Episode 182: Superman 2025

0:00Welcome to the Stew World Order. My name is Robert Stewart and every single episode I bring on an outstanding guess with which to talk comic book movies. Behind the scenes of each episode, that guest and I have pulled three random movies from our comprehensive list of graphic novel cinema and they've chosen the one they want to present to you today. From there we give the movie our ups and our downs and our overall rating out of ten to see which ones are true standouts in the field and which ones are just riding the crest of the popularity wave. If you enjoy the stew world order, there's two things you simply must do and the first is give it a five star review on your favorite podcast player. The second is to check out SWOProductions.com where we have new articles every single weekday

1:01including first time watchthroughs of classic television shows and deep dives into beloved franchises. You can also follow us on all the social media sites at SWO Productions. Now before we get into the episode, one final shout out to the Great Band Punchline, they provide all the music for the show and you can find more from them at their website punchlion.com. Now enjoy this new episode of the stew world order. Welcome back to another edition of the stew world order podcast where we review random

2:02comic book movies with our guest and we have a long time coming returning guest today. We have Sam Hurley from the movie reviews and 20 cues podcast. How are you today, Sam? I am doing very well. I am so excited to be here. I'm glad you can only see my top half so you can only see. I'm actually excited today but I'm telling you now I'm very excited. And you're right, long time. I've been waiting to come back. It's taken me years and years of therapy to get over the PTSD. Have you telling me this part of Man's just bad movie? I still was clomaxed. I was going to say the last time you were on we also talked in S-Mand movie and we had diametrically opposed opinions to it. I'm on a very lonely island when it comes to that movie. I understand it's okay. But yeah, it's my opinion, man. And I will defend that opinion till the death. Oh, 100%. Look, everyone's told us to have their own opinion. Doesn't matter how wrong they are, how stupid they are, how moron they are. Everyone can have their own opinion. It's perfectly fine.

3:04Well tell everyone what it is that you do at the movie reviews and 20 cues podcast. It's an incredibly inventive and insightful movie review podcast. It's one of my favorite to listen to. I love your accent if nothing else. You sound amazing. There's Paul and Wayne, sure. And I love your higher pitched accent is I think it's so soothing to listen to Sam. And I listen to your show and I just I love it so much and I love what you guys do you and Liz. So tell everybody what it is that you do at the movie reviews and 20 cues. Oh, thank you so much. I mean, yes, as you guys can hear by my accent, I am not of Americans. I am a New Zealander. We do sound incredibly similar to Australians. You basically take the annoying, nasally sound of an Australian and then you apply a monotone boringness to it that you kind of get from South Africans, I guess. And then you've got the New Zealander accent. That's the best way to describe it. So yeah, I mean, the movie reviews and 20 cues, the podcast is exactly what the name suggests. We take a movie.

4:04We ask 20 questions about it. When I started this dream of asking 20 questions about a movie, I thought to myself, you know, what would a critic sort of look at this movie and sort of ask, you know, like what things, you know, like what sort of patterns from the writer's childhood is he trying to convey? Like what sort of association with the human spirit? None of those questions whatsoever. Every where near movie reviews and 20 cues. We want to know how would you have put Nicholas Cage into this movie? We want to know what quote from this movie, the worst thing to hear immediately after you finish having sex. We want, you know, really in depth detailed analysis about the movie. That's why we ask what flavor pizza is this movie? We just go for the weirdest, stupidest, funniest, whatever we can come up with, occasionally insightful. We try to have at least one point at moment during the podcast that makes you stop and think and go, yeah, but the rest of the time it's just dick jokes. It's just bad humor. It's just me laughing at stuff. It's our good friend much who being edited down to basically just barely appearing on

5:07the podcast sometimes, you see some crazy things, Alfred Kahru providing a bit more level ahead in us, and then Liz, as you mentioned, Liz, absolute standout, delights are talk to the young's my yang, she's delightful. So yeah, I mean, that's the movie reviews and 20 cues podcast. Find it anywhere. How do you choose your movies to watch? Like what's the process that you guys go through? Is it just like, hey, I watched a movie this week, we should talk about it. Is there a pool that you choose from? What is your deciding process? So basically throw it out to the guys and then whatever they get excited about, I do. It's the best way to describe it because I've tried. I try all the time. I'm like, hey, I just saw this. Do you guys want to talk about it? And then just resounding silence in the group chat. It's a resounding silence. And then that's followed up by, oh, has anyone seen that new Space Jam movie? And it's like, oh, we're doing that, aren't we? We're going to have to do that. It's terrible, boys. Let's do it. It's terrible. And a bit of modern movies with some throwback episodes. Sometimes we see something that we like, look guys, you have to see this.

6:07We all have to see this. A great example of that was the episode that we just did in recently on the Housemaid. The Man to Sea Freed, the Sydney Swini, Ron Combe Thriller, horror. I don't know what to describe, but it has terrible movie. Liz Trowel me. I'll admit to it now. I didn't admit it to one of the podcast, she trolled me. She convinced me to go see it. I didn't want to go see it. She said Sydney Swini is great in it. And I was like, no, that means. And I was just meeting by that. But you know, she was then the movie. When I saw it, and I honestly took me four or five months into that episode, because I was deeply embarrassed at how well Liz got me into convincing me that she thought it was a good movie that I'd enjoy it. She did well, but delight, delight. So I mean, yeah, there's not really too much of a rhyme or reason. We just basically have a crack at stuff that interests us. I find we always try to go for really awesome movies or really crap movies, because if we do somewhere in the middle, it we also come out somewhere in the middle. So yeah. Yeah, you need something that you have passionate feelings about,

7:09because you end up with those like two and a half star movies that you're going to forget you ever watched in five days. Yeah, that's not good to talk about. You're not going to be excited. 100%. So that for us, if we record an episode, literally three or four days after we've seen something, and has to have been memorable, although we were certainly just going, what, like one battle after another, great film. I searched six months ago. I tried to record an episode on it. Much okay. We're talking about, I don't even remember any of this in the movie. Yeah. Where are we? So where did you land, assuming you've seen both of them, where did you land on the one battle after another versus sinners debate around the Oscars this year? I wish we pins at one. Oh, okay, that's fair. I loved weapons. I thought weapons... I mean, I'm not an Oscar. Yeah, it's true. But like, yeah, I mean, for me, sinners was over hyped by the time I went in the storage. Okay. And one battle after another, I've went into having seen the trailer and thinking,

8:12oh, this is going to be quite a comedic movie in the style that Magnolia was kind of comedic, I guess, for him, you know, like the director doesn't have much of a track record of, well, punch-strike love, you did that as well, didn't he? I mean, like going into it, I was like, it's going to be comedic and there was comedic elements, but I'm maybe just looking out of parts of them just being like, I wanted more. I needed a little bit more. None of them really satisfied me. All right. Well, that's fine. That's fine. I was all in on sinners, but I know what it's like. I've had movies that aren't even in the Oscar field, and I'm just like, how is that not being nominated? How is that not the winner? Yeah. So I know what it is. I know what it is. Weapons was... I thought weapons was fine. It was a little over my head. There's a scene where there's a machine gun in the sky, and I was like, I don't know what's happening anymore. If anything could have been deleted from the movie and made it a high-piply sandwich, that was the one scene where I was like, oh, really? Little on the nose. Little on the nose. Little on the nose. Yeah, we get it. You know, we get it. Yeah. All right.

9:12We're going to talk Superman 2025 today. When you came on the show, your three choices were Superman, Joker, Folly, Adieu, and Fullmetal Alchemist 2017, and you wrestled with this for a while. You went back and forth with me in Facebook Messenger on your choice. What was it that ultimately pulled you towards Superman? Well, here's the thing. I am convinced that you're never going to get anyone agreed to do Joker, Folly, Adieu. It's such a dense group of a movie, and us in New Zealand is, like, despite me being an asshole to my co-hosts, pretty much every podcast, we're quite nice people. We're like Canadians. We're quite friendly. We're quite non-audience. We're, you know, with Canada to America, New Zealanders to Australia, in a lot of ways. Ireland is England. I feel like a kinship of Irish people in Canadian people. We're all very friendly and, you know, kind of joker, or smart arseery and all that sort of stuff. So I was like, no one's going to ever want to do this, because it's just terrible. But then I was like, well, actually, I've already done an episode on it. And Superman came out right in the middle of me moving, like, islands of New Zealand,

10:16like a massive move. And so Superman came out, I didn't have any podcasting equipment. We didn't manage to do anything in terms of pumping out an episode. So I was like, I've never spoken about it. Ever. On a podcast. I was like, why not give the people that they've been asking for? I'm sure there's millions of people out there that are like, we need to know Sam Hurley's thoughts on Superman. How are we going to live in this world if we don't know his thoughts, you know? How? So I'm here. I'm here, guys. I'm here to give them. That's why you come to the Stu World Order to get Sam's thoughts on Superman 2025. Exactly. So when did you get around to seeing this movie? Was this your first time watcher? Did you see it in theaters? You just didn't have a chance to record or did you not get to see it because of the move? No, I managed to see it. So we were staying with my wife's parents and I went out one night and watched it, came home, said to my wife, it's really good you should watch it. And she said, I don't like superhero movies anymore, I've given up and I was like, okay, I was just fear because I've been so saturated with them. So I did manage to see it and then rewatched the first 60% last night and then I watched the last 40% this morning with my son, which for a three and a half year old, he did

11:21well. He enjoyed it. He did well. He did well. I don't know if it was going to be very suitable for him. I certainly got on them past the part where they're in the pocket dimension, whatever you want to call it, which I thought was like maybe a little bit too dark and scary for him. So he got to sit down and watch the end. So yeah. We just, I'm in a segue off here. We just the last time I visited my family, my five year old nieces there. And somehow the topic of the thriller music video came up and they were like, this five year old nieces could watch the thriller video. And I was the only one that was like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do that? Because like my sister in law has so much anxiety. She tells my niece everything is scary and so my niece is like, oh, she's scared of everything. And they were like, no, we can watch the thriller video. And in my head, I was like, these people think the entire thriller video is just him dancing. Yeah. Like they're not thinking about the where we've seen at the beginning. They're not thinking about the zombies beating down the house later on in the video. They think the entire thing's the sure. Let's watch thriller. I think it ended up okay.

12:23Oh, that's good. Because there are so many different like properties or whatever you want to call them out there that I'm like, is this suitable? Should I be showing him this? Yeah. Like he's found my graphic novel collection, for instance, I've got some of those and he's like, oh, I want to read this Batman. I'm like, yeah, I'll read you the killing joke. Sure. I'll get right on that. That's easily suitable for children. Yeah, spoiler alert. The Joker fires a bullet through Beckville's spine, you know, like paralyzing you. And then there's implications that he might do something to her afterwards. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what we should be reading. Well, the Dark Knight returns. He's not like, a book we should be reading, sure. He's just put down the hash storyline and he's like, I want to read this. I'm like, no, I can't. These aren't kids. No. It's a shame, isn't it? Like they look like they should be and then you just can't. Exactly. Yeah. All right, we will start talking about Superman now and we will kick off with the ups as we always do in Sam.

13:24I will let you start us off. What is your first up for this iteration of Superman? I liked that we've turned away from such a dark and dour Superman and Henry Kevel, who I'm not trying to dunk on the Snyderversaer and it's all stuff, but it's hard not to talk about this movie about referencing everything that's come before it. I feel like we've had more of a return back to the Reeve Superman, which is a Superman that James Gunn has listened to with the criticisms and gone, okay, we need to put this in there. He wants to keep fighting. He wants to keep saving people. He's got that real optimism about him. He's got that real sort of like a level of naivety a little bit. You know, he can be easily tricked and convinced of stuff by Lex, Ralea, people or whatever. But we've gone back to that original Superman, the one that's full of hope, the boy scout and all that sort of stuff. I really like that. That was like, you've got to, with any film, you've got to nail the main character, whether they're going to be evil or good or whatever or somewhere in between. You have to nail that depiction of that character and I feel like they've done well with him. Depping set, I'm not completely sold on him actually being Superman.

14:29You're not sold on Corrin, Swat? Not as much as I'd like to be. I don't, okay. We're saving for the Downs. We're definitely saving for the Downs. We're about you, Steve. Yeah, absolutely. That's my first stop. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I like the screenwriting here. I do like Corrin, Swat and it, for me, it's hard to separate. You know, what's his performance, Visa V? What's the screenwriting? But I do like the idea that Lois says to him, you see every person on earth and you think they're beautiful and wonderful and perfect. And, you know, she sees people and she sees like questions and negativity and everything. And that's what you want Superman to be. You don't want Superman to be an asshole. You don't want him to be like, look, I'm Jesus. Do you get all the Jesus metaphors in my movie? My arms are split and I'm Jesus. And it's like, yeah, we get it, Zach and Henry. We get it. And I like Caval. I like Caval a great deal. I'm not going to best merge his performances. But I think this movie does better work with the character of Superman. And yeah, it reminds me of Christopher Reeve.

15:30It reminds me of Superman is a guy who wants to help people at his core. And that's who this is. And yeah, it just kindness is the new punk rock and stuff like that. I mean, that's what I want my Superman to be. So this makes me happy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Speaking of actors and characters, I will give my first up to Nicholas Holt, who I think just disappears into the role of Lex Luthor. Like, for an actor that is as well known as Nicholas Holt, I've seen him in so many things. I've seen him in warm bodies. I've seen him in the X-Men movies. I've seen him in just a ton of other things. And then I watch this and I don't see him at all. I just see his portrayal of Lex Luthor. And it comes across as so genuine and so malicious. And I get like, OK, this is what you're going for. You're going for this scrawny, weak version of Lex who admits that he's envious of Superman. But he's going to go out and he's going to use all his brains and all his intellect to put Superman down. And I just, I think he does such an excellent job

16:32of just becoming this version of Lex Luthor. Yeah, I'm 100% with you. He, Nicholas Holt, I feel, is one of the most underrated actors around today. Like, he fully inhabits and embodies this role. Way more than he did beast, I'll say that. But like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's becoming Lex Luthor. I'm like, this is like phenomenal. And it's interesting you bring that up because it's, like, every time I see a Tom Cruise movie, I'm like, there's Tom Cruise, you know, it's, for me, he, you know, he takes me out of it. I'm like, there's just another version of Ethan Hunt, this sort of arrogant level of whatever you is. But like, yeah, so to actually hook me into a movie and actually make me believe that he is that person. 100% I grew up with you. That monologue he delivers where he talks about how he is jealous. There's jealous of him for that sort of stuff. And like, it's enough for you as a viewer because of no, we're living in this world where everyone loves the Joker and everyone loves Thanos did nothing wrong and all that sort of stuff. We need to see something from the villain, but they can't just be this G.C. Eisenberg. You know, I'm evil for him.

17:33People say it's like, we can't, we don't want that anymore. We want development, we want motivation, we want something out of a villain that makes us go, holy shit, I can actually see what this guy, why this guy is the way he is. I don't agree with it. I don't know how he commits his 30 L.A. people to join up and hang out with him and fight Superman, but he does it. You know, I really adjoined Nicholas Holton. I'm with you as well. And Rachel Brunner-Shane, I can't remember his name. What's your last name? Brass Nahan. Brass Nahan. Yeah. By the way, massive fan of the Marvels is Mrs. Mabel. Love that TV show. She is phenomenal in that. And I loved her as Lois. I thought she was really good as Lois. Yeah, we had like a level of like, complication to it. You know, there was the career-minded woman, but there was also the woman that obviously saw, you know, a future in the partnership in this guy, but it was sort of like, I don't know what I'm doing on that sort of stuff. We got more out of her as a character than I was expecting. I'll put it that way. And as I said, love the actress. I think she did enough to convey to me like,

18:34holy, yeah, this is Lois Lane. Like anyone that knows Lois Lane from the comics, this is Lois Lane. This is here in a nutshell. So I thought that was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she also had a tough legacy to live up to because Margot Ketter was a good Lois Lane. Amy Adams was a good Lois Lane, honestly. I mean, for what they gave her to do in those movies. And this is another case where like, I think the screenwriting helped to Bros. and a hand out a great deal where she's given this character and, you know, it's so easy to just write Superman says, I love you, Lois Lane says, I love you too. But no, this version of Lois holds off on it and she's taken a backbite and she doesn't know what to do with it. And they've only been dating for three months. And you know, do you tell someone you love them after three months? Well, Superman does, but does Lois Lane. And now I really enjoyed her performance. She does a really good job in this. I do like the three months because literally the last scene is that part where Perry White's like, how long are they me dating? And Jimmy Olson about three months. So he's such a good reporter there or an investigative reporter there. He's like, he knows, you know, gone is the comical

19:35ditsy dumb Jimmy that no one cares about or the Jimmy in the side of her, so got murdered at the start of a movie and no one knew who he was. I remember seeing that and I was like, oh, you know that reporter, they got shot by the, well, something else. That was Jimmy Olson. And I'm like, how can they do that to Jimmy? That's a named, that's a named dc character that they've just executed without any rhyme or reason. Any lies, whatever I was like, what the hell? So I mean, bring him in. I can't remember the actor's name that played him. I thought he did it right as well. Like he's that right level of goofy at the same time. Like, yes, he has his time to shine and he does really well. But yeah, I think I think the casting overall, I was going for a broad stroke. And I think the casting overall was pretty decent. There wasn't anyone really that stood out to me is like, oh, you know, like maybe go and tweet to us, oh, we'll talk about him a little bit later. But yeah, I mean, there wasn't anyone to me that I was like, oh, what are you doing in this? You know? Yeah, speaking on the casting front, we haven't gotten into Edie Githigi as Mr. Terrific,

20:36Nathan Philly on as Guy Gardner. I thought they were tremendous in this movie. Nathan Philly on I Love All the Time ever since Serenity and Firefly. But he's funny in this movie. I like the, again, talking about Lois when she's like that haircut should be against your vows. So it's so good. But come and anchor it. You know, like this is, that's what it looks like. Yeah, second the comic. So you have to make him look like a bulkheaded idiot. You know? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, I will round us out on the ups here and say, we talked about all these characters and we've talked about the moment kind of. We've talked around it anyway. The interview sequence where Lois Lane is interviewing Superman is such a good moment for giving both of their characterizations. Because you see Lois is this hard-nosed reporter who takes what she does seriously and she's not gonna let the fact that she's dating this guy, obscure the fact that she wants real answers to these questions. And at the same time, you see the Clark is this character who he's not thinking about what's just

21:37but he's thinking about what's right. He's thinking about what's good. And that's what you want out of Superman. You want a Superman who maybe doesn't think things through but he's doing things to save lives. Like that's the most important thing to him. And I just, I know people, particularly people that like the Snyder movies have pointed to the interview scene and said it makes the movie worse. No, I don't see it. I think it's such a good scene. You get such great characterization for what the movie wants to do with this iteration of Lois and this iteration of Clark and they come together and have this moment where the acting is so strong between them and they're arguing and they're bickering and I like, well, you can't use that and stuff like that. It's just so good. And it really tells you who these characters are. I love the interview scenes where I'm with you 100% I thought that made the movie. I feel there's certain aspects of this that actually propelled it into being a good movie. And that's one of them for me. That's one of them. Yeah, I mean, talking about other scenes, I love the Hawkeye just dropped that rogue-president guy out of the sky.

22:39What? I don't know why I found that so amusing but it was like good. It was just like a movie not pulling punches, which I thought was really good. I will talk about it now. I genuinely liked the twist about his Kryptonian parents. You know, yes. Yeah, I spent such a good part of the movie after that thinking to myself, no, the engineer or whatever she's called has doctored this footage. We live in the world of AI, it's not real, it's the, or it's the, God, the outrage monkeys or whatever they call it, it's like somebody's killed. Outrage monkeys, by the way, I was like, this is brilliant. This is what I imagine. The plastic variety of the people that are on the internet writing look like. You know, in their day-to-day lives, the haters that are on there just, I was like, you know, that's something. So I mean, like I liked that. And I let the twist about his parents, you know, that just conquer the world, you know, take as many wives as you want. I was like, this is, this is so out there. And like I said, because I fought about it

23:41for so long afterwards and was hoping it wasn't real, that was more of like the more that I hoped it wasn't real, the more I was like, that was a really good twist. That would really got me. So yeah. As like a, not a lifelong Superman fan, but somebody who's been a really big Superman fan for several years at this point, the thing that I've always thought make Superman Superman is, man, park cat. Yes. They're the ones who raised him, they're the ones who instilled in him the morality and I think a lot of people get stuck on what he's an alien. How does he relate to his alien parents? And this movie said like, was alien parents were assholes? Don't worry about that. And I like that. I love this interpretation. We're like, they weren't altruistic. They weren't sending their son away to save Earth. They were just sending their son away to save Kryptonian culture. And yeah, it's the kent who make him who he is. And that's that Superman again to me. That's what I will keep saying about this movie is like everything about this movie. That's my Superman. That's what I've wanted to see on screen since Christopher Reeve did it with Richard Donner back in 1978.

24:44Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. All right, Sam, give me your first down for Superman. Yeah, so like I mentioned, I wasn't really that sold on him as Superman. Nor was I that sold on him as Clark Kent. I didn't really, okay. It was, it was one of these things like Henry Cavill, you look at Henry Cavill, you think, yeah, that is Superman. You know, like just put aside all of his actions and all that sort of stuff. If you look at this still image of Henry Cavill as Superman, you go, that's what I imagine Superman would look like. Similarly, judging by Ben Affleck's attitude, it's like, that's what Bruce Wayne is like. I can't really see Ben Affleck as Batman, but I know that he would make a good Bruce Wayne. So him, he was like, he was fine. I don't know why I just wasn't that sold on him. I just sort of felt like there was just a little bit missing, which kind of like pulled me down a little bit. Yeah. I haven't already put my finger on it. I feel like because he doesn't really inhabit one of the Ella, but at the same time he doesn't, or at Joe, but Barthon, kind of feeling a bit disappointed.

25:45That's fair. I will say the thing that bothers me the most about, and this isn't a corn sweat problem, but the portrayal of Superman is I don't like the suit. I don't like the emblem. I don't know why it's not a simple ass. I don't know why they decided to go with the bar instead of the simple ass. I don't like, like I get that it's colorful, and that's supposed to portray that he's good according to the trailers I've seen for the Supergirl movie, but it just, it looks like it's made out of weird fabric whereas the Cavalcoshtume, like you said, you look at it and go like, oh yeah, that's Superman. Yeah, yeah. That said, I like that they brought the trunks back. I'm pro trunks. I think they should always have the underwear on the outside for Superman, but I didn't like the rest of the outfit. So just seeing him as Superman never quite settled in for me because of the outfit, but I did like Corrin sweats. I'll defend him a little bit there. Yeah, I mean, but no, it means I might be negative about him. I just feel short-changed a little bit, I guess. Like I'm just so middle of the road on him. The other negative I sort of had about this is,

26:50like, so he, one of the biggest problems of the MCU is that they invariably end up fighting a different vision of themselves. And I was like, that's been leveled at the MCU so much. And for them to have this in that movie, I was like, oh, really? Like, is he supposed to be Bizarro? Is that who he's supposed to be? That's what I wrote down is that he's supposed to be Bizarro, yeah. But like, if you're gonna go Bizarro, lean into it. Bizarro's insane. Yeah. He's so odd. Yeah. And weird and like, for those that don't know who Bizarro is, he basically looks like a Frankenstein division of Superman where everything's, he's completely white. Everything's rougher on the edges. He looks really odd. And so to have emo Superman come out and say, no, no, give me something, you know, and like, yeah, that one, I just didn't really land that well for me. The other thing too, because this has that sort of lens that's after a couple of the other scenes that sort of really didn't land and make much sense to me, is, and also talking about level, like, you know,

27:52criticisms that have been leveled at these movies. At one point there, they're fighting a giant cage, right? Everyone in metropolis is just chill. They're just hanging out. In fact, it's in make it even worse, because there's one guy who I think is running like a like a food truck or something and they just keep cutting back to him. And he just looks more and more pacified with an empty shot. He's just, oh, whoa, whoa, that's crazy, you know, just like, what the fuck are you doing? Leave, run away, get the hell out of there. This time building is sitting there at their desk. It's like their boss is like, I know it's outside, but no, I was going home. We've got like reports that need to be done. I need this on my desk by four o'clock, so you know, I'm like, this is just absolute nonsense. When it takes an intentive dimensional rift to start ripping through the entire city, people are like, oh, we should probably evacuate, right? And even then when it doesn't evacuate, we still have periwight, several hours playing Jimmy Holtz and pitching the story

28:53about why Lex Lufus is bad. I'm like, that makes sense. You know, these people are so logistical that they don't want to leave. They want to be the ones that get the story before anyone else. Should we do this on our laptops? Well, we're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's just sit down here while the entire building is running. And I love that they added the guy, is the sports reporter or something that they just take along for the ride. And the whole time he's just terrified. He doesn't get a seat, you know, that guy, that's great, but like, ah, it just, it always irks me when I watch these movies. But then part of me, this is the movie reviews in 20 cues part of me that critically over-analyses things for no reason. Makes me think to myself, are these people so used to join Kauju Monsters popping up in their city that it's just, like it's just a little Tuesday. It's just, ah, yeah. Ah, well, the Justice Gang will show up. The entirety, yeah. The entirety metropolis, the entirety of metropolis works on the Waffle House principle where the Waffle House in America does not shut down

29:56unless the hurricane is right on top of it. That's the joke about the, the, the, the, the, the states in the hurricane belt is, if the Waffle House is still open, you're safe. But the hurricane's not that bad yet. And I assume that in the Metropolis universe of this movie, that's how they operate. Unless the Kaiju is actively stepping on your building, you stay at work, you're doing your job, god dammit. Yeah, okay, yeah. Oh, it just takes me straight out of the movie. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's fair. I completely get that. I'll get into my first down here and say, I think the ending is a bit too easy. And maybe that's the cynicism I have of living in America in 2026, but the daily bugle or the daily planet, sorry, I'm getting my Spider-Man's and Superman's confused. The daily planet publishes an article that says, like, look, we have proof that Lex Luthor's a dickhead. And everybody in the world is like, oh, well, Lex Luthor's a dickhead and we love Superman again. Dude, I live in America. I know how this works. There'd still be 50% of the population of the country going,

30:58like, no, we love Lex Luthor. It doesn't matter if there's evidence that he raped children. It doesn't matter. We still love Lex Luthor. So I don't buy how easy this movie ends for everybody. It's so clean and it's so neat and everybody's happy at the end. And I guess that's what you want in this movie in particular. But I live in the real world and I know it's not that easy. Like, you're not going to get 50% of the population just turn on Elon Musk because of one news article that comes out. So it's funny because it's just like, all right. Even earlier in the movie, they do that with Superman. They're like, oh, he has a news article about his parents being dicks. And then everyone's like, oh, screw him. You know, it's like, watch the whole article. No one's determined if it's from a reasonable source. No one's done anything, but they're all like, oh, we hate you, Superman. And he just flies off. And it's like, really? And then yeah, the end is like, oh, he's really bad. And like you said, there's apparently this cult that loves Lex Luthor. Like how else are you explaining how all these people work for him and do all this dodgy stuff?

31:58You know, like how what? You know, and so for them to be like, oh, yeah, he's really bad. I'm like, no, I was the same as you. I said, no, it doesn't make that way. It doesn't, doesn't. No, it's not that easy in the real world, unfortunately. But I guess it's, I guess the movie's about hope. It's supposed to give me hope that things will get better, but I don't know. It just, it made me feel like, man, I wish this is how things actually work. I'm with you, man. And I'll get into my second down here and say that the problem with comic book movies, and obviously I love them. I have an entire podcast dedicated to them. I'm all about comic book movies, and I will excuse them any chance I get. But boy, in the third act for a little bit, this movie becomes a CGI vomit nightmare when they're in the, the anti-proton river. And they're in the pocket dimension. And it's just like, oh, this is the CGI just threw up all over this movie. And I don't know what's happening anymore. It doesn't look good. Everything to that point, the Kaiju looked good.

32:58Ultraman looks good. All the fighting sequences, green lanterns stuff has looked good. And then you get to anti-proton river. And it's like, nope, you've lost me because this is just a mess. Which is a shame because I felt like after the Furory Road that basically showed Hollywood, how you guys should probably start using practical effects again because it makes your movies look way better. And then we had that sort of fly on effect where the Star Wars movies were like, oh, yeah, we're going to do the same. We're going to start using practical stuff. And I think Marvel started doing it a little bit as well. And it's a shame that they don't do it more often. I mean, the big one for me, and this was crypto, you know, he's not real. And I have a way more of a buy-in with crypto if he was a real dog. If they used a real one, and the part of me that looks at that and thinks how much of a pain in the ass it would be to have it to get a dog to do everything you want. And you never work with dog and animals. It's like, it's going to be so painful for James Gunn. So James Gunn's gone, yeah, I'm just going to make this some animators problem. I'm just going to ruin some animators life.

34:01I'm making him animate a dog and be very specific. Has to be lovable, has to be charming, has to be kind of, you know, little bit cheeky, you know, you have to do all this in some animators. I'm going to be up to midnight every night for the next three months, trying to, you know, just say, yes. Yeah, you guys are, here you go, have a whole team. You guys have to do this sort of stuff. So I mean, I would have much preferred a real life crypto. I mean, I know he's, you know, gone away with Groot and Rockets and stuff like that in the gardens. He's, you know, and people love those characters. So he's just like, oh, sweet who cares. But, you know, it's, I'm what you get. I like any chance he's practicality they should. Anyway, it just does become a mess of C.J. F.S. Talking about the ending as well, the first time around watching it, didn't really get phased by this. But the bit where he gets covered in the nanites and then he flies into the sky and then he flies down again. I'm like, what? How's that taking them off you? Like, is he, is he not too unconscious and as a result, she can't control the nanites anymore? Was that the idea? But he just took off into the, I think so, yeah.

35:05If I could rewrite it, I would happily have had him fly towards the sun and then sort of like coming at an angle to Earth where he just burns up on reentry and they all melt. You know, something a little bit more sensible maybe, but. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. It comes down again. It's the same logic that I watch my kids apply when they climb up a playground and they're like, how do I get down? Yeah. You get down by falling onto me and injuring both my wrists. And they're like, you're free for freeing out. But you don't seem to car yourself. Yeah, well, the message that my parents sent with me, I had never heard the second half before. Well, I'd say what you wanted that message to me and says, hold on more about you than what anyone meant for it to me. You don't understand. I'm not who I thought I was. They sent me here to hurt people.

36:07Parents aren't for telling their children who they're supposed to be. We are here to give you all two. Help you. Make foolsy cells all on your own. Your choices, Claire, your actions, that's what makes you who you are. Okay, we are back. We talked the ups and downs of Superman from 2025. We're going to give it our score out of 10 and our reasons why. And Sam, we're going to start with you because I always like to finish on the higher score. And I can't imagine I'm not higher than you on this one. Just based on how much I really like this movie.

37:08So Sam, what is your score and why? I suspect you might be. This feels a little dirty for me. Listen, because as I said, our podcast, we just do whatever we want. We give a score out of 10,000 because that's how accurate we want to be. So you ask us, what did you give this movie? And I would not have a clue what I scored any movie that I've ever reviewed. But for this one, I'm going to go. Seven, six and a half, seven, seven. Yeah, somewhere in there. Okay, I'm going to play around a bit here. Sorry, man. I'm going to go, yeah, can I give a half? Can I go six and a half? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, look, I enjoy it. I really enjoyed it. Parts of it, I didn't really enjoy it. The first time watch was amazing. I would have given an 8 out of 10 after the first time watch. I'm a little bit more critical of the second time around. Not a seven, seven, actually. Don't look at it. Seven. Yeah. Okay, that's fair. I love this movie. I love this movie. A great deal. I think particularly after the Snyder verse, and I've mentioned several times about how watching

38:10this movie, I thought, well, this is my Superman. It just made me feel so good. And there's nothing, there's nothing sad about this movie. Make no mistake, but there were moments in this movie where I almost choked up because I just loved what was happening so much. And it really made me feel like when I've read Superman comics, these are the adaptations of my favorite comics. These are the adaptations of my favorite things that he's done. This is an easy nine for me at least. I really, yeah, I really love this movie. I can't wait for Supergirl, though I don't anticipate it being anywhere near as good as this. I think that's going to be silly fun, whereas this was more hopeful fun. I'm real excited to see what James Gunn does going forward with the DC universe and hopefully various mergers and the selling of HBO Max and everything doesn't screw around with what James Gunn wants to do. But I really want to see him get a good unfettered path to tell a DC universe story. And I'm very excited for it.

39:10He brought her up. How'd you feel about her little cameo at the end of Supergirl? It's fine. I've never read the story that they're basing this iteration of Supergirl on. I think it's called Woman of Tomorrow. I've never read it. I'm not a huge Tom King fan because he doesn't really tend to stick to established characterization. He just tells a story he wants to tell and then sticks and establish characters face on it. So I haven't gotten around to it. I don't know much about this like carous kind of a badass and just wants to go off and get drunk and slug aliens in the face. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But I thought I did think the cameo was fun. I thought the cameo was fun and I'm quite interested to see Jason Momoa who's pretty much become New Zealand's most newest resident. He's always here. He's always popping up in the news here and he loves it here. And he, you know, I'm pretty sure he's living in a part of New Zealand. Recently he DJed at a local pub. It's like, what? Oh, what? Oh, like not a huge nightclub or anything like a pub that you go to on.

40:12And he did. He did like the seven to eight o'clock session on a Friday night at a pub. And it's like, what the? Anyway, I'm excited to see him as Lobo. I remember seeing an interview of him where he went into DC. They said, I can you come in and read for a character? And he was like, Lobo, yes. And then we want you to be Aquaman. He's like, what? Yeah, Lobo suits him much better. 100% suits him much better. Yeah. So yeah, looking forward to Supergule. Yep. Speaking of which we'll get into today's talking point. And it's going to be a really simple one. By the time this episode comes out, most of the movies from 2026 will have been released. But we just talked about Supergirl and our anticipation for that and seeing Momoa's Lobo. What is your most anticipated movie the rest of the way for this year? Yeah. Anyone that listens to the podcast knows how much of an MCU fan I am. And wow, what a surprise. This is going to be a vengeance doing that. That being said, I've been a Punisher fan since God knows when.

41:13And then have lost a bit of fandom for Punisher over the years after the wrong type of people adopted him. Similar to how I used to be a Star Wars fan, Master Star Wars fan. And then I found Star Wars fans are horrible to deal with sometimes. So not all Star Wars fans, hashtag whatever. But yeah, so it's Spider-Man as well. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to Punisher and Spider-Man being in a movie together. I think that's awesome given that they given that Punisher debuted in a Spider-Man comic way back when Amazing Spider-Man once you know, and I'm very much looking forward to that. So and the Odyssey looking forward to the Odyssey. I'm not a massive Nolan fan, but that looks good. And just to shout out, that would mean me and the We Watch The Fingues did a fantasy movie draft. We drafted movies on the one after the other for 2026 on the premise that we're trying to draft the ones that get the biggest box office. And so hence why I'm talking about the Odyssey and Avengers because they're my last two movies that I drafted that I'm like fingers crossed they both do over. Both of them. Hey, you got both of those in one draft. I got the Odyssey.

42:14What the hell were they picking? Oh, like Super Mario, minions. Oh, okay. Man, minions. Yeah, I was amazed that Odyssey was still available when it came back to me. I picked Avengers Doomsday around three and then around five was back to me. And I got the Odyssey. I also picked Jackson, Michael, sorry, the Michael that's done way better than it. I got hoppers. I wish I picked Masters of the Universe. I'm annoyed I picked Hoppers over Masters of the Universe. But I also picked Mandalorian and GrooKoop. So the Michael is being evened out by the Mandalorian a little bit here. But yeah, fingers crossed. Mandalorian had a good opening weekend, but boy, you've created after that. Sure did. And having gone to see it, I know exactly why. But that's the story for another day, guys. All right, Sam, before we head out, let everybody know where they could find movie reviews and 20 cues and you on the socials. Yeah, for sure. If you search movie reviews on all the socials, you should be on movie reviews and 20 cues. You should be able to find us. We're not very prolific on there.

43:15But yeah, you can find us and then there the same for the podcast. Movie reviews and 20 cues. The 20 is spent with numbers, not like spout out TWE is just the two and zero hyphen cues, the hyphenese. So yeah, that's us. Find us anywhere. All right. Well, thank you so much. I promise I won't wait as long to have you back on the show next time. You know about the new format. I did tell you about it. So I'm excited to have you on in the new format days. I did give you the choice. Whenever you asked to be on, I said you could do the new format or you could do the standing format. And you wanted to do the standing format. So we talk Superman. Is it better than Joker too? Now that you've rewatched it and you get to compare them in your head, did you make the right choice? 100%. 100%. The only, the only, the only real, I'll a negative that I haven't brought up that I've completely forgot about is that the Superman does that I don't think Joker does because I don't think Joker does anything well. But the only other negative that I remembered from this movie that I was like, I should really talk about that. Common Hollywood choke is characters having a conversation.

44:17And the location of the conversation swaps vastly, but their continuation of the conversation goes, oh, okay. I just, sorry, it's just, just pop the wrong, I don't know, I have to talk about it. They're at the bottom of, you know, the daily planet and they're talking about legs. And then they're halfway up the stairs and the conversation continues from one point to the other. And then they're on the roof and the conversation is, it's like, chronologically, it's just followed seats, but it's like, I'm just imagining just like, hey, we need to talk about legs. Yeah, let's talk about them. Okay, well, let's go up to the stairs. Let's walk half the flight to stairs. You must start again. Okay, cool. And then they get to the halfway up. They're like, anyway, back to their conversation. Okay, now let's save the rest for the roof. Very long pauses while they're in the middle of their conversation. Yeah, I didn't notice that, but your right movies do do that a lot. Yeah, that's, that's right up there with ending every phone conversation without saying goodbye. And walking into a bar and saying, two beers, please. And the bar scene is like, yeah, sure.

45:18Yeah, he's exactly what you're after. It's the way we have beer brand beer, of course, waiting on tab. That's the one. And the other one too is when they're driving a car and they turn around to look at the passenger for about a minute. And it's like, how have you not crashed? 47 times. Yes. It's clear the car's being towed like we get it. But you know, that being said, that was one of my biggest negatives of this movie, compared to Fall Hey, jeep. Woo. Well, I'm glad you made the right choice. I'm glad you were happy with it. And I still have not had to watch Joker 2. So I feel good about that too. So someday you don't think anyone will choose it for the show. I'm sure somebody will eventually before we completely switch formats, but who knows? Maybe I'll never have to watch it. I'm kind of hoping somebody will never choose the Zack Snyder Justice League just because I don't want to spend four hours watching a movie again. Whether you go, if I have these offered to me, I bet you next time I pick it's probably going to be Joker Fall Hey, jeep.

46:18Zack Snyder Justice League. And then something equally as you catwoman or something. But yeah, I mean, I'll put it this way. If I had to watch Fall Hey, jeep, like the last hour of it or whatever with my son this morning, I would have been texting you from the local police station. It's the same. Hey, I've been arrested. We're showing your son Joker. I mean, even showing a legal age to be from Joker Fall Hey, jeep is probably illegal. My country. That's that's frowned upon by all people. I know. It might be illegal. We've got some pretty interesting rules here. I think we've maybe banned Joker Fall Hey, jeep from public and private screenings. All right, Sam. Well, thank you again so much for being on. I really appreciate your time. I know time zones are a bitch to work with whenever we're coordinating with you, but you made it work and I'm really happy to have had you on again. Oh, it's been my pleasure. I'm glad that I don't have to have the PTSD of like, how did you not like that for the next two years or how have you long it's been?

47:19It's up in on here. And we're going to get you back. I've got to say this. And you have not listened to this man on our episode. Oh, that's great. Me, you and Jason reviewing the Hulk Hogan classic No Holtz Bard. It was probably one of my podcasting highlights for many a year because men. I'm casting. Well, we even Jason tweeted about it was this love just recorded the best episode I've done in years. And I was like, I think all three came out to plan that one as much as that movie had No Holtz Bard. We had No Holtz Bard and talking about the side of the podcast where if you review a really truly terrible movie, you're so much more passionate about it. We ripped that to pieces. And I use rip because the character's name is rip. But like the character's name is rip. And that episode is no dookie. That was amazing. I love that episode. We're going to get you back. Suburban Commando. Oh, central muscles. They're all waiting for a little bit more. They're all waiting for the ground waiting for us to just destroy the only one I've already

48:27seen is suburban commando. I've never seen Mr. Nanny. I've never seen Santa with muscles. So whatever you guys want to do, it's been a long time since I've seen suburban commando. Like I was a kid when that came out. I've not seen all of them, but I have not seen them over the age of 13. Sorry, it's been a long, long time. All right, everybody. Thank you for joining us this episode. And until next time, take care. Cheers.

49:36But like the ride took up me down to the round, every once in a while ago.