LDS Movie Reviews: Superman (2025)

I just came back from the opening day premiere of the latest Superman movie. Going into it, I had some very mixed feelings. Superman is one of my favorite comic book characters of all time. Because of his origin as an alien raised by humans, writers have been able to tell some incredible stories. These have ranged from the utterly fantastical, with him fighting wizards and dragons, to the mind-bendingly sci-fi, such as when he was turned into a being of pure energy and split into two separate beings – Superman Red and Superman Blue. (Yes, the 90s were a desperate time for comics.) He has even featured in some incredible dystopian stories such as Superman: Red Son and Kingdom Come. He even died and came back to life, something that may have broken comics forever. (Language warning on that last one.)

Throughout all these diverse stories, the thing that has held them together, that continues to hold them together – the thing that makes Superman matter – is what he stands for:

Hope

Superman is about hope, a hope for a better today, hope for a better tomorrow, hope in the goodness of others, hope that if you do the right thing then what is right will come to you, hope that might doesn’t make right, and the hope that those with might will do what is right. Even the famous Superman S-symbol has come to be a Kryptonian symbol for hope.

Every great Superman movie has had hope as its central message. You have to nail this central fact about the character, that Superman is a symbol of hope, or your movie will be a garbage Superman movie no matter how it might excel in production or special effects. The centrality of hope is why the Christopher Reeves movies are so beloved, despite some of the dumbest plots imaginable. The absence of hope of why the Zack Snyder movies are so terrible.

This movie, Superman (2025) is full of Hope.

Hope vs. Despair

In fact, the central dichotomy of the movie can be set up as a contras between Hope and Despair. Superman is hope. He came from a dying planet, fell to Earth, was raised by a working class American family, had faith in his fellowman instilled in him, and was taught that his duty was to love, inspire, and serve humanity. He has Hope in humans are and in who they can become. In contrast, we have Lex Luthor, played phenomenally by Nicholas Hoult. Late in the movie, Lex is given a monologue about how he is motivated by envy in a speech that could have been taken directly from the comic books. But there is a layer deeper than envy at work in Lex’s character.

Lex isn’t just envious of Superman’s power nor is he simply afraid of what an unhinged Superman would look like. No, the problem for Lex is that Superman, by his very existence, proves that humans will never achieve what he sees as their grand, perhaps even cosmic, destiny. No matter what miracles of technology that humans make, and Lex pulls off some incredible ones in the movie, they will only ever be second best. How impressive is the best airplane to a being that can fly on his own accord? How impressive is the best armor compared to a man who is invulnerable to every bullet, missile, or bomb ever used against him? Superman’s superiority and Man’s inferiority, Man’s inability to ever match Superman because at our best we will always have to rely on technology to level the playing field, leaves Lex despondent, without hope. Lex Luthor is what happens when the greatest man of his generation gives in to despair.

The Real World Consequences

Because Superman is the essence of Hope and Lex Luthor is the personification of Despair their clash is inevitable. Faith and Fear, Hope and Despair, are incompatible masters. You must choose one, you cannot serve both. Consequently, you can see how their dispositions affect and effect the world around them. Clark Kent, because he radiates hope, draws hopeful people to him. It isn’t just that he inspired the people of Metropolis and the fickle news media. It is that men and women like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, people who believe in their ability to make the world a better place and actively work to do that, are drawn to him. And Clark does everything he can to save everyone he can because he believes in the good and value of everyone and every living creature.

In contrast, Lex has no confidantes. He is surrounded either by sycophants like his employees, emptyheaded ego stokers like Eve, or American politicians and military leaders who see the world only in terms of threats, dangers, and darkness, like Rick Flagg. They have no hope of making the world a better place. At most they hope to torture and murder their enemies for the good of the power, prestige, and wealth of the US government, themselves, or both. As a result, Lex doesn’t care whose lives or who dies. His experiments risk the safety of the Earth itself. (Something the US government also seemingly knows about and does nothing to stop because Lex’s technological assistance to their goals is more important to them.) Lex regularly put Metropolis, a city of millions, in danger chasing his vendetta against Superman. He murders people casually and even his loyal employees are sacrificed indifferently in pursuit of his larger goals. Death stalks Luthor wherever he goes because self-destruction is the inevitable result of despair.

This contrast between Hope and Despair extends to the larger world as well in the conflict between the fictional nations of Boravia and Jarhanpur. Superman intervened in the conflict to stop Boravia from invading Jarhanpur before the movie began and the fallout of this action, using his powers to effect the geopolitical status of the world has massive consequences shown throughout the movie. One of the effects thematically is to set the stage for a conflict between the forces of Hope and Despair. As shown in the movie trailers, the people of Jarhanpur are inspired by Superman’s protection of them. So, when Boravia decides to invade again when Superman is distracted fighting on the other side of the planet, the people of Jarhanpur determine to resist the invasion. This despite having few guns and armed mostly with farm implements while the Boravian invaders are armed to the teeth with modern military technology. The symbol of Jarhanpur’s resistance? A yellow flag made from torn rag with the S-symbol on it and the chant of, “SUPERMAN! SUPERMAN! SUPERMAN!”

Better to die with hope on your lips than live with a heart full of despair under the boot of a dictator.

The Three Greatest Virtues

In a way the movie is about the three greatest virtues as outlined in scripture: Faith, Hope, and Charity. It is, in a way, a secular manifestation of the truths found in Ether 12:4, which reads:

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

Faith: Superman has faith in doing what is right. He has faith that doing good to others, despite their own cynicism, selfishness, and short-sightedness, will make them and the world around them is a better place. He has faith that right makes might and that power is not what rules the world. He has faith by his actions he can help make the world a better place.

Hope: His faith then leads him to hope. And not hope in a vague sense of things will somehow work out the way that he wants them to work out. Rather, his hope is his anchor. As the storms rising around him, as the world turns against him, as he lies in a literal Outer Darkness, he never gives up his faith. That gives him the power to keep acting and thereby accomplish what otherwise would seem impossible. He has become abounding in good works, doing what is right and true, as a result, no matter how much the rising darkness tries to swallow him.

Charity: Charity isn’t just doing good things or giving things away. Charity is “the pure love of Christ,” (Moroni 7:47) Apostle Dallin H. Oaks explained that as our love becomes more pure, more like the kind of love that Christ has, our actions become more selfless and more pure:

If our service is to be most efficacious, it must be accomplished for the love of God and the love of his children. The Savior applied that principle in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he commanded us to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us. (See Matt. 5:44.)

…This principle—that our service should be for the love of God and the love of fellowmen rather than for personal advantage or any other lesser motive—is admittedly a high standard. The Savior must have seen it so, since he joined his commandment for selfless and complete love directly with the ideal of perfection.

…I know that God expects us to work to purify our hearts and our thoughts so that we may serve one another for the highest and best reason, the pure love of Christ.

^{Why Do We Serve?}

Superman, though a secular story, embodies these virtues. His faith in what is good has given him the power to act to make the world a better place, changing his heart such that his service is done out of love for all people, even his enemies. Clark repeatedly saves not only the innocent, but acts to try and save even the people and monsters that threaten him and the world. When given the chance to turn Lex into a bloody mist, Clark instead acts to try and save Lex or at least give him the time to repent, reform, and save himself. Despite Lex having put Clark through a literal Hell and threatening all life on Earth. Because the worth of every soul is great in the eyes of God (D&C 18:10), even the soul of Lex Luthor.

Clark’s Faith gave him Hope and that gave him Charity which enabled him to love his enemies and work “for a [truly] better world.”

Final Thoughts

Now, the movie isn’t perfect. There is violence, none of it gory but nevertheless serious and hard to see. There are a few PG-13 profanities in it, which were bizarre because one of them came from Clark and the other from Lex. Neither of them should swear, though for very different reasons. Clark because he is the Big Blue Boy Scout and Lex because he should find all such common vulgarities beneath him. And there is at least one plot twist that, while minor overall, will certainly upset some comic book fans. These are minor quibbles though. The acting is all very well done and the main cast perform their characters excellently. Hoult is a special standout as the best portrayal of Lex Luthor ever put on the silver screen. There is a confrontation between Superman and Lex in Lex’s office where Hoult embodied Lex Luthor so perfectly that it was chilling and transcendent.

What makes the movie excellent though isn’t any of these things. As necessary as they are, inferior Superman movies of the past have had great acting, great effects, great production values, and even decent or great stories, but still been mediocre because of the failures in messaging. What makes this movie well worth seeing is that it has great acting, great effects, great production values, a great story, and it is inspiring. You will leave the theater with your spirits lifted by its message that you lighting and maintaining the fires of Hope in a world as dark and despairing as ours isn’t just worth the effort, but that it is absolutely necessary. That faith – the faith that you matter and that you can make the world a better place – is the heart of Superman. It is what makes this not just a great movie, but a great Superman movie.