Watched the new Fantastic 4 movie over the weekend and had watched Superman last week. I loved both the movies and am super happy that we have finally moved away from making everything dark & gritty. A lot of movies were made/rebooted into these dark/gritty reboots and while some of them were good movies I prefer watching the more light hearted versions. For example, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I loved most was the 80’s cartoon version and the 90’s movies where they are goofing off and still fighting crime. The reboots (both the cartoons and the movies) were recast to a darker version taking the fun out of it.
Some movies or characters can survive being recast as dark such as Batman which always has a darker tone (except for the 60s’ TV show but others don’t work that well. Superman is one such character, he is supposed to embody hope and optimism but the last few movies had a darker tone and were definitely not hopeful. So it was good to watch a lighthearted and hopeful movie instead of the now standard brooding hero. A bunch of whiners (the usual suspects) are upset that Superman is hopeful and a story that says basic human kindness is a value. So they are calling the movie ‘woke’ and calling for a boycott.
Superman is in its third weekend in theaters and currently the highest-grossing superhero film of 2025 with a box-office earnings of $472.4 million globally as of now. So the whiners are falling over backwards to call the movie a flop but the numbers and the ratings just don’t support them at all.
Rex Huppke wrote a fantastic article about the movie that goes into more details on why some folks hate the movie because the character is the champion of the oppressed and also known as the world biggest boyscout.
I loved the portrayal of Lex Luthor in the movie and feel that this is the best iteration of the character followed by the one in smallvile and then Lex from the ‘Superman & Lois’ series. The absolute pettiness of his jealousy comes through fantastically on screen and you can see how Lex just doesn’t care about anything other than taking Superman out even if it means destroying the world. The rest of the support cast was quite good as well and acted brilliantly. The story was a bit light on substance but the acting and I guess you can call it the heart of the story compensated for it quite well.
Coming to the The Fantastic 4 movie, it was a fun watch as well. Thankfully it wasn’t yet another origin story though they did cover their origins in the first few mins of the movie and then got to the more interesting part of the show. Galactus was imposing and scary in the movie. Johnny storm kept true to the character and goofed around as always but had hidden depths and strength which made an interesting contrast. I loved the fact that Sue storm was portrayed so well and actually shown to be powerful in her own right instead of being there just for eye candy with limited action while the other 3 did most of the work to address the threats they are facing.
Can’t give more details without spoilers so I will just say this: go watch the movie. It is a fun romp and do stay for the post credits scene as it is awesome.
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya