What cinema can do when kindness is a thing of past

It is difficult to not interpret the screenplay of Superman (2025) — whether the interpretation is naive or nuanced is another matter.

- Anuradha Vellat

You end up drawing parallels with the immediate surroundings, and slowly this imagination expands as time lapses. It crosses borders and seas, to think of a part of the world inhabited by those like us, humans, who are starving under the recklessness of a siege. Yes, we are talking about Israel and Palestine.

The premise of Superman has originally depicted the Earth as primitive and physically weak but not without sensibilities. Superman — Clark Kent after he arrives in America — was sent to Earth by his parents to save him from the destruction of their planet Krypton. He honed his skills to be able to focus on what's needed.

America’s greatest superhero — who shifts between being a baby-faced, introverted, immaculate, soft spoken journalist, if there ever was one, to an extension of this persona with a few alterations to strength — has mostly been depicted without complications. His virtues are impractical, often boring. “My parents taught me to hone my senses, Zod,” Superman (played by Henry Cavill) tells his nemesis in Man of Steel (2013), referring to his adopted parents on Earth.

So, what does James Gunn, the director of Superman (2025), do differently? Nothing, except diversify the skills of storytelling to hone his viewers and bring our focus to what's important and needed. He builds the foundation for the imagination of a reality —