Before beginning the review, I would like to point out that this review will be spoiler-free, fully aware that this film was released in September 2020.
While most of the stories (and films) we have grown accustomed to these days have either seeing the Man of Steel’s death, becoming evil. This film, however, was a breath of fresh air, something that DC has needed for quite some time; IGN’s Jesse Schedeen described it best in his review, superhero fans may have trouble connecting with a hero they see as too decent and too powerful for his own good, and so these movies have tried to compensate by either placing the Man of Steel in mortal peril or challenging the relevance of Truth, Justice and the American Way. This film took a better approach with Superman, it shows us why a lonely boy like Clark Kent became the hero the city needed.
Superman: Man of Tomorrow is one of the first of DC’s Direct-to-Video projects since their last release Justice League Dark: Apokolips War had closed the door on DC Animated Continuity, but it was a perfect way to start over fresh with the hero who started it all, Superman. Something I have noticed about this film is that it has a few Similarities involving stories such as Superman Earth One Volume Two (Written by J. Michael Straczynski and Illustrated by Shane Davis) and Man and Superman (Written by Marv Wolfman and Illustrated by Claudio Castellini.) It starts with Kal-El (Darren Criss) very early in his Superhero Career, before he donned his iconic suit, coming to terms with his Kryptonian Heritage, also the struggle between his Alien and Human side.
It also brings some of Superman’s friends and allies such as Perry White, Lois Lane, Martian Manhunter (Ike Amadi), but no Jimmy Olsen (Strangely, he is MIA, which is odd in this case; ) but you also have his enemies who also make an appearance too, Lex Luthor (Zachary Quinto), Lobo (Ryan Hurst), Parasite (Brett Dalton). Again, it is really good to have a Superman film that is optimistic, none of that “New 52” edgy crap that we’ve been having to put up with for years; it is refreshing to have a Superman movie with relatively smaller stakes that are more concerned with the man beneath the suit than the spectacle of it all.
Final Grade:
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