Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice and the human way he soon finds himself in a world that views these as old-fashioned.

Even though he’s already helmed Suicide Squad (the second non-terrible one), which kinda sorta still applies, and has launched two TV series in the universe(Peacemaker and Creature Commandos, both excellent), DC architect James Gunn is really kicking off his master plan for the entire DC film universe with Superman. It’s a mostly fun, breezy, amusing romp that at least shows a lot of promise for what’s to come.

David Corenswet is pretty flawless as Superman/Clark Kent, and thankfully the movie doesn’t subject us to (yet another) origin story. It drops us 3 years into the world being aware of Superman, and a few months into the relationship between him and Lois (an also perfectly cast Rachel Brosnahan). While you don’t see their relationship begin, you do see it develop in one of the movies more engaging scenes where Lois interviews Clark/Supes and he’s not thrilled to be getting grilled, probably because he’s used to just interviewing himself. Superman’s longtime nemesis Lex Luthor is the big bad here, and it’s really the biggest problem with the movie, even if Nicholas Hoult as Luthor is a great presence. The challenge is that there’s no backstory for Luthor. The film takes for granted you know Lex hates Superman, and it never gives you any reason why. It also really doesn’t explain where he has found an army of supporters to not only work with him to destroy Superman, but to do it so zealously. Something interesting there would’ve gone a long way to help the story. Lex’s big plan involves pocket universes, and becoming king of his own Middle East-ish country, but mostly shouting codes that program his automaton Ultraman in his fight against Superman.

Look, there’s a lot to like here. As I mentioned, great casting. It’s exponentially better than the dark and morose Snyder-verse DC films, and Gunn remembers, even relishes that this is a franchise/character meant to appeal to children. There are some side superheroes – Narthan Fillion as Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (hilarious), Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl (underdeveloped), Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho (underutilized) and Edi Gathegi who kind of steals the show as Mr. Terrific. Skyler Gisondo as unexpected ladykiller Jimmy Olsen is also a treat, and I wish the movie had an extra ten minutes to give them each a little more reason for being there and maybe a skosh of development. They could’ve pulled time from the overstuffed cast of randos – Wendell Pierce, Beck Bennett, Mikaela Hoover, Sara Sampaio, Frank Grillo – who were varying degrees of pointless. Or even give an extra few minutes to the true hero of the film – Krypto, Superman’s super dog.

There are some good jokes in there – Gunn’s dig at internet culture with the monkeys is a particularly delicious barb- and the FX were truly some of the best in any superhero film, but I couldn’t get past my general boredom of Superman as a character, which has been the case since my comic book reading days (which range from about three years old to last Thursday). Still, I’m at least on board and hopeful for where the character and the DC Universe is going.

Jonathan’s grade – B-