Different. That is the first word that comes to mind regarding James Gunn's Superman, the highly anticipated restart of the DCU on the big screen that arrives in theaters this Friday. Whether the ambitious risks and big creative swings that the filmmaker takes with this movie are better than the previous films is up for debate. But the film is unquestionably exciting, entertaining and very fun to watch. Gunn manages to push every aspect of Superman's lore into new territory while maintaining all the obligatory conventions of a big screen comic book adaptation.

As cliché as it might sound, this is a Superman that we've never seen on the big screen before. Starting with the fact that this is not an origin story. When we meet David Corenswet as the last son of Krypton, he has already been out in the world as Superman for 3 years. The fact that we meet him the first time he has been beaten in battle is also very telling of Gunn's artistic choices in this film. As a storyteller he's constantly veering left when the audience might expect him to go right. We don't get another round of "when will Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) figure out that Clark Kent is Superman" and the intrepid reporter from the Daily Planet gets to be just that without having to be rescued once.  In this version, the relationship between Lois and Clark gets to be more human and complex. Jimmy Olsen is a geek who also has a very healthy sex life and Lex Luthor (a terrific Nicholas Hoult) is an evil egomaniacal genius who is very self-aware of the chinks in his armor. Having Gunn go constantly against the grain would be irritating if it wasn't so inspired, bold and extremely well executed. Infusing the script with humor, smarts and characters that eventually will expand the DC Universe on screen is also a great asset.

To be clear, James Gunn doesn't tinker with the essence of DC's first superhero. This is still the Superman we know, but now we get a chance to walk in his shoes. Getting the plot from his point of view allows the character to also be a dude who's struggling to do the right thing, who makes mistakes, can't train his dog, lets his ego get in the way, loses his cool over social media and who is very close to having his girlfriend break up with him. Gunn is not interested in making the character relatable, but he is very aware that this is a different take, at least on the big screen, that makes the character even more interesting.

As original as all of this is, the film still hinges on a very typical superhero movie plot with Luthor almost destroying the whole world in his obsession to get rid of Superman. But even with this, Gunn manages to be daringly subversive. The movie flat out delivers big screen thrills but also tackles the notion of what Superman's place would be in the real modern world. Admittedly, this is a theme that was very central to Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, but Gunn manages to tackle it without any grandiose melancholy which is more interesting and more fun.

Within all the spectacle, Gunn gets to truly dissect why after all these years the world still needs Superman and why the man of steel chooses to show up and accept the challenge of our expectations. The fact that he gets to do it in a movie that gets to be both conventional and very different is very punk rock.