Written and directed by James Gunn, “Superman” follows the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s playbook for Spider-Man: it skips the Kryptonian Man of Steel’s origins altogether, instead beginning in medias res. David Corenswet (Apple TV miniseries “Lady in the Lake,” 2024) stars as the eponymous hero, first seen lying in the snow, bloodied, bruised, and wheezing for life. Narrative conventions suggest a flashback to explain how he got there.

To the viewer’s surprise, this does not happen. Krypto the superdog comes to his rescue after hearing his call and—after a painful couple of minutes jumping on the dying Superman—drags him by his cape to the Fortress of Solitude. There, a group of robots carries him to a chair with a direct view of the healing yellow sun. He is fully patched up and all set to go, then swoops out—and into—the opening titles, which curiously resemble those of Richard Donner’s breakout success “Superman: The Movie” (1978). He travels to Metropolis to finish an earlier fight, which he eventually loses to the mysterious “Hammer of Boravia.”

You think we’d get why he ended up there in the first place—a non-linear narrative perhaps?—but this does not happen either. Back at the Daily Planet, Clark works with Lois (Rachel Brosnahan; Amazon Original series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” 2017-2023), a fellow reporter with whom he maintains a secret relationship outside the workplace. “Superman” keeps chugging along, and at some point, most of the audience will realize that there is no beginning to this story, only a middle and an end. (Unless we count the few lines of text at the movie’s start, in which case, Act 1 lasts less than a minute.)

But here’s where things get weirder: as the story unfolds, Superman’s image is maligned for his unilateral actions in a foreign country, while Lois investigates what ties him and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult; “Nosferatu,” 2024) together in what increasingly looks like a smear campaign. If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because it is; in Zack Snyder’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” Clark’s alter ego is maligned and questioned by citizens, the government, and journalists alike over his unilateral actions in a foreign country, while Lois investigates the broader conspiracy tying the man she loves to Luthor.

There are minor differences, of course: James Gunn’s film introduces us to Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo; “Licorice Pizza,” 2021), who, unlike the genuinely likable ’78 iteration by Marc McClure (”Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” 2021), is more opportunistic and has no qualms about using Luthor’s girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio; “At Midnight,” 2023) as an unwitting source for his work. Teschmacher herself is written as a very early-2000s-era supporting character whose comic relief relies on her being “the shallow, unintelligent blonde,” while Valerie Perrine’s (”Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut,” 2006) Eve is a far more layered presence, whose arc comes full circle when she begs Superman to save her mother in the final act of Donner’s ’78 film.

Does this mean the changes are invalid? Not exactly. The text, however, hasn’t provided us with much to hold on to, considering we don’t know who anyone is within this specific universe—only that they exist. Perry White, played by Wendell Pierce, has barely a scene or two in the film, and all we know about him comes from Pierce’s interview, in which he claimed his headcanon for playing the character comes from an arc in the comic book series “The World of Metropolis” (1988), which addresses that his wife was in a relationship with Luthor when he was believed to be martyred in combat while in service.

Possibly the only thing that keeps one watching the film is the ever-dependable performance of Rachel Brosnahan, who plays a reporter unafraid to get to the truth, even if it means asking her increasingly agitated, superpowered alien boyfriend some ruthlessly tough questions. As for the boyfriend—our eponymous hero—gone is the calm of Cavill or the charisma of Reeve. What we have now is an emotionally volatile Superman who is quick to yell as an immediate response. His now-famous interview-confrontation with Lois isn’t the only time he resorts to screaming as his first line of defense.

As Superman, the otherwise wildly talented Corenswet is given nothing more than platitudes and theatrical extremes to showcase his talent. His foil, Luthor, played by Hoult, is a far more entertaining presence, digging into the “influential bad guy” role with unapologetic glee. While he’s also a victim of the outlandish, screamy dialogue at times, there’s a lot more to enjoy with the “Mad Max: Fury Road” star here. Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific is phenomenal, but his one look-at-me action set-piece loses impact when it’s shot from Lois’s perspective inside a bubble protecting her.

This is a trend Gunn seems to always come back to: In “The Suicide Squad” (2021), a major portion of a fight is shown through the reflection of a helmet, while in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (2017), there’s a major battle going on in the background of the opening titles while our focus is on Baby Groot dancing to a recognizable needle-drop. Pack that in with Gunn’s specific brand of humor—which now uses Nathan Fillion (”Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” 2023) at his most intolerable as a proxy, considering we can’t have Superman do all of that lest he be out of character—and you’ve got a James Gunn movie you’ve certainly seen before over the last decade.

Fillion plays Guy Gardner from the Green Lantern Corps, who teams up with Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific to form the Justice Gang—a team of super-people written in specifically to carry out consequential killings that, per comic-book canon, are allegedly considered blasphemy for our Boy Scout. Mr. Terrific kills a beast while Superman stands by, essentially saying, “Aw, come on,” like a mild-mannered, disappointed dad. Hawkgirl drops a key antagonist from the sky because she’s “not like Superman.” Meanwhile, Superman has angry outbursts when confronting Luthor, making it easy for the narrative to further Luthor’s plan of painting him as a danger to society.

You’d forgive him for being moody, however, because the movie commits the cardinal sin of having his biological parents tell him, “Take as many women as you can, so your genes and Krypton’s might and legacy will live on,” making any immigrant allegory very difficult to reconcile with the story. Whether deliberate or accidental, the revelation about his parents ends up implying to viewers that all one needs to be a model immigrant is to assimilate—which, in reality, isn’t exactly like adaptation, since assimilation involves the complete renunciation of your previous culture, which is obviously the worst, in favor of The American Way. In a timeline where immigrants are in direct conflict with authorities simply for being immigrants, unpacking the possible slippery slope of this narrative decision feels much ickier.

The more I think about James Gunn’s “Superman,” the more I realize this movie was designed specifically for comic-book nerds, for whom it’s like a New Game+: you get straight to the action after skipping all the cutscenes you’ve already seen. For them, the iconography they’ve absorbed may be more than enough to carry the film despite its missing first act. As an outsider to comic book fandom, I find this the only hypothesis that makes sense.

I may not speak for anyone else, but while I love movies more than most things, my complete disconnect from comic-book-adjacent media made it difficult for me to invest in—let alone appreciate—this universe. “Superman” isn’t so much a movie as it is a collection of vignettes that could have been a very expensive four-part HBO Max miniseries. Outside of this, people talk at one another at high decibels to convey their emotions, and its titular protagonist is left mostly in the background as the only people doing the actual work are Lois and the Justice Gang.

If you’re a major comic-book fan who’s here to revel in the iconography and references to various characters portrayed throughout different comic runs, you’ll probably love “Superman.” If you wanted to watch “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” written and directed as an unsuccessful facsimile of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” series in tone, this is your movie. If you’re in neither category and want to watch an actual movie, all you’ll find is a lot of fan-service gaudiness and visual discomfort, because more than 80 percent of the film is shot through rectilinear wide-angle lenses. Not recommended unless your headcanon of Superman perfectly matches Gunn’s.