Superman (2025)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi

Have I Seen it Before: That really is the big question, but no, the film is (mostly; more on that later) brand new.

Did I Like It: The problem with reviewing DC films (whether DCEU, DCU, or Elseworlds) I feel like I have to state my credentials, so that you, dear reader, can decide whether you want to stop reading or not.

I don’t mourn the loss of the DCEU, finding the majority of the films ill-considered, while at the same time, despite some flaws, I kind of liked and still do like Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013). I was so exhausted by Justice League (2017)—and resolutely never want to discuss Mother Boxes ever again—that I let my wife write the site’s review of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). I greatly anticipated The Flash (2023) for obvious reasons, and was largely disappointed by it, again, for obvious—but different—reasons. I ultimately couldn’t care less about the Snyder vs. Gunn debate which I can’t imagine is of any interest to people outside of the chronically online, and feel that the saga of DC films post-2013 has largely been a cautionary tale about the dangers of caring too much about superhero movies.

Now that we have that fact out of the way, what did I think of this film? It’s well acted, often thrilling, frequently funny, and perfectly cast. I’m coming to my review a little late, but I’m feeling increasingly comfortable saying that it is the most purely enjoyable of this summer’s tentpoles, made all the more impressive by the fact that there has yet to be a thoroughly hyped dud released this season.

As superhero films are often at their weakest when they feel the need to bend over backwards to set up future films, this feels like a very soft set up for a new shared universe. Aside from a road sign pointing the way to Gotham City, and the cameo appearance of a new Supergirl (Milly Alcock) that briefly steals the show and serves as a pretty great teaser for her film next year, the film is more concerned with telling its story. Gunn has said that no film in his new effort will go forward without a completed script. Not every one of his films will be a winner, but it’s hard to deny that’s a good sign.

It’s a 90s Superman comic brought to life, right down to Nathan Fillion’s haircut. I mean that in the best way possible. As long as they find a reason for him to enter one of these stories, I may yet live to see a live-action Batcave with a penny, a T-Rex, and a Joker card before I die. For the first time in a very long time, I’m not positively exhausted at the prospect of more DC films coming my way.

My only complaint with the film is the one point under which I have to give Zack Snyder the advantage. Gunn claims he wants a fresh start, but he couldn’t help but lean on the musical themes written by John Williams for Superman (1978). Even that poster up above is absolutely eating Christopher Reeve’s leftovers. It’s a trap that Bryan Singer grabbed onto with both hands, but on which Snyder did indeed break new ground. I can see a studio wanting to go with that idea, but that may be the kind of muddled decision making we’re going to occasionally get when the filmmaker and the executive are the same person.

Nosferatu (2024)

Director: Robert Eggers

Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Brand new movie. First episode of a new season of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods. Interesting enough, a day before actually sitting down to watch the movie, I was volunteering at the theater and had to help somebody kick out some pathologically disruptive kids from a screening. So, I can cross that one off my bucket list?

Did I Like It: There’s probably not a whole lot new one can do with an adaptation of Dracula. The tentacles of that story seep into so much that if you’re alive in any way, you could probably guess where the story is going. There’s not even that much new anyone can do as a riff to Nosferatu (1922). Nothing will ever be quite as unnerving as the sight of Max Shreck as Count Orlock, especially when it was abundantly clear that there was no special effects as we understand them to convert a man into some kind of unspeakable creature of the night.

That all being said, Eggers immediately makes the case for his version of the story to need to exist. It is filled with atmosphere and the kind of concerted visual filmmaking that made up the best of the silent films, and is almost uniformly not on the menu for newly made movies.

Much has been made of the film’s disinterest in offering a riff on the original Orlock. Some say that the character as he appears in this film has little to do with what we have traditionally come to imagine when presented with vampires, but honest to God those people aren’t thinking things through very much. This Orlock is the first—with the possible exception of some early scenes with Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)—that looks like he might have once lived as Vlad the Impaler. That would be enough to consider the film something of a fascinating experience, but I also can’t get over Skarsgård’s performance in this film. There is no trace of Pennywise or any of his other performances here, so much so that I honestly didn’t realize it was Skarsgård until the end credits. Even Karloff and Lugosi ended up playing mild variations of a static screen persona in their varied careers. We may have found a new master of horror, who can disappear so completely into a role. What can’t he play?

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Director: George Miller

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne

Have I Seen It Before: Yes, and now we’ve reached another moment of necessary confession. When this one came out, everyone thought it had reinvented the wheel (despite making extensive use of them, har har). When I finally came around to it—I did miss it in theater; at the rate I’m going these days, that surprises even me—I thought it was well made. It had what at least appeared to be a lot of practical effects, and it would be hard to deny that the thing moves along at brisk pace, but I really didn’t see what the big deal was.

Did I Like It: Now that I’ve given you the appropriate amount of time to at least think through your admonitions, given that I kind of liked the rest of the films in the series now that I’ve had occasion to watch them, surely I’ll be set straight.

And for the most part, either the hype has long since passed or I got my head out of my ass long enough to enjoy what was present. The series proves to be the most adaptable of the action franchises. Any series that began as testosterone filled as this would have been forgiven for having difficulty embracing feminism in its old age, but this creates a new hero in Furiosa (Theron) that—had we been diligently going to the theater this summer—would have no problem being the face of the franchise, and with no diminishing of its hard edge.

I’m also cured on the second viewing of this movie of a wrong-headed desire I’ve had for the films. After Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985) I keep wanting to see some sort of catharsis for Max (Hardy) I the future. By continuing to break Max a little bit with every film, Miller is proving that catharsis is not what these films are about. Obviously they’re about survival, and if a post-apocalyptic film can get me on board with survival, that’s got to be worth something.

*Including all of the ones which awkwardly star Mel Gibson, whom I could ignore/tolerate for longer than I would have thought, and including Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), which I was surprised by how much I enjoyed even on first viewing.

Renfield (2023)

Director: Chris McKay

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz

Have I Seen it Before: Well, sure. Scenes of it have been pulled directly out of Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931), and Lammle knows I’ve see that one plenty of times.

Did I Like It: And that’s one of the points where I’m a bit stuck on the film. The original Dracula is a tragically… and it really pains me to say this… boring film. It’s not its fault, it;s barely a sound film, so can’t rise too far above a recorded stage performance. You can read all about my thoughts of that film in the review for it, but as charmed as I am by inserting Hoult and Cage into the scenes from that film, it is another example of a film lionized beyond what it had earned on its own merits.

The film’s other flaws to tend to be its most memorable parts, unfortunately. There are a number of pleasantly diverting jokes throughout, but as I type this, I am having pronounced difficulty coming up with any that weren’t already in the trailers you’ve already seen. Worse yet, those gags are about the only thing propping up. an organized crime subplot that exists only to make sure that the film fills a feature-length runtime.

And yet, there are a few things to make this a moderately worthy weekend diversion. Cage is having so much fun chewing—often literally—the scenery that it becomes even more of an unfortunate tragedy that he never ended up playing a Batman villain, and that the mere prospect of him playing Superman was doomed to fail before it ever began. Beyond that, the makeup work on Dracula himself is genuinely fun, taking him from an injured animal all the way through to his “full power” as it were.