I didn’t need one. I was happy enough to watch Superman fight a big monster.
