Superman (Part II, ft. James Gunn)

23:30Chris Hewitt:Have you gone sideways? Have you gone backwards? What have you done? A lot of the things that I didn't like or find exasperating about it and slightly exasperating. I wasn't angry at any point during it. I have sort of faded away in my memory and the stuff that it does right has really solidified. And I have also probably been softened down by the fact that the people I love have loved it and the fact that the press trip, press rounds have been so freaking charming by all the cast. They've been absolutely delightful. So yeah, I've just been liking it. Benjamin? I have not seen it again. I'm desperate to see it again.

24:08I have been like replaying bits of this film in my head. Or more accurately, like there's clips all over Twitter, which is a bad thing overall. Don't film cinema screens, people. And yet at the same time, I have quite enjoyed re-watching little tiny, tiny snippets.

24:23Chris Hewitt:What's your favorite thing you've enjoyed re-watching? What scene? What works for you? Somebody put up basically the title card moment. Superman flying into the title card, which I loved, like watching it in the cinema. I, you know, people have talked about, I don't think we've necessarily talked about the way this film looks. And it's been quite divisive and quite controversial, but I really, really like how it looks. And like Helen, I not only have really enjoyed the film myself, but I've also enjoyed seeing other people enjoy this film. And it feels very much in tune with what the film is doing.

25:02You know, all the themes of hope and color and choosing to see the good and be the good. Seeing people kind of embrace that and just seeing people enjoy a fucking movie could do with a bit more of that all the time. And so it's been really nice to see that be the overwhelming reception, I would say.

25:22Chris Hewitt:I saw it last night for the fourth time. So the first two times I saw it with a bunch of film critics. hardened, jaded, cynical hacks sitting there going, all right then, was this nonsense. Didn't they already make a Superman in 1978? Wasn't that enough? Wasn't that enough for you? And then the third time I saw it was filled with people who reacted to Superman the way I reacted to Kevin Feige crapping in a bucket, which is just like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. There are lots of Kermits there. I was going to say that was a bit Kermit. I love this movie. Genuinely better than the actual person who's doing Kermit's voice right now, but where can you do?

26:06Chris Hewitt:And I saw it last night with a proper crowd because I wanted to see what it felt like, but it wasn't. Sadly, it was a sparse crowd. But my wife loved it. My wife, Paula, loved it. And she particularly flipped for crypto. I told her nothing about the movie going into it. She knew there was a Superman in it. That was pretty much it. But she absolutely flipped for it. What did you think, Amon? Have you seen it since? And has your opinion changed? I have not seen it since. But my opinion has slightly changed. It's a deeper, more interesting, thematic film than I initially gave it credit for, I think.

26:43I'm starting to dive into some of those elements today. No. Okay, fine.

26:49Chris Hewitt:It's going to be Dallas old jokes and knob gags. It's a spoiler shallow dive. We're skirting across the surface. We skim briskly across the lake. of this movie. All right, we will. We'll get into some of that stuff in due course. I've written down some of the stuff we didn't talk about. Cool. And some of the stuff that I'd like to talk about. I'm really glad, Ben, you brought up visuals because one of the things that's become apparent to me with this movie is that James Gunn, I think, who's once again in tandem, we always mention the composer, we very rarely mention the cinematographer. Once again, he's in tandem with Henry, I'm going to say Braham, but it might be Braham.

27:27Chris Hewitt:So apologies, I've actually never heard his name, say it out loud, so I don't know. He's a British cinematographer. They've basically done their last four movies together, Guardians 2 and 3 and The Suicide Squad and this. And it feels to me like James Gunn, who kind of does have a bit of a signature visual style, he's made, I think, a conscious effort to change that visual style for Superman. And I guess we can go on there from naturally to the iconography of the movie. Because we touched upon it a little bit in the last one you know the christ-like imagery of brian singer with the superman returns and and certainly you know sac snyder you can diss those movies batman v superman and man of steel and god knows we have on this podcast but you know quite often the iconography of superman was really good in those films were you impressed with the iconography of superman in this movie So first of all, I think the reason for the kind of more medium shots and two shots and so on in this film is the speed of the dialogue.

28:29I think he was going for that, his Girl Friday kind of... His Supergirl Friday. Sure, if you wish. I do wish. Kind of chat and quick fire dialogue. And you can't cut back and forth between two people in scenes like that. You have to have the camera on both of them. So I think that explains a lot of the Lois and Clark scenes, a lot of the stuff in the Daily Planet, which is at least a two-shot, if not more, people sitting around. I love as well the sort of the deco environment of the planet. I thought that was really cool. And actually, weirdly, the most similar thing in this entire thing to the Bryan Singer Superman Returns.

29:04But in terms of the iconography, I didn't feel it lacked for it. I didn't think it was pausing to admire how pretty it was. Like, I'll be honest, the Zack Snyder films sometimes do. I thought the... That's fair. I thought that some of the Christ-like imagery there wasn't subtext, it was text. I mean, it was so over the top. Whereas I thought this time you got some really lovely images, but not played to quite the same degree. And also it beats Superman up a lot more than either of those. He's not pristine and sort of floating above the fray like he is in a lot of those other movies. He is down and dirty and fighting for his life or more usually other people's lives.

29:44And I kind of appreciated that. I thought that the design of it was extremely comic book-y, open brackets, complementary, close brackets. And I think that was what he was focused on. It wasn't giving you those, you know, double-page images or those cover images. It was just getting that comic book-y flavor into the whole of it and, like, infusing it into every single scene. But having said that, you know, I thought it was there when it needed to be. Yeah, kind of Saturday morning cartoon energy to it a little bit. Sometimes, yeah. Especially in the final act. Yeah. when you said iconography the first thing that came to my mind is I guess the start of the final act where Metropolis is going to hell and the building is falling on and he saves her that's the shot I'm thinking of too yeah and that's like and coming up out of the dust yeah and the score is doing its thing like it felt like it earned that moment it's not just there for the sake of it

30:35Chris Hewitt:it feels like he's deliberately pulling back from and listen it wasn't just Singer it wasn't just Slider I mean Richard Donner's movies and Richard Lester's movies are filled with great Superman iconography. And yes, a lot of it's brought from the comic books, but whenever I think of Superman, I think of a lot of images from the Donner movie. I think of him running across the street and pulling open his shirt, reveal the S, and flying up the side of the Daily Planet to save Lois. Moments like that, standing on the ice for the first time when we kind of see Reeve for the first time flying away from...

31:12Chris Hewitt:after Jeff East disappears after Teenage Superman Clark disappears and is replaced all of those things are running through my head and it felt to me precisely it felt to me a little bit like there was almost a demonstrable effort to not do that with this movie this one doesn't want you to worship Superman it just wants you to kind of embrace him it's the most human Superman that we've gotten yeah I think it's a mix of everything because I do think like Amon said James Gunn is very conscious of wanting to give you those moments of like we're just going to put the superman s like full frame in your face he's very conscious of wanting to get across that image of superman doing good i think you know we're talking about iconic shots um him shielding the little girl during the kaiju fight again is a very like superman is your protector he will the one who he's the one who will rush in and be your human shield and he will go out of his way to help people.

32:11He builds all those images in. But as we were saying as well, both in the dialogue scenes and in sequences, like when he's flying into the title card, it feels like a lot of... He actually flew into a title card.

32:27Chris Hewitt:Boof! He'd crash right through it. Who put that title card there? Those moments, though, I think of kineticism when I think of James Gunn's work, especially because he often works with ensembles, and so I do think his camera is often moving and flowing between groups of people, and absolutely in his action, he is swinging the camera around, he is happy to move it in and around where the action is going. Those flying sequences where the camera is right up with him, that to me was absolutely supposed to be like here's what it would feel like to be superman flying like the glee the excitement on his face as he's zooming through the air and you feel the exhilaration of that it's the equivalent of watching tom cruise fly a jet in top gun maverick it's like this is what it would feel like to be in this moment right now and i'm going to put you right there with him and it all adds into what i brought up in the last spoiler special for this of as we said bring presenting superman as just a guy.

33:32A super guy, but just a guy.

33:35Chris Hewitt:And so I think James Gunn's filmmaking and the iconography is both giving you those like hero shots, but also all within the context of at the same time he is just a guy. Which I guess ties into the fact that there is action, and we'll talk about the action in a second. Great big action sequences featuring Superman. But there's a huge portion of this movie where he isn't supermanning. Really from the moment the kaiju fight, and then he finds out, he has the confrontation with Lex in Lex's lair, Luthorcore lair. Office. And then... And it's an office. Sorry, sorry. How many offices have a pod that can break out of them as a spaceship?

34:21No, no, but his office space where Superman breaks in.

34:24Chris Hewitt:Oh, okay. That's an office. In fairness, Lex would not call it a... Well, I think he would call it a lair. Lex knows what he is, right? He's very self-aware. I don't think he does. Do you not think so? No, none of the tech oligarchs in our world know. I think Lex is exactly one of them. Do you not think he's got a smidgen more self-awareness? He knows he's jealous of Superman. He knows that envy thing exists. But he's also convinced himself that Superman is a threat. Yes. In the same way that Batman did in Batman v Superman. and I think therefore he justifies his behavior in that respect what's that line Batman has about maths don't even get me started I'm still furious why did you say that subject let's not do that maths my mother was also named maths

35:17Chris Hewitt:I like that line Lex has towards the end I'm jumping ahead now I want to get back to it in a second he has about he says every time my name is said the same sentence as twits like Galileo and Einstein, it just gives me the burn, essentially. I'm paraphrasing the second half of that sentence. Anyway, okay. Yeah, but that's the way that some of the oligarchs think about themselves right now. Precisely. They don't see it as being evil. They see it as they're just entitled to more because they're so clever. Yeah. Fucking idiots. He's the worst, isn't he, Lex Luthor? Absolutely the worst. Yeah, absolute worst.

35:51Chris Hewitt:Not my favorite person. No, that is true. but there's a big period of this movie where Superman isn't really doing Superman things from that moment onwards from the kaiju fight and then he doesn't really Superman again until that moment in Metropolis so he's recuperating or he's either being tortured by kryptonite in the pocket dimension the pocket dimension the pocket dimension and he's basically having a very very bad time of it but when he does get out eventually in the third act in Metropolis what did you guys make of the action sequences in this film. We talked last time, there is an argument being made that the best action sequence in the movie is the Mr.

36:29Chris Hewitt:Terrific sequence where he and Lois go and infiltrate the place where they have the pocket dimension. But what did you make of all the Superman action sequences? So the extended fight with Ultraman and with the engineer and the nanobytes and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Mixed bag. I liked a lot of it. Yeah. I think all the Superman versus Ultraman stuff, especially once it's revealed that he's a clone and Lex is doing 1A, 1A, 1A, etc., is really, really cool. I liked the moment where Superman just deals with the raptors in approximately 27 seconds, or maybe even sooner than that, with the heat vision and stuff like that, when the score is doing its thing.

37:12That was great. Did that not trigger your Superman kill code type thing? They're showing to be alive. Your moral code? It doesn't kill them. They're showing to be alive. Yeah, he doesn't kill them. I was believing I was paying attention.

37:26Chris Hewitt:Yes, I'm sure every single one of them is still alive after they fell from a great height, having been heat-fished. They're all armored. They're disabled, but they are still very much alive. It's okay, metamorpho kills a whole bunch of them, so it's totally fine. I got my jollies. The only bit of it that didn't really work for me was... I liked the idea of trying to disable Superman and through nanotech and through the nanites, it just wasn't very clear what he was trying to do in flying up and then flying down. They tried to explain it, but it wasn't very clear to me exactly what was going on with the plan there.

38:11Chris Hewitt:So he's basically just flying high up enough then trying to get his velocity to a point where it disables her. and then if she's unconscious, the nanites are deactivated, essentially. Yeah, well, because they're under her control. Yeah, so she's, yeah, I think that's a... But there's no way to explain it because who's he going to stop and talk to? Like, I'm sure he's doing... I'm sure he's doing... They tried to explain it through Lex and the engineer. But yeah, it was my least favorite beat of that fight. But everything in the stadium, I think, is really cool. Camera is going crazy in terms of following Superman and following Ultraman as they're doing these ridiculous moves and hitting each other with all manner of things.

38:58I think all of that was very cool. And again, has that Saturday morning cartoon energy to it, which I enjoy.

39:04Chris Hewitt:Okay, so the problem that confronts any filmmaker making a Superman movie is how do you make it a level playing field? How do you bring Superman down to the point where he can be beaten. And in this movie, I think that James Gunn does a very effective job of presenting him with two antagonists who give him a run for his money. One is the engineer, of course. She's very, very effective with her nanites. Yes, I'm not entirely clear of her backstory in terms of why she has such a grudge against Superman, but it was a key needed to know. They can't explain it away with a line in the fortress, right?

39:41They have a line, but it doesn't really explain.

39:43Chris Hewitt:She just says what she's done. She doesn't say why she does. She says, I've sacrificed my humanity to destroy it, essentially. But why? Who knows? Anywho, she's effective. But Ultraman is the one that ultimately has the fight with Superman. What did you guys make of that choice? I really liked the Ultraman reveal. And if you'd have told me in advance, the Superman movie is going to end with him basically fighting an evil clone of Superman, I would have rolled my eyes so hard. I'd have been like ugh this again right and yet who is who is made from a single strand of hair if I remember rightly as well that's what Lex says fused with frog DNA which means he can also spontaneously replicate what?

40:32it was a Jurassic Park it was a Jurassic Park oh I thought I was like really? it's meant to spontaneously change sex change sex not replicate

40:40Chris Hewitt:stupid aside aside but this is basically a remake of Superman for the quest for a piece. Ultraman is Nuclear Man in this scenario. Played, of course, by Mark Pillow. Sure. That's the name of the actor who plays Nuclear Man in that movie. Hence the joke, I dreamt last night I was eating a giant Nuclear Man when I woke up my Mark Pillow was gone. Anyway, yeah. I don't know where the tangent ends and begins. Ultraman thought it could have been shit actually really liked it and especially liked it as an avatar effectively of okay if lex has all the brains but none of the brawn he has constructed the brawn and shown if i had the might of superman with all my tactical decisions and all of my knowledge of how to fight i could kick superman's ass and and and to prove that to play that out i thought was really effective and then also to have Superman basically have to fight a dark version of himself in the context of the revealed message from Jor-El of like you were sort of sent here to kind of conquer Earth basically and have to then confront an evil version of himself that is maybe an analog of who he could have become.

42:02Chris Hewitt:A man-made version of himself. So Lex in theory could do exactly what he fears Superman could do. which is dominate the planet, with Ultraman, who has largely the same powers and skill set. Yeah. It really works. Yeah, the irony being that the only one trying to conquer the planet is Lex, the only one who's trying to conquer anywhere. Precisely. And the... I go back and forth between calling him Super Bucky and the Winter Superman, but he has no independent personality, I guess. He is just the instrument of Lex's will. Having said that, he does a facial expression, so there he does there was a spark that there might have been something there I wonder how much agency he has right because there's there's a couple of little comedic beats with him there's the one where Lex is delivering his Planet Watch lecture to General Flagg and the other the other senators and he goes lights and Ultraman turns on the lights and then there's the other bit obviously where it's Ultraman he hears Eve talking to Jimmy and so he but then he goes and tells Lex.

43:10Chris Hewitt:Now I'm wondering, is that just he does everything that Lex tells him to do? He hears that in the context of I must protect Lex or is he acting independently at that moment? And he hears Eve and he goes, well, this isn't good. I'm going to go get the boss. I don't think he's very independent at all because apart from anything else, he probably couldn't react quick enough to the instructions he's given if he was independent. It has to be almost hardwired into him. Precisely. So does this raise a moral question? Men's Raya. I was wanting to call him. Well, it's not just that. It's not just that.

43:41Chris Hewitt:But what happens to him at the end of the film? There is, yeah. What's the difference between the kaiju that Superman wants to save and bring to Intergalactic Zoo and study it, and that is dispatched summarily by Mr. Terrific, and Ultraman, who gets effectively, you know, it's a little bit like Sod and the gang at the end of Superman 2. we don't see a corpse, but he's dead, right? So he gets hit by a bus and gets sucked into a black hole. He ain't coming back anytime soon. Morally, is Superman killing him or is he just not saving him? I think there's a, yeah, it's not perfect Superman-ing at that point.

44:24Chris Hewitt:And if he doesn't have great mental capacity, what does that say? I think he doesn't have a, it's not that he doesn't have a mental capacity in terms of he has a mental illness or a learning difficulty or anything like that. He is not a full person, I think, is the implication of this film. He is not a fully independent being. He is a puppet, almost. A meat puppet? Anyway. But he... I also think, I mean, the thing about these movies is going through a quote-unquote black hole, don't get me started on the physics, because I'm not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure that's bollocks, is just a way to live to fight another day in these stories.

45:06That's not the same as necessarily death. So we don't have to worry about that. It was the best bad option, and there were only bad options available in terms of how he ended that fight. I mean, he could have just broken his neck. That would have been completely uncontroversial. And we would not have broken the internet for 10 years. No, but it didn't break the internet last time. It should have. Broke me. It did, didn't it? It felt that that was one of many things. It felt that there was a lot of people sticking out for that decision last time. I did. I was like, he's still learning. I heard that a lot, that nonsense.

45:39But yeah, it felt like that was the best bad option in terms of how to be in this fight. So, and yeah, who knows? It might pop up again. I was going to say, in a world, as much as Chris is saying, like, ah, you know, he's gone never to be seen again. This is a James Gunn movie. and if he decides to make a sequel, if there's one thing a James Gunn movie is going to do, is going to find an outsider who shouldn't exist and give them some kind of redemption arc and prove that it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, there can be hope for you and you can choose to fight the good fight. He didn't choose to exist.

46:16To be created in a lab. He didn't ask for any of this. I got kind of a chill vibe from the guy when he wasn't being puppeteered by Alex. I thought you were going to say the worst thing about him morally is that he's a grass. There he is, yeah. Hey, snitches get stitches. Snitches get thrown into black holes.

46:34Chris Hewitt:Super snitches get super stitches, am I right? Ouch. Yeah, damn straight. Well, we've made it clear that we don't have any prisons in this world that can hold a Superman. That is true. There is no kryptonite on the planet. Would he be? I guess he would be, right? Vulnerable to it? Kryptonite? Presumably, yeah. He's a genetic match for Superman. Yeah, absolutely. So no prison can hold me, ergo. You have to be pulled into a black hole. Let me ask you something. No. Okay, that's it for our second Superman spoiler special. Damn it. That was quick. It's like, can shows end this early? Was this our get out of jail free card all this time?

47:16Chris Hewitt:We didn't have to keep talking for hours. This is amazing. do you think someone suggests someone I saw the movie with suggested this to me that Ultraman deliberately resembles Henry Cavill no I don't think that's true and I don't think I think that would be unkind of James Gunn and I think from everything he's said about Henry Cavill he has a lot of respect for him a lot of time for him he said it was awful to have to say that he wouldn't be his Superman after they made that premature announcement that he would He's very friendly with Zack Snyder as well. Yeah, I don't see him poking fun or being that disrespectful.

47:56I think that's not the case. I also thought he looked more like Bucky. I'm not even kidding about that. With the hair and everything, I thought that was almost a deliberate nod. I think that's a valid reading for audiences to bring to it, but I don't think there was any intention from James Gunn there. Because I think it's interesting, you know, the layers that come with time and context of these things that you could argue that this Superman film in general is just playing things very opposite to how Zack Snyder presented things. Very much so. But I don't think that's anything in universe or from James Gunn's intention.

48:32But it is interesting to have a villainous element of this film be there is an evil dark Superman, and that is something that has very much been explored on the screen explicitly in the Justice League films both versions you get an evil Superman back from the dead and fantastic cartoons as well there's a really great evil Superman thing in Justice League Unlimited my money still the best superhero animation show of all time I mean the problem with all of these is the problem you always have with Superman and indeed many other DC heroes with the exception of Batman is they are overpowered they are gods They are gods.

49:14They are literal gods. And it is extremely difficult to give them something that actually tests their abilities. And they are, you know, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel Comics in general have a head start in that respect because they're all fuck-ups. DC, for the most part, are not fucked up in the same way. And they are not limited in the same ways. And it makes it extremely difficult to really challenge them. And we've seen this in almost every Superman incarnation that didn't involve Zod. it has been a struggle to actually challenge him. You have had to break the laws of physics at the end of the Donner movie to find something that gives him pause.

49:50It is the whole turning back time.

49:53Chris Hewitt:Yeah, because he's not actually challenged at all. Apart from Lex Luthor trying to kill him with kryptonite in the Donner one, there is no Superman adversary. There's no equivalent of Superman. So the big challenge for him, the big obstacle for him at the end of that movie is death. Yeah, and time itself. He overcomes it in the most hand-wavy way ever. And then obviously Superman 2, we have Sauron, Ursa, and Nod. You have other Kryptonians, okay, and if they were evil, then that would be a problem. Superman 3, he turns evil, and then has the great fight with himself in the car park, which makes no fucking sense.

50:32Chris Hewitt:Not car park, but the used car lot, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever, but it's still very, very cool. Yeah, junkyard, that's much better. that's the word I was actually looking for and in Superman 4 of course they clone him from a strand of his hair and the greatest of all Superman villains is born Nuclear Man and then of course we have we have God even in the Singer movie there's nothing there's nothing there's no adversary lifting heavy things yes increasingly heavier things and then Man of Steel we bring Zod back because that worked before and then we snap his neck like a fucking twig Batman v Superman we try to make Batman into a threat don't even start with me we don't have time I was just going to say that movie also has Doomsday Superman and Lois also has just done Doomsday quite well I think and that has historically been the biggest physical challenge for Superman Superman and Lois has just done Avengers Doomsday wow this is amazing alright very very quickly because I want to talk about other stuff in terms of adversaries where would this go who do you want to see Superman facing off against next Lex is in Belle Reve.

51:43Chris Hewitt:I wouldn't mind if they didn't do Lex again immediately. If he didn't escape from prison. And I also don't really want Superman to team up with him to take down a bigger bad. That is a very tired thing to do in film two of a franchise. Oh, no. No, thank you. I'd say two options. Parasite, who's always been an interesting physical challenge because if he gets his hands on you, he can drain you of your power. And that would be very interesting. But I think a clear one, and I'm surprised that no big live-action movie has encountered this yet because he is one of the biggest Superman villains there is.

52:23Brainiac. I was thinking Brainiac. Especially given sort of how he has in the past been connected to Krypton. And now, given that we have this message from Joy on the Lara, there's a lot of interesting stuff they could mine there. and Brainiac, again, in previous incarnations, he's had a lot of knowledge about Krypton that would be very tempting for Clark, who has no memory of his home world, to find out more. So yeah, I would say Brainiac, who I've heard was in the running to be a villain in this film before Jen's going to decide to go in another direction. But yeah, that would be where I would go.

53:04Chris Hewitt:Yeah, I think Brainiac's come close on a couple of occasions to being deployed somewhere. but just never made it. Yeah. We talked about the Jor-El and Lara revelation last time. But yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? In terms of this being an immigrant story and a story about immigration. I don't know whether the shitstorm of dickheadery had kicked off, you know, with people decrying this movie as utter woke nonsense. I think it had begun, actually. when we talked about it before. When we recorded last time? It started before the movie even came out. Yeah. They were astonished to find out that Superman cared about the little people.

53:46Yeah. Yes. Which is fundamentally Superman.

53:48Chris Hewitt:There's a moment in this. Which is fundamental. In the argument with Lois, interview turns into an argument that the most stressed he gets is he goes, people were going to die. And that is absolutely Superman. That's the thing he cares about most. Correct. It's like that moment in Superman 2. How do Saud and Ursa Anon get the better of him in that fight at Metropolis? They realize his vulnerability is he cares for people. Christopher Reeve shouting, the people! Same with Lex in the very first Superman movie. He launches two different nuclear warheads heading in two different directions and the challenge is that he can't stop them both.

54:25That's the idea. He doesn't even know, I think, that Lois is personally implicated and that Superman is personally tied to someone who's threatened.

54:34Chris Hewitt:No, he doesn't, which is bad screenwriting. Or good screenwriting. Maybe it's good. I don't know. Because not everything needs that. But I think that the, yeah, it is the core of his character is that he is here to save people and he doesn't care who you are. He is going to try to save you. He does not care about your color or your creed or the amount of money in your wallet. He's going to try and save you. So he is a walking rebuke to, you know, I'll be honest, a lot of right-wing, especially, not only, people in the world right now who are arguing that some people matter more than others. And it is, he is a rebuke to them because he is a force for good.

55:11And, you know, many of them are not. I'm just saying. So I think that they are correct to actually see the subtext in this story and, let's be honest, the text in this story as well as a threat to them because it is a threat to them. It is a rebuke because they are wrong. They are fundamentally wrong and Superman is right. Speaking of subtext and textual, Putting a final point on that, what Lex is doing with this pocket universe and detaining people, that's essentially, that was very ice-coded to me. Yes, very much so. Oh, very much so. But it didn't even have to be ice-coded. It was already happening.

55:49It's been happening since Extraordinary Renditions started. It's a problem of, if Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way, it's the American way as was conceived of.

56:00Chris Hewitt:Which have changed recently, right? They have, yeah. Because, you know, so has the world. And I think that it was the American way that existed maybe post-World War II in particular. I know he was created before that, but we're talking specifically the post-World War II consensus that America fought for the right things. Because in World War II, they did. And I think what we are seeing is that they do not always fight for the right things. And no country does. Our country is absolutely implicated in this shit. but I think that going back a number of years going back a number of years and I think what's interesting about the the coding and the use of the depiction of power in this film is that Superman does not care about politics he does not care who is in power he only cares about the people who are suffering as a result and to be honest I mean you can criticize Superman from a left wing point of view like an enormous amount he does not use his powers on a macro level to affect change in the world, generally speaking in the comics or here in the movie.

57:05He does not depose dictators. Hot Girl does. He doesn't.

57:10Chris Hewitt:Yes. He just tries to stop them actively starting wars. That is the line in the sand, literally in this case, that he has drawn. He does not seek to set about creating systematic change that we know of or, you know, reforming the US healthcare system that we know of or any of this kind of stuff that would save lies. All he does is he sets a line of, I will step in if people are dying. That's what I'm going to do. That's my line. And I think that, you know, one can criticize him for not doing enough, quite frankly. If you look at a comic book like Rising Stars, that has activist superheroes trying to solve the world's problems at one point.

57:45That's a really interesting contrast. This one doesn't do that, but he still has a line in the sand and it's still too far for these right-wing fucks who are complaining about him. I think it's really interesting to see the reaction to the Baravia Johanpour stuff because I think for me this film skirts closer to really having a stance on current world events than a lot of other films do absolutely has to place it in some kind of fictional context yes Superman is a piece of entertainment but to me even our biggest blockbuster-iest entertainment is saying something about the world and I want my art that says something about the world to actually say something about the world and I think this film does yeah this is what I meant when I said at the top that this is a more interesting thematic film than I initially gave it credit for regarding the hawk girl of it all and how that fits and I think as we said before the conversation that Clark and Lois have in the apartment in the interview there's so many intriguing questions that Lois brings up to Clark and he gets very defensive and it's a great scene I wish that the answers we got were as nuanced as the questions are because I feel the answers we get are just very simplistic and I don't know going forward from this film how things are now going to work in this world is it okay now for superheroes to interject themselves in world wars in this world going forward is it okay for a person like Superman to take a dictator and, you know, threaten him with, you know, it's made, it's spoken of in a jokey manner in terms of the cactus that he sort of uses, but he's still, you know, we don't really get a follow-up on that, which is why the Hawkgirl thing, I like that she's edgy, I like that she's different from Superman, but in a film in which saving lives has rendered such a priority in a really good way to have her do that and then for there to be no follow-up from what she's done for the rest of the film that did not stick well with me.

1:00:14The interesting thing about her is she's corporate sponsored and I think that would be the interesting fallout from the Justice Gang getting involved in that war. Superman is a much more interesting

1:00:24Chris Hewitt:Yeah, Maxwell Lord, I'm guessing, has not sanctioned that incursion into No, no, I guess it's not. But also, if he had, that would be worse. This is like, I would have loved like a three, four minute epilogue on just the fallout of everything that happened in the film. I think that would have tied up a lot of loose ends for me. The thing is, I think you kind of need them to do Captain America, I'll be honest, at the end of Civil War and say basically, fuck you, I'm going to decide for myself and you can tell me off if you don't like it. I don't think there's any other effective solution and I think it's you know because Superman can do whatever the fuck he wants nobody can stop him right in this world at the end of the film that we're left with get the fuck out of here Jesus Christ a guy with a fucking boomerang is going to take him down not a boomerang he's not Australian Captain Boomerang did this?

1:01:21Chris Hewitt:now you're talking there is no kryptonite on this world Batman has contingency plans for his contingency plans. He doesn't have any kryptonite, and he doesn't have any way to take down Wonder Woman either, so he doesn't have contingency plans for everybody. Anyway, my point is... I mean... Canonically, he doesn't. I'll send you the comic book, that's fine. He doesn't. There's a comic book that... We're about to have our own civil war in the podcast. Sit down. We've had this before, but every single scenario that has Batman taking down Superman, it's narrative thumb on the scales. Like, in reality, with the powers as described, it doesn't work.

1:01:58Superman would punch his head off. Yeah. The only thing it really relies on is Superman being Superman and essentially agreeing to hand himself over.

1:02:06Chris Hewitt:Brightburn would kick his ass. But I think that Superman can do whatever he likes. So he has his own self-imposed set of rules to keep himself in line. That is the power of the character. That has always been the power of the character. and the whole situation with these two countries is just an example of that. He will step in to save lives and that is the only thing he will do. He will not intervene in anything else. That is the line that he has drawn in the sand. Is that right? Possibly not. A lot of left-wing people would say so. Is that right? Possibly not. A lot of right-wing people would say so.

1:02:41But on average, that's the best he can do and I think that's what we're left with at the end of this film. And while I would personally love to watch the film where the UN debates all of this, I don't think we're going to get that because it's been 20 years now of big budget superhero movies and TV and we still haven't had the debate about the legal use of their powers and quite frankly, I feel the lack. I mean, I think the important thing that you said there is that Hawke Girl is not independent. She is corporately, that whole justice gang is run and owned by Maxwell Lord and I imagine there's more stuff around that from this film that was cut because you know the fact that those three heroes who are a prominent part of the film are part of a corporate entity who you know seem to have an agreement of like if a big imp appears in the sky we'll sort that shit out but we'll also you know just get involved in stuff that needs sorting and as a corporate entity they don't really have that oversight.

1:03:44Yeah what is their

1:03:46Chris Hewitt:how much leeway do they have? I mean, I guess that's a question that you could raise about lots of corporations who work as businesses, but they're also in conjunction with the government, and it's a bit of a grey area of how much they are business-owned or how much they are a governmental agency. I think we're going to get more of that in Peacemaker Season 2. I was going to say, yeah. Because the Peacemaker Season 2 teaser effectively shows Peacemaker having an interview with Maxwell Lord and Hawkgirl is there and Guy Gardner is there and I think Peacemaker fucks up his interview basically to be in the Justice King.

1:04:29But it would not surprise me if one of the things that got cut from this film was a bit more context of like, ah, and then these three are owned by Maxwell Lord who's played by Sean Gunn, and that is the Pedro Pascal character from Wonder Woman 1984 it's a good text but it could be better and he was right it's only gotten better since for him I'm going to say it good movie

1:04:53Chris Hewitt:there we go drinking game he said I had Wonder Woman hair when I interviewed him for that movie great movie Pedro how did you survive that he knows how to turn it on it's like the time making work never mind steady now the time making work complimented my shoes. I immediately burned them. I feel like, yeah, I feel like I won that one. I think you did. Anyway, what were you talking about? Peacemaker, yes. I agree. Because I think the whole Rick Flagg Sr. thing with Frank Grillo, that's clearly a thread that is being set up in this movie in terms of oversight of superheroes. And now he's going to get involved in that.

1:05:34And just to say, the Frank Grillo of it all playing Rick Flagg Sr., he is a major character in Creature Commandos, technically the first DC Studios project. It did not have a UK home until about a week ago. Really? It is now all on Sky slash now. I am five episodes into Creature Commandos and having a very nice time. I have finished it. It is a good time.

1:05:58Chris Hewitt:I did not know it was available in this country. So there you go. It provided a valuable service. I've got a few issues with it, but overall it's a good show. I saw someone complaining that Rick Flagg in the show has got gray hair and Frank Grillo in the film does not have grey hair and they were like, what? Oh, for goodness sake. I think we can get around it. There was another role that meant he couldn't dye his hair. I mean, that's nonsense. I mean, they have makeup departments on films like this. I'm still hung up on, he's still supposed to be Joel Kinnaman's dad. Yeah. I mean, he's older than he looks.

1:06:29Frank Grillo's in his 60s. Yeah. If you're complaining about how Frank Grillo looks, you're doing it.

1:06:35Chris Hewitt:No one's complaining about how he's got Wonder Woman hair. He does. and Mickey Rourke's shoes. It's tremendous. All right. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about, not a lot of time in which to talk about it. I was taken by the thread that runs through the movie where Superman effectively gets canceled. So after the message from his parents, the true message from his parents comes to light, the speed at which it all happens, the speed at which the public immediately turn on Superman could feel a little far-fetched until you realize or remember as I did last night that James Gunn went through much the same thing.

1:07:13Chris Hewitt:He went through that trial by social media. He went through a cancellation. He went through a cancellation that cost him his job and for a while looked like it was going to cost him his career. So he knows of which he speaks. I think it's fair to say when it comes to that. He was probably not being targeted by huge scores of trained monkey bots who were writing things like James Gunn shit. Hashtag, sorry, James Gunn shit. But still, I think the comparison is there. I don't think it's any coincidence that, in particular, every film, every project he has made since all of that went down has been about, like, can this seemingly monstrous person or peoples be redeemed?

1:07:58Like, Suicide Squad, Guardians 3, getting really into the rocket of it all, of, like, I am this wretched creature, but maybe I can find the goodness through my found family and through the people who support me and maybe I can become a better person over time. I think that is, you know, it's always been a bit of a preoccupation of his works, but very much post-Guardians 2. It's a huge thing. Even Creature Commandos, which he wrote all of, is like a misfit group of monsters trying to work together. It's effectively another suicide squad. and yeah can these monsters find redemption by doing the right thing and yeah the way that he found that

1:08:41Chris Hewitt:in a Superman film as well I think is really interesting what about Brightburn in that respect oh Brightburn I need to revisit Brightburn I haven't seen it since it came out but now in the context of James Gunn actually having made a Superman film I think that's a fascinating thing it's going to be yeah it's going to be a great double bill he also was a super man before he made Superman. Indeed, he was, yeah. But I do think there is something, it's really interesting how he has reacted quite positively to that whole experience that he hasn't, you know, in the way that some people who've been cancelled have doubled down and tripled down on becoming worse people and he has absolutely gone in the other direction.

1:09:22I mean, first of all, it was such a long time in his past when the thing was even discovered in the first place. Basically, he made some jokes in poor taste that were taken seriously by people who were acting in bad faith. And he instantly apologized. We felt at the time that it was a bit much for Disney to effectively fire him as a result. And they eventually came around to that way of thinking and rehired him.

1:09:46Chris Hewitt:They did, but why did they come around to that way of thinking, though? Because people rallied around. And people who clearly love and value him and have worked closely with him and keep working closely with him, keep lining up to work with him again. he is somebody who is really beloved by his cast and crews so anyway I think his response has been a very remarkably healthy one and one that has not had the fallout that some people have obviously had and he is showing it in his stories that it has been about acceptance and it hasn't been these Romana Clay with people overcoming bad people who've unfairly misjudged them.

1:10:29You know, it hasn't been that simplistic sort of I'm right and you're all wrong, fuck you all. It's been about people trying to prove themselves to the masses. It's been about people trying to win people back over and do good things to show people that they were wrong, but not in a sort of, ha ha, I'll show you, you suck kind of a way. And I think that's a really interesting and a response that speaks really well of him.

1:10:52Chris Hewitt:I think also, Amon, it's maybe a parody of how quickly people are willing to turn and how quickly media, not just social media, but media are willing to turn on people and flip-flop back in the other direction. It's funny to me at the end of the movie whenever everything gets revealed about Lex and how Lex was secretly in cahoots with Baravia. There's like a British news anchor who for some reason at the end of that little montage of people who goes, well, of course, he is the hero that we all knew he was all along. And it's just like, come on, come on. Yeah, but the mob mentality swings both ways, and this film very clearly showcases that.

1:11:30So yeah, I thought that was really, really great, and I think that this film has come at the right time in James Gunn's career, not just because of the visual science abilities and everything that he went through with the firing and the rehiring and whatnot, but because he is going from someone or going from a group of characters with guardians and even with the suicide squad and henry ben you touched this already that were outcasts and were trying to do something good to redeem themselves to someone who is purely good and i felt that and the storytelling i felt it a bit in guardian or a lot really in guardians 3 with rocket story but to now have Superman follow that I think has come at the right time in his career and there's only a bit of that snarky tone from Guardians and his earlier films that I felt in this there's a couple of lines that Superman has that didn't really feel Superman coded it felt a bit more Star-Lord coded I would say there's a bit after the Ultraman fight where Mr.

1:12:34Terrific was like come on we've got stuff to do and Superman's like yeah I've been doing important stuff that didn't feel like a very Superman thing to say I felt like a very Star-Lord I thought that was kind of, because you've got, basically you have Mr. Terrific going, no, your important stuff is less important than my important stuff. And Superman rightly saying, okay, hang on, I'm not doing nothing here. Like I'm doing quite important stuff. It wasn't, it wasn't sarky. It was just like, come on, I can't be everywhere at once, dude. Like, give me a second here. And he does immediately go there.

1:13:02He lets someone else go. And Mr. Terrific writes on crypto. You know, even when an adorable small child is holding up specifically a Superman flag. Oh my God, that poor kid. I also think in terms of the just to get back to the media thing of turning on Superman and then turning back again a few people have said that the most unbelievable thing about this movie for those of us watching it in 2025 is that the media and the government and everyone would turn on a billionaire who is actively proven to have done bad things and sadly that is kind of true we are seeing quite a lot of forgiveness

1:13:37Chris Hewitt:the daily plan would be fake news within seconds right? That's the thing. So maybe we need to get rid of our own monkeys internet full of monkeys who you know have at that point been removed right from their jobs and presumably rehomed in a wonderful monkey sanctuary somewhere near Metropolis and they have been you know and so maybe their internet is now free of shit Unfortunately easier said than done I think that's part of this film as well though. We're talking about the real world parallels and to have a film that also says like hey if a rich person does all this bad stuff you guys should be mad about this look how mad all the people of metropolis are like you should run this guy out of town and i think that's part of the hope that this film represents it doesn't just show superman doing good i think it just presents a world that we could be doing with being nudged towards a bit in many regards all right just a few last things to talk about before we move on uh things i've written down we didn't really get around to talking about last time crypto uh metamorpho and baby joey yes pocket universe these are things that people said at the end like they wanted to talk about pocket universe uh mali the guy who gets killed in the pocket universe uh which is i think for me one of the least successful elements of the film but yeah because he's a character literally introduced just so he could be killed later on, just so he could have some kind of impact on Superman.

1:15:07Chris Hewitt:I don't think that was necessary. I did like the idea that Lex has no idea that Clark Kent is Superman. That was adorable. Yeah, I will. Maybe I'll kill that reporter that you give lots of interviews to and think, oh, it's going to be Lois. Maybe I'll find and kill Clark Kent, which makes you worry. Maybe I'll find and kill Clark Kent, which is a nice little touch. Hey, I was thinking about this, you know, the hypnoglastic thing. Okay, so it works for people who know what Clark Kent looks like with glasses on. How is everyone in Smallville not rising up and going, Superman looks exactly like Clark Kent, who I played high school football with and who left Smallville, oh, when was it?

1:15:50Chris Hewitt:Three years ago when Superman first announced himself to the world. What the fuck is going on there? There's room to have left a little bit before that, to be fair, right? He announced himself as Superman three years ago, but he could have been in the Fortress of Solitude for a couple of years. Still looks identical to Clark Kent. I don't know, the hair. The hair. It's not just the glasses. The hair, the curly toes. Hypno hair. Again, remember that tweet that was going around a few years ago about I never understood the Superman glasses thing until I saw Zooey Deschanel with no bangs and no glasses and didn't have a clue.

1:16:23So, you know, you can do a lot with hair. It's possible. Can we add to the list of things to talk about? Okay. Mr. Handsome. I mean, the fucking monster guy in the pocket universe who is like rowing the transport platform thing. Oh, I didn't like him. He was so creepy. And it was just like, James Gunn's gonna get a monster guy in when he can get a monster guy in. I don't know. Apparently Lex has a framed picture of Mr. Handsome on his desk at work. I don't know if that's a doctored thing that's going around Twitter or if it's real. But I have seen tweets where there's a framed picture on Lex's desk.

1:17:01Chris Hewitt:He may well do. I don't know. But I don't know what Lex's noticed but Mr. Hanson is not handsome. Genuinely, that's one of the things that's pretty much the only thing in the film that I think would really upset small niece and nephew. I feel like it's small kids generally. Everything else, I feel like they'd be able to kind of handle but he's really creepy looking. I think he'd give people nightmares. Also, Superman having to pull all of the nanites out of him is really disturbing. Yeah, that's the only other thing. It's disturbing but it's not as disturbing as Annie Ross turning into a robot in Superman 3, guys.

1:17:31Chris Hewitt:So that is fucking nightmare fuel for an entire generation. I'm on your... We've watched Superman 3. You're quoting it so much. I need to... Superman 3 is one of the nine greatest Superman movies. We should do a ranking at some point. Yeah, I... Mr. Handsome is very James Gunn-coded, as is Metamorpho and The Green Baby. And that's just... He has a name. Baby Joey to you. The Green Baby. as is Metamorpho and Joey. Thank you. You're most welcome. And yeah, I like that James Gunn has that energy for characters like that and even Greenlight in the Clayface movie. That feels like James Gunn taking the wider sort of characters from the DCU and bringing them in and giving them spotlight and that excites me and that is what a fresh universe like this needs to again help differentiate itself from what has come before Are you excited about where it could go?

1:18:38Chris Hewitt:Potentially, it's not a post-credit sting necessarily, the post-credit stings in this movie are Mr. Terrific and Superman and then of course him with Crypto sitting looking at Earth, which is one of the first shots I think revealed, along with the shot of him with the dimensional imp behind but are you excited about where this goes because it doesn't have a post-credit sting in the traditional sense but Millie Alcock coming in as Supergirl right at the end is a kind of post-credit sting and a very daring one because I don't know many people who've come out of it excited to see more of her as a result I do actually know quite a few people who were very very hyped for that I think it may depend on people having read the comic that that refers to.

1:19:28So the idea... Which he actually should do. He says it in dialogue that she basically goes to planets with red sun so she can get drunk. She can't get drunk on Earth because the yellow sun, you know, as it does with him, messes with her metabolism. But that's a pretty obvious nod to the comic that they're going to adapt and what happens to her on such a planet where she has no superpowers and where she has to do some stuff to help a person. And I think it's exciting in that sense if you know Supergirl. It's also exciting if you didn't know a Supergirl movie was coming, which let's be honest, there are a lot of low-information moviegoers out there.

1:20:01So that's exciting too. Just to say that comic is Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow, which is what the name of the film was going to be, now it's just Supergirl. I mean, I think it's an interesting thing because we've had bits of Supergirl over the years. Obviously, there was a Supergirl in The Flash. There was an entire Supergirl CW show. So the Supergirl CW show was kind of like, what if just, it's not Clark Kent, it's Kara? Is that her name? Yeah. Carla Zorwell. Zorwell. And, you know, just presenting, like, here's another good Kryptonian. And to introduce this character as, like, what if a Kryptonian had a brat summer?

1:20:41I thought was like, okay, well, that's actually a really different vibe. I haven't seen a drunk superhero since Hancock, and I barely remember Hancock. so you know I think tonally it's an interesting different thing I think it's a promise of hey when you see the Supergirl movie it's not just going to be a Superman movie except it's a Supergirl instead of a Superman it's going to have a very specific point of view and James Gunn has talked a lot about how his entire vision for DC Studios is everything has to be character focused you cannot serve up generic comic book movie because that is how you get superhero fatigue.

1:21:20If you go very specific on characters and who these characters are and drill into those, that's where you get the good films and that's where audiences are going to be served best. And this is, if you read the comic, the Supergirl movie has the potential to be a sort of, it's an origin story without being an origin. It's a sort of, I've been going through a tough time and I've lost my direction, I've lost my purpose, and here's me getting it back kind of a thing. So I think that has great potential to kind of just cement her place in people's hearts. But yeah, I thought, I expected more of it.

1:21:57I thought, I think, like I said last time, we might have her coming in and going, oh, that's not how you translate that. It goes like this, of his message from his parents. But I think they've tried, they've decided, I genuinely suspect that at one point they were considering doing something like that. But I think they've very much decided to stick with this as, no, what is good about Superman comes from his human side and not from his Kryptonian side. And they've decided to make that his purpose and his focus and his place in the world. All right. I just like the Supergirl tagline, especially as it pertains to this film, because this film is look up and Supergirl is look out.

1:22:37And I think that's very well done. Is Krypton going to be in that film? Yes. I mean, I thought that was good about this as well to bring her in of like the whole time, because we talked a lot last time about the in-media res-ness, you like the Superman crypto dynamic so much that you almost are not really questioning, like, wait, where did the dog come from? Like, what's up with the dog? So then get a bit of an answer of like, oh, it's not even his dog. I thought was like actually a nice little capper on this film. I can imagine some audiences being tired of like, they've introduced a character who's clearly now going to have their own thing because they're so used to that being a rhythm of these comic book movies and something that people get a little bit tired of but actually I thought it really had a function in this film of being like that's not even his dog that's her dog and also that explains if she's like that that explains why Crypto is like that when Clark slash Superman is has his shit together really yeah and I love I love one of my favourite moments in the movie, apart from people who are going to die.

1:23:42My other thing is when he steps out the window, I think we discussed this last time, when he steps out the window going, yes, but he's scared and he's alone. Yes. You know, and he can't allow that for the dog, even though it's not his dog.

1:23:54Chris Hewitt:It's a story of, yeah, precisely, it's a man who just wants to find a dog and make sure that that dog is okay, even though that dog is a very bad dog. Did crypto work for you guys? Mostly, yes. Yeah, I thought there was like maybe a tiny bit too much of him, but I liked him a lot. I thought he was good fun. I think he's going to really work with the kids watching this movie. I think this is a film that should work for kids as well as adults, which may be genuinely one of the things that, you know, James didn't like about it. But I thought he was charming and in a goofball, silly sort of a way.

1:24:28I thought there was exactly the right amount of crypto in this film and really well pitched because it is goofy as a concept. and I think people slightly balked when they first announced that crypto was part of this, of like, that sounds goofy but to have him as like a he's a good boy, but he's a bad dog sometimes, I think that gives you a bit of friction beyond the like haha, Superman also has a dog and he's a happy flying super dog to have him be like this little agent of chaos felt not only very James Gunn but like, it still felt comic book-y but it gave you a bit of edge to him I enjoyed his Hulk moment

1:25:07Chris Hewitt:yes his attack on Lex which I'm pretty sure would actually have killed Lex to be honest oh he was pulling his punches was he? pulling his shoes after Superman flies through a window at very very fast speed and slams Lex into a desk Lex must be made of Sterner stuff I'd be checking that guy out he didn't slam him through the desk no he didn't He was obviously pulling his punches. That's still a very, very, very sore back for Lex there. Yes, that moment is very, very Hulk-smashing Loki. Coded, as we have been saying on this pod. A couple of last things. We're about to lose Ben. Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy Olsen and Eve.

1:25:57Chris Hewitt:The Eve revelation. Jimmy's treatment of Eve. where do you stand? I thought it was I think the joke is that Jimmy is small and young looking and has all of these women going nuts for his puppy dog charms and also that he has such improbably high standards that he saves this objectively stunning looking woman in his phone as mutant toes so that to me was amusing and I did enjoy his ridiculous you know it's the same joke as in The Other Guys do you remember the Will Ferrell character in The Other Guys it's kind of that you know and I just find that quite funny as a joke so I was kind of there with it it just gave also Jimmy something to do rather than just sit there and go gee Lois that's something does it not make Jimmy feel a little bit callous and cruel and diminish him as a character.

1:27:00Because I love the casting of this. I think Scarlett Gisando is amazing. When they announced it was him, I was like, wow, that is so spot on. The one misstep for me is the Mutant Toes name in the phone. That feels cruel and a bit mean. It is mean. Whereas everything else is like, you know, he's this guy who just for whatever reason has like women fawning all over him and he can't quite handle it because he's like a weird journalistic nerd. and is not equipped to handle that, and then having to engage with it for the good of the world. And this woman who, like, Eve, we are supposed to enjoy her, and we are supposed to see that actually she's, like, got a lot of smarts, and she knows what she's doing.

1:27:43But also that coexists with her being, like, a lot to handle, more for him to handle, more for most people to handle. There was absolutely the right guy out there for Eve. He is not that guy. He's not that guy. And so him, I thought it generally rode that line well. I thought there was, you know, good comedic potential in that. And I thought it was overall really nicely played. The one bit that I think sours it is mutant toes. That's probably fair. Yeah. But I think it also maybe is kind of something that a young person would do. You know, because like young people can be callous with each other.

1:28:20They haven't been burned in the dating trenches yet.

1:28:22Chris Hewitt:hashtag Jimmy Olsen POS hashtag Jimmy Olsen shit that's what I say wow harsh I found it more mean than amusing and you know watching it with the crowd I didn't feel them responding to a lot of the Jimmy Eve stuff the best Jimmy Eve thing in the movie for me is when he goes to meet her that clandestine assignation and they meet up and she drags him to the alleyway and she starts telling him about all the terrible shit that Lex is doing? And she goes, he just tortured a dog. And then Scalorato Gisondo just goes, Jesus Christ! And that is just so over the top as a reaction that it made me laugh. But I have to say that is one aspect of the film that didn't sit well with me and hasn't sat well with me throughout the various viewings I've given it.

1:29:14Chris Hewitt:What about Miss Tesmak? Miss Tesmak! This is a very different version of course from the Valerie Perrine character in the Donner movie. But also kind of the same. I think it's kind of the same because I think what they're doing here is she is portraying herself as an airhead because that is the way to live a life that she has chosen or find herself leading. Chosen to lead or find herself leading. I'm not sure which. But she, you know, she is walking a fine line. She is being on Lex's arm and presumably getting the, you know, fancy clothes and or opportunities to travel that come with that. Portraying herself as a ditz, not being a ditz.

1:29:58I think it is very deliberate choices in what she's had in the background of her photos. I don't think there's any other way to read them. But I think it's an interesting idea that she is, you know, a party girl, but she is taking out this kind of form of insurance on herself because she knows that his previous girlfriends are no longer around and may have heard of her suspicions that something is up. I kind of enjoyed how much she revels in her chosen bimbo-ness. Like, good for her. She loves selfies and fashion. She knows her angles. Great angles and loves living the Jet Set lifestyle and will cover herself to make sure that she can get that without getting the sticky end of Lex's evil.

1:30:42So, yeah, I enjoyed her a lot. I thought it was well played. I do like that she saves the day. That's cool.

1:30:49Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Yeah, take that. Take that, Superman. She could be a great undercover agent. Honestly, with that and with Lois getting to be more of a hero herself in this film, I think they do well by the woman for the most part in this film, which is cool. That's because she parties like a rock star choir boy. And speaking of people partying like a rock star, Ben has got to go to some, I presume some sort of drug-filled party where it's just going to be wall-to-wall Tory MPs and dogs and all sorts of stuff. I'm not Tory MPs, but I am a punk rocker. Yes, I am. Ben has to leave to actually put up the Fantastic Four review.

1:31:30Fantastic Four. Anything else.

1:31:32Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Fantastic Ben. Thanks, guys. Bye. All right. Now we're finally alone. Lock the doors. We got about eight minutes left. What would you like to say about this movie that we have not already talked about. Have we talked enough about Lex? Have we talked about him in passing? We've mentioned him. Oh, he'd love it if we talked more about him. Let's talk about Lex, baby. Let's talk about soups and me. Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things. Let's talk about Lex. Not De La Soul, of course, but... Salt and pepper. Salt and pepper. Yes, Lex. Do you want to talk about Lex? Should we talk about Lex?

1:32:16Yeah, I just... Talk about Lex. I talked about him last time. I just love the fact that his ego makes it personal between him and Superman. I think that's great. I think his plans to take down Superman are more personally focused than any previous Lex. And I thought it was a great Nichols Holt performance. I did want a bit more of him. That was my big takeaway. But I haven't really changed on that since last time. Buff. yeah i think he's gonna be a major player going forward in the dcu as well i'm excited to see how he pops up again uh i expect at some point we're gonna see lex in his own battle armor which has been the thing in the comics but yeah i thought he was great i like that he is attacking superman's sense of self as well as attacking him physically that's a really cool way to come at the character and to come into the relationship so yeah all good stuff really really enjoyed the performance you can add it to the lexicon you can add it to the lexicon great performances I've I think we've gotten a lot of really great stuff as that character Michael Rosenbaum in Smallville is great Gene Hackman of course Clancy Brown in the DCAU voiced an incredible incredible Lex Luthor Kevin Spacey wrong Wrong.

1:33:44That's all we shall say about that man. What about Jesse Eisenberg? Any love for her? No. I like that he also went after, you know, Superman where it hurts. Like he went after his sense of being on the right side and set him and Batman at odds with each other, at least in the director's cut.

1:34:00Chris Hewitt:That's because he knew Batman could take him down. Get the fuck out of here. But, you know, at least he was, again, playing into who Superman is. And I appreciate when the bad guys can do that and when the Lex's in particular can do that. Whenever I think about Jesse Eisenberg's Lex, I just think about Granny's peach tea and that top line. And then I just stopped thinking about it because it wasn't very good.

1:34:28We didn't talk much about portals and pocket universes and that kind of thing. I'm not sure how much there is really to say about them.

1:34:34Chris Hewitt:But that pocket universe thing is quite interesting, right? Because it shows the recklessness that Lex attacks certain things with. but also taking it away from Earth and making it pure sci-fi. The anti-proton river, the black hole, the various things going on there. The one thing I would say about that, that I think, Lois, we talked about it last time, Lois goes and saves Superman in a way. But then also she doesn't because she and Mr. Terrific get to the edge of the portal and then stand there for 10 minutes while action happens around them. Yeah, I wish there had been something more for her to do at that point.

1:35:12He's doing stuff, but she's not really involved. But I just think the recklessness is interesting because, again, that does come back to the tech barons of our own age. It does. Very much so. You know, the literal, he's taking the move fast and break things to a whole other level.

1:35:26Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And the sort of, again, extraordinary rendition and that kind of aspect of it that comes in as well. Also, the mistreatment of people in your own personal circle that Lex showcases there is extraordinary. but having his own little fiefdom is so deeply unhealthy for him as a person and has clearly made him vastly worse since doing that. So that was interesting. But, you know, it is kind of a standard thing. Oh, bad guy has a place where he does all his badness. Visually, I think it's my least favorite. Yeah, visually, I didn't like it. Yeah, the Proton River and the Superman cryptos sort of saving themselves from the Black Hole.

1:36:07Didn't really much like that visually. But it was a cool thing to set up the T-spheres and crypto sort of chomping on them. And then that helped set up him doing that in the final act, which was, I think, a very good use of the dog.

1:36:22Chris Hewitt:Don't you think it's interesting or maybe ironic, maybe in an Alanis way or maybe not? I don't know. But Lex Luthor is an evil tech billionaire. And yet it's Superman who is the crypto bro.

1:36:38they're not bros are they

1:36:39Chris Hewitt:I mean makes you think doesn't it not really not even just a little bit no I refuse okay anything else you want to say real quick I have a question to ask you too but anything else you want to say no bring the question alright here's a question Lois says to Clark oh did we talk about how little Clark's in this like a bumbling Clark like you know disguised hypnoglass as Clark did we talk about that last time? Did we mention it in passing? Can I talk to James Gunn about it a little bit? Always happy to have more of that yeah I thought there'd be way more of that aspect of things maybe there'd be more next time who the futtick knows?

1:37:19I think in the movie where Lois already knows that Clark is Superman it makes sense that there's not a lot of Clark in this movie and this is also and I'm not trying to be clever here a Superman movie in the sense that it's not a Clark movie like you could argue the first Donner movie was at least for its first half a Clark movie. Oh absolutely it is. This is a Superman movie.

1:37:41Chris Hewitt:Man of Steel is a Clark movie. This is a Superman movie as you absolutely said and I think I said this I said this to Gunn I think but I think Corwin Swett spends more time in the Superman costume than any other actor in this movie. Like he is Superman from beginning to end and the number of times he's out of the costume are few and far between. I don't even think Cavill is in the costume that much in Batman and the Superman. There's a lot of Clark in that. Maybe Justice League. Proportionately, he probably spends more time in his Superman costume in that. But he only comes back halfway through.

1:38:15Chris Hewitt:So anyway, the thing I wanted to ask you was, Lois, in that conversation with Clark on the kitchen table when they're about to go to town on each other in a sort of fatal attraction way and, you know, yeah, tell you, hello. Then she says, hey, you should let me interview you because you interviewing yourself is not ethical. I would put it to you that what she does is not ethical either. She knows full well he's Superman. Yeah. She's bending the rules. She is. She's bending the rules. Yes. They both are. Yes. Well, they should go to journalism jail. To follow up from that, Perry and the crew clearly know that Clark is Superman.

1:38:59What? What? I'll do that again. Perry and the crew know that Lois is dating or Lois is Superman are involved do you think that they know that Clark is Superman I think Perry might I don't think the others do do you think there's a there's a twinkle in his eye yeah

1:39:18Chris Hewitt:I don't I don't think that but that's interesting it's very interesting he's well he's three years into being Superman and then three months into dating but a lot of people in this world know that Clark is Superman I found that to be yeah because he trusts everyone he trusts everyone he maybe doesn't trust people to the point where he tells them where he's from which is interesting because not even Lois knew that he's from Smallville until halfway through the movie but I don't think I think she knew he was from Smallville he just wasn't he wasn't willing to go on the record okay she knows he's from Smallville otherwise how would she know where to go but his parents have never met her Yeah, she hadn't previously met the parents.

1:40:02It's only three months into their relationship. What's with the threes? Did we...

1:40:07Chris Hewitt:I asked him about... There was no real significance. He just liked the idea of it being... Well, the opening credits, that was the very late edition. Right. Because otherwise, people felt it was a little bit too much what the fuck is going on. And three, as Dale Asol once said, is the magic number. But it also does... I mean, if we're being biblical and you want to get into the whole iconography again. Lewis and Clark were nearly biblical in the kitchen cabinet. I didn't want to get into that. Thank you. But the Jesus ministered for three years before. Came out at like 30. Ministered for three years and then was crucified.

1:40:44Chris Hewitt:At 33? At 33. Just saying. The same ages that Damien Thorne is in The Omen, The Final Conflict. Well, there you go. Yeah. But we're not getting into that. No, we're not doing a spoiler special for that movie. not lucky enough to do that anyway we've got to go that is it for our Superman 2 spoiler special no oh god that's it for our second Superman spoiler special correct 2 no very exciting hope you guys enjoyed it thank you to Ben of course thank you Chris good movie there he goes like he's in the room it's thank you and goodbye from Amon Warman peace punk rockers I beg your pardon. Peace, punk, rockers.

1:41:33Chris Hewitt:Oh, thank God. What did you think I had to say? Something offensive, deeply offensive.

1:41:40Chris Hewitt:And it's goodbye from Helen O 'Hara. Totally. There you go. And it's goodbye from me as well. I'm off to update my social media with a tweet that simply says, hashtag, Helen O 'Hara shit. And that specifically annoys her. That's so mean. It actually says, Helen O 'Hara's hit. What does that even mean? You're a hit. Oh. Helen O 'Hara is a great big hit. I don't know. Thanks for listening. There's a space between a harm and a hit. It's Helen's a hit. Like, why am I a hit? You guys, you fucking better watch your mouth. I'll write one and say, hashtag I'm on warm and hit as well. All right. Okay. No one wants that.

1:42:16Chris Hewitt:All right. Thanks for listening. Bye.