Review: "Supergirl"

It was hard to know what to make of the early movie trailers for Supergirl.  One thing was for certain—it would not be like anything that came before.  It appeared to be 180 degrees away from Helen Slater’s portrayal of Supergirl back in 1984. 

Times have changed.  When we meet the new Supergirl (played by Milly Alcock) she is waking up from a hangover, following a night of drinking and brawling in a Star Wars cantina-style dive bar, brimming with bizarre alien creatures.  We are also introduced to her partially paper-trained puppy Krypto, the same pup who dragged thr battered Man of Steel to safety in the opening of last year’s Superman, starring David Corenswet.

The new Supergirl, the creation of James Gunn and director Craig Gillespie, is a slightly trashy young woman struggling her way through identity crisis issues.  In flashbacks, we learn that she is Superman’s cousin, the daughter of Jor-El’s brother Zor-El, who managed to save the lives of his wife and daughter and a number of friends, by whisking them away on a giant intergalactic biodome, upon learning that his home planet Krypton was about to explode.

In a parallel back story, mirroring the origin story of Superman, he sends his daughter Kara and her puppy Krypto to earth to join Superman.  The bond eventually unravels and Kara descends into a life unbecoming of a superhero.  That ends one night when she encounters a young woman named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) whose parents have been murdered by a monstrous thug, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts).

When Krem poisons Krypto, Kara has only days to track the villain down and retrieve the antidote. Kara and Ruthye join forces on a dual mission of rescue and revenge.

What follows is a story not unlike one of the James Gunn plots from Guardians of the Galaxy, though this is a much bumpier, more disjointed ride.  While the creative pitch to Warner Brothers must have sounded exciting, the resulting script never lives up to this revisionist take on the Supergirl character.

Actress Milly Alcock does her best with her radically redefined Supergirl.  Unlike the Barbie Doll prettiness of Helen Slater’s Supergirl, Alcock brings the kind of disheveled rawness and toughness her version of the character demands.  She looks like she could kick the butts of a dozen or so hardened criminals (which she proceeds to do repeatedly throughout the film).  For most of the movie, she is dressed in appropriately grungy clothing and only dons the famous Supergirl costume in the final reel.

Supergirl is yet another movie about girl power.  It’s Kara and Ruthye vs. The World, though they do occasionally get some much-needed assistance from male characters including Jason Mamoa’s cigar smoking, motorcycle riding badass, Lobo, who comes off as a cross between Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice and the scary, wild-haired biker in the Cohen Brothers movie Raising Arizona (1987).  It’s a colorful character who deserved much more screen time in Supergirl.

There are references to other films, ranging from A Christmas Story (1983) to Kill Bill (2003) to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).  Many current movies just can’t resist the temptation to “borrow” from other successful films.  It’s not so much homage as outright burglary.

The movie tries to cash in on a popular comic book hero and some splashy special effects—the basic ingredients of a summer blockbuster.  What’s lacking here is a coherent script.  The story just bounces around until it finally ends on a disappointingly weak moment that just falls flat.

Another shortcoming of Supergirl is Krypto—a relatively important character in the story that is obviously and distractingly computer-generated.  They might have done a better job digitally rendering him or possibly just using him a little more sparingly.

It’s interesting that there is no post-credit scene setting up a sequel.  One can only guess whether the studio heads at Warner Brothers were waiting to see if Supergirl would crash and burn at the box-office and be a one and done project.

The rambling randomness of the movie extends to the music track which goes light on the John Williams famous title score and heavy on an eclectic offering of songs including “Cheek to Cheek” and “The Girl from Ipanema.”  It was clearly all part of a strategy to intentionally break connections with all the previous movie and TV Superman and Supergirl lore--certainly a bold idea.

The challenge was to somehow make it work.