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Let us now praise James Gunn, writer-director of the new Superman movie, for sparing us yet another rehash of the cape-man's origin story. Can there be a single fan anywhere who doesn't know it by now? How baby Kal-El was rocketed off the imploding planet of Krypton by his scientist father; how he landed on Earth and was taken in by Ma and Pa Kent, a farm couple living outside of Smallville, Kansas, who were soon surprised by his abilities to fly and see through walls and such, and who named him Clark? Also how he grew up to become a big-city reporter on the staff of the Metropolis Daily Planet? All that stuff?

To his credit and our relief, Gunn sidesteps almost all of that comic-book boilerplate. As "Superman" begins, we find Clark Kent (David Corenswet) already filing stories at the paper; he's three years into his public super career and romantically involved with his Daily Planet colleague Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who knows his secret. This relationship is the emotional heart of the movie (yes, it's a superhero movie with an emotional heart), and Corenswet (of "Pearl" and "Twisters") and Brosnahan ("The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel") bring genuine chemistry to it -- especially in a scene in which she persuades Clark to grant her an interview about his alter ego, a banter session that has a jaunty back-and-forth rhythm.

Fundamental human feelings aren't overabundant in big-budget superhero pictures, nor is the narrative space that Gunn clears for Clark to pay a sweet visit to his mom and dad back on the farm. The director also launches the story in an unexpected way -- with a sequence in which the mighty Supes gets his butt kicked by a mecha-bruiser called the Hammer of Boravia, a violent emissary from a faraway land whose dictator Superman recently annoyed. Brought down to snowy earth, Supes calls out for his dog Krypto, who comes bounding in with his own red cape flying and drags his master off to the Fortress of Solitude, his icy home base.

"Superman" is the first feature from the new DC Studios, which is run by Gunn and his producing partner Peter Safran. The new company is an attempt to catch up with DC's far more successful rival, Marvel Studios, after years of DC duds like "Justice League," "Birds of Prey" and "The Flash." Will this new movie do the trick?

Maybe. It's at least sunnier than the earlier, more darkly lit DC movies by Zack Snyder (the hero's iconic super outfit -- now back to primary red, blue and yellow -- really pops again). And it's filled with fresh characters -- Gunn had 87 years' worth of Superman comics, TV shows, movie serials and feature films to poke around in, and he came up with some semi-obscure "metahumans" (as Supes and his ilk are collectively called) like Ultraman, Metamorpho and the Justice Gang (a team-up of Hawkgirl, Mister Terrific and Green Lantern -- the latter played by Nathan Fillion in an uber-blonde pudding bowl wig).

Then there's Lex Luthor, Superman's arch enemy, played here by Nicholas Hoult as a sociopathic tech mogul who's mightily miffed by the fond esteem in which Superman is held by the general public. Hoult is always a treat to watch, but fans who revere Gene Hackman's fabulously loony Lex in Richard Lester's 1980 "Superman II" may wish that this latest iteration of the character had a bit more fizz.

There's also Gunn's determination to score contemporary political points by presenting Superman as an immigrant -- and an undocumented immigrant at that. ("Superman is the story of America," the director said in a recent interview.) This manipulative Hollywood cultural nudging may alienate viewers who prefer to come to their own conclusions about political matters -- although whether or not the superhero audience might feel that way is anybody's guess.

Gunn's most gratifying achievement in this movie is to have avoided, for the most part, the sort of rampant CGI clutter that has created "superhero fatigue" among once-loyal fans of the genre. (Marvel has learned this lesson with such underwhelming films as "The Marvels" and the pitiful "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.") This movie sidesteps that sort of digital hubbub until near the end, when there's an outbreak of characters crashing around the sky in the classically tedious style, which no longer seems quite so super.

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To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

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