Superman's foil comes in Hoult's Lex Luthor, a man proudly consumed by envy, who, as Lois deduces, wants to be king (who said comic book allegory needed to be subtle?). Hoult joins Brosnahan and Corenswet in ceding character beats and development to a chaotic, teeming plot.

Writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman” was always going to be a strange chemistry of filmmaker and material. Gunn, the mind behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” has reliably drifted toward a B-movie superhero realm populated (usually over-populated) with the lesser-known freaks, oddities and grotesquerie of back-issue comics.

For the last 20 years, the predominant cinematic image of Superman has been one of a Christlike martyr sent to Earth to suffer for the sins of a world he does not belong in and can never fully understand.