Film review: Superman is a mixed bag — with fish-out-of-water charm

Plus: Armand dials up the suspense, and Salvable is a charming boxing-film retread

Superman.

• Superman
• ★★★☆☆
• Cinematic release

Could it be that Superman (15A) is getting a bit too big for those red boots? In James Gunn’s re-imagining of the original superhero, the Man of Steel is an alien who was smuggled into the country and is now making unilateral interventions in the affairs of other sovereign nations, preventing Boravia from invading Jarhanpur without first asking for permission.

If that sounds like a rather unusual Superman storyline, brace yourself: the movie’s opening scene finds a bruised and battered Superman (David Corenswet) nursing his injuries in the Antarctic wastes, having suffered his very first defeat at the hands of the Hammer of Boravia, a metahuman operating at the behest of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). With the Pentagon unimpressed by Superman’s meddling in Boravia, which is an ally of the United States, Luthor makes his big pitch: the world should replace Superman with Luthor’s own Planet Watch security team of metahumans.

The opening half-hour of Superman is hugely enjoyable as Gunn – who writes and directs – leans into the absurdity of the superhero’s schtick, this courtesy of an interview conducted by Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who asks Superman some hard questions about why an alien being feels entitled to get involved in human affairs.

Alas, there’s also some preposterous action sequences to navigate too, such as when Superman takes on a Godzilla-like fire-breathing monster, and later finds himself aided and abetted by the ‘Justice Gang’ (comprised of a Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi)).

It’s a mixed bag, in other words, as James Gunn tries to reinvent the unashamedly old-fashioned Superman for a world in which noble deeds and self-sacrifice are considered naïve at best.

David Corenswet makes for a solid but uncharismatic Superman; Rachel Brosnahan, on the other hand, is smart and tough as the no-nonsense Lois, while Nicholas Hoult is hilariously slimy as the megalomaniacal Luthor.

Armand.

• Armand 
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

We need to talk about Armand (15A), a six-year-old boy who doesn’t actually appear on-screen in Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel’s film, but whose behaviour in school is so shocking that it’s described as ‘a case of sexual deviation’.

And so Armand’s mother Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) is called in for an emergency meeting with Armand’s teacher Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), the headmaster Jarle (Øystein Røger), and the parents of the boy – Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) – who Armand terrorised.

An intense psychological drama that won the Camera D’Or at last year’s Cannes, Armand takes place for the most part in a classroom as Elisabeth defends her son against horrific allegations, Sarah and Anders demand that action be taken, and the school authorities wish the entire issue would simply vanish.

It’s a gripping, claustrophobic story, and especially when the focus moves away from Armand and onto the adults’ complex relationship, all of it beautifully sustained by writer-director Tøndel – the grandson of Liv Ullman and Ingmar Bergman – in his debut feature-length film.

Salvable.

• Salvable
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

Salvable (15A) stars Toby Kebbell as Sal, a washed-up boxer marooned in the backwater of an English seaside town. A care worker who moonlights as a sparring partner (read: punchbag) for up-and-coming fighters, Sal is struggling to maintain a relationship with his 14-year-old daughter Molly (Kila Lord Cassidy).

So when Sal’s old pal and ex-con Vince (Shia LaBeouf, boasting an extraordinary accent of no particular origin) shows up offering Sal a slice of the underground white-collar boxing market just when Sal desperately needs a cash injection, the battered old pugilist has no choice but to get back in the ring again.

Written by Bjorn Franklin, who co-directs with Johnny Marchetta, Salvable retreads many of the old boxing movie tropes to good effect, and largely because Toby Kebbell is a quietly magnetic presence in the lead role, rendering Sal a brutally tough boxer in the ring but a tender and generously thoughtful personality to those in his care.