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July 11, 2025 - The Michael Knowles Show
16:01
Michael Knowles REVIEWS The New "Superman" Movie (2025)
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I Saw Superman.
There will not be spoilers in the first part of this review.
There might be some later on, but I'll let you know.
I'll give you a little bit of warning.
I saw Superman.
I'm going to put all my cards on the table.
I generally don't care for these superhero movies.
Some of them have been okay.
They're not really for me.
So I am reviewing it on that handicap.
I'm trying to be as fair as I can.
I went into this movie being told this was going to be super woke, super anti-Trump, super pro-immigration, really woke.
And it was a little bit of that.
There was a little bit of that, but just a little bit.
Before I even saw the movie, my wife said, she goes, you know, Mac, at this point, I wonder if the studios are just releasing all this really woke stuff to just gin up controversy and make people.
And in a way, I think that's what happened because the movie wasn't that good.
There were a couple interesting moments.
It wasn't totally terrible.
It wasn't good.
It wasn't even all that woke.
There was a vaguely anti-Trump angle.
But it was so lazy that it was even a vaguely anti-George Bush angle.
It was just like a vaguely anti-deportation, anti-torture, whatever.
It was fine.
There was a Tucker Carlson character.
That's like, not even count that as a spoiler.
There was a character who was a right-wing pundit, who was obviously supposed to be Tucker.
There was an interesting observation, which is that all journalists are operators.
This you just kind of get from the general Clark Lois story throughout the whole franchise, which is that Lois is supposed to be a journalist, but she's sleeping with her mark, you know, with her source.
And that is just true of journalism.
All journalists are operators.
All operators are journalists these days.
So, okay, that was fine.
My biggest takeaway, total non-spoiler takeaway though, the special effects don't work as well anymore.
This is a change over the last six months.
It used to be that these movies were pretty well written.
There was a lot more dialogue.
There was just more writing.
And then with CGI and special effects coming up in the 90s and 2000s, there was less dialogue.
And there could be less dialogue because the filmmakers could spend more time just blowing stuff up.
*Gunshot*
And it was dazzling to people and it was amazing.
You'd go and watch New York City be blown to smithereens and you'd say, wow, oh my goodness.
But with AI, I can make that now in about five minutes.
And I can post it on Twitter.
So I think that the writing is going to have to get better now.
Because the studios don't really have any advantage over some dude in his basement with a decent mid-journey subscription.
So that makes me hopeful.
The dialogue was not there for this movie.
Some of the writing was a little better than some superhero movies.
It was better than some of the Marvel movies where really there's no point whatsoever.
There were some interesting points, which we'll get into in more of the spoiler section.
But the main takeaway is, and they couldn't have known it, really, or maybe they should have seen it coming, but they couldn't have seen the rapidity of it.
The special effects just don't hit like they used to.
Sorry, you're going to have to write dialogue again, Studios.
That's going to be tough.
Okay, slight, slight spoilers.
I think these are tolerable spoilers.
If you want to go see the movie, I'm not saying avoid it at all costs.
It's fine.
But I don't think this will ruin the movie, these kind of spoilers.
The government arrests him without reading his Miranda rights because he's an alien and aliens don't have rights.
This is a clear knock on Trump and the anti-mass migration movement and the pro-deportation movement.
Unfortunately, it's not even really true because we do afford the illegal aliens a ton of rights that slow down the whole process and it's how they've exploited the system and why there are 16 million illegals in the country.
But anyway, that's one bit where you say, okay, no more truth justice in the American way.
Okay, there's some wokeness.
Here's a slight spoiler though that was interesting.
I've been kind of harsh on the movie.
Here was a line that was pretty interesting.
But it's a slight spoiler.
So if you don't want any slight, this is a slight spoiler.
Lois and Clark are having a debate over punk rock.
He says, I like punk rock.
She says, you don't like punk rock.
All those bands you like.
They're pop.
They're not.
No, I'm punk rock.
No, you're punk rock.
No, I'm, no, I'm, I am.
No, I am.
And Lois says, I question everything.
You trust everyone.
You think everyone is beautiful.
And Clark responds and says, maybe that's the real punk rock.
That was a good line.
That was a good line.
Because of the moment we're living in, we're coming out of the cynicism and irony of the 2000s and 20 teens.
What's hot now, what's punk rock now, is sincerity, authenticity, earnestness, enthusiasm.
It's just something I've noticed.
It's a little bit of a millennial Zoomer divide.
You think everything's beautiful.
You see the good in everyone.
And he says, well, that's punk rock.
Totally agree.
We are coming out of an age of cynicism and irony and vocal fry and just disbelief in meh.
And I think what we're coming into is a greater appreciation of beauty, a recognition that there is objective beauty, a recognition that man is made in the image of God and we're fallen and we're a little broken, but there still is that image of God in us and you can actually look for the good and you can pursue the good.
There is a good to pursue and really good is to be pursued and evil to be avoided.
That's more important than just a kind of crass, materialist, envious, selfish cynicism.
I really liked that line.
We're going to get to the real spoilers now.
So if you don't like it, if you're like me and you would have never seen this movie if you weren't made to, if it wasn't your job to go see this movie, then keep watching.
If you are concerned, this is the spoiler.
The hook of the movie is that Superman is basically the Antichrist.
What I mean by that is, the hook of the movie is that his parents, I'm not even that familiar with the Superman story.
I had to have some friends around here explain to me the broad Superman story.
But his birth parents who sent him to the Earth before a planet, whatever Was exploded.
They sent him with a message, and the message was, you're here to serve humanity.
But the hook of this movie is, there's more to the message.
And the rest of the message is, and you gotta dupe these idiots.
These humans, they're stupid.
They're gullible.
You should dominate them.
You need to rule over them mercilessly.
You need to become a tyrant.
And this causes a crisis of identity for Superman.
I have much more to say first, though.
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And this is, it's an interesting hook.
I kind of liked it because it raises questions about am I just inevitably going to be a replica of my father?
And the answer it gives is that yes, indeed, the sins of the father can be revisited upon the son.
What the father does, what the father says, or the mothers for that matter, what your parents say and do, that will affect you.
That will have consequences for your identity.
But they're not insurmountable.
They're not insurmountable.
He doesn't, Superman isn't that guy.
Superman became Superman.
He doesn't have to be what his father planned him out to be.
And there's a great scene where he goes back to the people who raised him, the nice old Midwestern farmers who raised him.
And they're clearly his parents.
You know, they are really fulfilling that parent role.
They clearly love him, and he loves them.
And so this has, you know, so much of Superman has biblical Christian references.
And that clearly calls to mind, you know, who is my mother?
Who is my brother?
He who does the will of my father.
That's my mother.
That's my brother.
There's then a direct conversation between the father who raised Superman, not his birth father, the father who raised Superman and Superman.
And this part was good, but it was still a little bit lib.
Because he says, hey, Clark, Clark says, I'm not who I thought I was.
And the father says, the adoptive father says, parents aren't for telling their kids who they are.
Parents aren't for that.
You have made choices.
You have done things that determine who you are.
And I like that a little bit.
You know, obviously, yes, we do have free choice.
But I think the adoptive father is underselling the role of parents in a way that is classically liberal.
And so that's where I think it kind of fails philosophically.
It's getting close.
Yeah, you don't have to be like your apparently evil alien dad, but he is going to affect you.
And actually, the role of parents is to tell kids who they are.
If the role of parents were not to tell kids who they are, what's the role of parents?
Your role is not to educate your children?
If your role is not to help bring up your kids, what's the point of parents?
You're just warm bodies?
You're bringing them money or feeding them or something?
No.
You are.
And it really hits this classically liberal line when the adoptive father says, your choices are what matters.
So once again, this is liberalism.
It's your choice, your choice, your choice.
Because your choices do matter, but your choices come from something.
Because freedom is willing, predicated on knowledge.
So don't undersell it.
What would have been a better, more accurate portrayal is the adoptive father saying, hey, Superman, nature is a part of you, but nurture is also a part of you.
And nature and nurture are combining with your freedom to make up who you really are.
Could have said, no, no, no.
The role of parents is to tell kids who they are.
And I helped to tell you who you are, and you've run with that, and you've done better than I did.
You know, I'm so proud of you.
That would have been it.
So it wasn't, you can't really blame the studios for not being all that philosophically adept or anthropologically adept, but that was a part where I thought, this could be interesting, but just they don't take it all the way.
Okay, then super heavy spoiler, super duper heavy spoiler.
Superman meets a clone, Superman.
So this is kind of clunky writing.
Oh, wow, he met a clone.
Okay, so you're now taking this theme of, you know, I was born to be this evil tyrant over the earth, but then I was raised to be this good guy.
And what am I really?
Who am I really?
You know, and then so he meets the clone, who's the thing he could have been.
Now, in the classical way we understand human nature, this is just, you know, this is just a could have been.
In the way that now materialists desperately try to avoid God and, you know, free will and everything, this would be like the multiverse.
You know, so here's the Superman in the multiverse who's an evil, terrible clone.
But either way, whatever.
If you can do the lame version or the classical good version.
Either way, okay, here's how it could have gone wrong.
But he didn't have to become that guy.
He became the good guy.
And that's great.
And then you get one last little woke thing at the end, Peak's Water, where he says, I'm not an alien.
You keep calling me, I'm not an alien.
I'm as human as anyone.
This is, you know, the guy, the guy with face tattoos who MS-13 shuttled across the border yesterday.
But he's as American as anyone.
He's as American as Apple Pie.
Some guy in Timbuktu, He's the real American and you, 12th generation from the founding stock, you know, you're not a real American because America is just an idea.
Humanity is just an idea.
He's not a human.
He's not.
Superman is not a human.
He's an alien.
Earth isn't just an idea.
Humanity isn't just an idea.
It's flesh.
It's both, a human being is both spirit and flesh.
And unfortunately, we, in our schizophrenic modern age, in our stupid modern age, we somehow deny both of those things.
On the one hand, we say, we don't really have souls.
Spirit is meaningless.
We're all just flesh.
We're meat puppets.
But then on the flip side, we say, but actually, the body doesn't matter at all.
I can be whatever I want.
I can be the opposite sex.
And I'm just kind of an avatar and I'm not.
So somehow we get it perfectly wrong.
And this movie partakes of that error to some degree.
I'm not an alien.
I'm as human as anyone.
No, you serve humanity.
You are you, Superman.
You have a special role.
You're not quite human, but you're not totally divorced from humanity.
You're doing, you're your own thing.
And by recognizing that reality, you were living up to your full potential, more so than even your birth father hoped for you to be.
And more than your adoptive father ever could be, because you have these special powers.
And you get to be this special thing.
But not by denying what you are.
Unfortunately, the movie ends on this kind of identity crisis, this identity confusion.
The whole point is, the problem in the movie is there's identity confusion.
Then he overcomes the identity confusion by realizing that he's not just a prisoner of what his birth father wanted him to be, his biological father wanted him to be.
But then it ends on the same kind of identity confusion that we all have.
Not only biologically, the trans debate of the last 10 years, but also politically.
The American identity debate of the last 50 years.
What's it mean to be an American?
What's it mean to be a human?
It's just an idea.
So the movie is basically bad.
It's bad in different ways, though, from how we expected it to be.
It's a touch woke.
It's not super woke.
It's more classically liberal, I guess, which is almost worse as far as I'm concerned.
I'm hopeful, though.
I'll leave you on this hopeful note.
I'm hopeful these movies are going to have to get better.
Because the studios can't just lazily fill up two-thirds of the movie with as if that's going to dazzle us.
That doesn't dazzle us anymore.
It was dazzling the first 300 times they did it.
But we have AI now.
There's been a technological change.
Technological changes just naturally, especially movies themselves, obviously, are a technological innovation.
And when the technology changes, the art forms are going to have to react to that.
So my hope is, here's the hopeful note on Superman is it's going to have to get better or it's just going to go away.
I hope it returns to truth.
It's like it's trying to get back to truth justice in the American way.
It just doesn't quite know how.
Maybe Superman 2 will get it.
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