After months of speculation and build-up, James Gunn's new take on Superman has finally landed in UK cinemas – and while reviews have been mixed so far, no one could deny that it's packed full of action.
You'd be forgiven for thinking a film like this – one with aspirations of launching a new extended universe – might delve into origin stories and the likes, but Superman takes a different tack.
Although some opening text gives us a little necessary backstory, from that point onwards the audience is pretty much thrust head first into the action, with the Man of Steel three years into his role as Earth’s protector (and already in a relationship with his Daily Planet colleague Lois Lane, albeit a somewhat argumentative one).
When we meet him, he's also currently in the headlines after his intervention in a conflict between aggressor state Boravia and its neighbouring country Jarhanpur.
Superman has no doubt that he took the right course of action – he saved many lives, after all – but his selfless act has also made him a target for a number of enemies, most notably Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and his various allies.
Towards the beginning of the film, Lex distracts Superman by hatching a kajiu in Metropolis – which the hero goes to battle with help from other metahumans including Mister Terrific and Green Lantern – and while he is occupied, the villain's henchmen break into his Fortress of Solitude in the Antarctic, looking for dirt on their nemesis.
In doing so, they get their hands on his beloved dog Krypto as well as a video message that Clark's parents had sent with him to Earth, the second half of which has always been corrupted.
When Lex is able to unscramble the message and broadcasts to the world what it really says, there are pretty disastrous consequences for our hero. But how does this all end up? Read on to have the Superman ending explained.
Superman ending explained – full spoilers for the DC reboot
It turns out that the message Superman's parents had sent from Krypton was not necessarily the wholesome, hopeful missive he'd always believed it to be.
The second half actually saw his father, Jor-El (played by Bradley Cooper), instruct him to rule over Earth's "simple" people – including spreading his Kryptonian genes by keeping a harem of women.
Naturally, when this is revealed by Lex Luthor, public opinion very much turns against Superman – not helped by a flurry of social media posts denouncing him – with the world suspecting him to have been subtly acting out his father's wishes.
Desperate to clear his name – and to reclaim his beloved Krypto – Superman hands himself in and is then given over to Lex, who unsurprisingly has some nasty plans in store.
Using a portal, he takes him to a "pocket universe" he has created, where he keeps a massive prison housing hundreds of people who have wronged him.
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It also emerges that he has employed a load of monkeys to essentially serve as social media bots, constantly churning out anti-Superman posts to further turn the public against him.
Anyway, Lex holds Superman in a cell along with a metahuman known as Metamorpho, who is able to transform his body into any element or substance.
Using his kidnapped child as leverage, Lex forces Metamorpho to transform himself into Kryptonite and essentially torture Superman.
When Lex leaves – promising to come back the next night and continue with the torture – Metamorpho allies himself with Superman and frees him from the cage, with the pair then trying to mount an escape from the dimension along with Krypto.
View Green Video on the source websiteWhile all of this is going on, Lois is able to learn from her colleague Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) – who in turn learnt from his source, Lex's social-media obsessed girlfriend Eve (Sara Sampaio) – of Superman's whereabouts and takes Mister Terrific along on a rescue mission.
Eventually, they are able to find Superman, Metamporpho and Krypto and make it out – although unknown to them, this also damages the pocket universe and creates a rift which could destroy Metropolis. In the meantime, Superman heads back to his human parents' house in Kansas for some much-needed rest and recuperation following his brush with the deadly Kryptonite.
Of course, when Lex learns of the escape, he is not best pleased, and takes his anger out on Eve. This prompts her to send a barrage of information to Jimmy, in the form of loads of selfies.
Initially, he is confused about the purpose of this selfie dump – convinced it has something to do with her obsession with him – but it soon becomes apparent that each selfie secretly contains clues about Lex's plans, much of which are concerned with the war between Boravia and Jarhanpur.
Turns out, Lex has struck a deal with Boravia's leader to supply the country with weapons in exchange for them carving out a piece of Jarhanpur's land where he can set up his own state – known as Luthoria – after the invasion.
When Lex discovers that Superman is now aware of his plans, he decides against closing the rift as it heads in the direction of Metropolis. This will both keep Superman busy while the new Boravian invasion of Jarhanpur can go ahead and also give him a better chance of defeating him.
Superman stays behind to deal with the rift – along with Mister Terrific – while the rest of the Justice Gang head to Jarhanpur to quell the invasion, and Lois and her Daily Planet colleagues get to work on an exposé about Lex.
While Superman is dealing with the Rift, Lex sends his greatest weapon – the mysterious Ultraman – to attack him, and in the ensuing fight the villain's mask comes off, revealing his true identity: he is an imperfect and unintelligent clone of Superman himself.
The two versions of Superman continue to fight, but the true, heroic version of the character emerges victorious and throws the clone into the rift before descending on Lex's headquarters to confront his nemesis.
What was Lex Luthor's real motivation?
After arriving at his HQ, Superman lectures Lex about what it means to be human – explaining that while he may technically be an alien from Krypton, he has exhibited a far better grasp of proper humanity than his rival.
But Lex also has his say, and reveals that he had only become involved in the war between Boravia and Jarhanpur as an excuse to kill Superman – that had been his main goal all along.
And what was his motive? Pure envy. He hated all the positive attention that Superman has been getting and wanted him out of the picture for good.
As this conversation is happening, the story posted in The Daily Planet detailing Lex's crimes is quickly gaining traction and public opinion rapidly turns back in favour of Superman.
Not only that, but authorities soon arrive on the scene to arrest Lex and free his captives from the pocket universe.
All the while, Mister Terrific has managed to use Lex's computers to stop the rift – saving Metropolis from a nasty fate.
With everything restored to normality, Lois arrives to ask Superman if he'll give her a private interview, and the pair head into an arcade where they soon embrace, share a kiss and confess their love for each other. A very happy ending!
How does Superman set up the new DCU?
The very final scenes find Superman back at his Fortress of Solitude, where he has repaired the robots who had been damaged during Lex's earlier invasion.
There's also a very brief appearance from Milly Alcock as Supergirl – who is set to have her own solo film next summer, but it amounts to nothing more than a cameo.
While he is resting, Superman repeats his previous demand for his robots to play footage of his parents – but this time, instead of showing the message of his Kryptonian family, we see a montage of scenes from his childhood with his Earth parents.
So it seems that Superman has more or less disowned his Kryptonian roots for now. We look forward to seeing how this develops in future instalments...
Superman is now showing in UK cinemas.
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