This guest post is written by the world-class film critic Josh Bell. Not the baseball player, the writer and critic.
In her first appearance during the closing scene of last year’s “Superman,” Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl) came off as appealingly chaotic, stumbling into Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and reuniting with her canine companion Krypto. The bond between Kara and Krypto continues into her debut solo movie “Supergirl,” and so does her chaotic personality, at least at first.
“Supergirl” eventually gets remarkably somber, and screenwriter Ana Nogueira and director Craig Gillespie never quite figure out how to balance those tones. Still, while “Supergirl” may not be the bold reintroduction of a famous superhero that director James Gunn’s “Superman” was for its own title character, the latest entry in the frequently rebooted DC Universe is a solid piece of mid-level blockbuster entertainment.
Although it’s hard to tell from the way the source material is credited, “Supergirl” is primarily an adaptation of the 2021 comic-book miniseries “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” written by Tom King and illustrated by Bilquis Evely. That series is a meditative, often overly precious reflection on a veteran superhero’s weariness at the weight of responsibility, a theme that doesn’t translate to the introductory story that Nogueira and Gillespie are telling here. So they draw on certain key elements from “Woman of Tomorrow,” combining them with origin flashbacks to fill in Kara’s past.
Gillespie is also clearly influenced by producer (and DC Studios co-chairman) Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, and this version of Kara has a lot in common with Chris Pratt’s Marvel Cinematic Universe hero Starlord. She’s an intergalactic orphan with a chip on her shoulder, who sublimates her resentments into hard partying and reckless antagonism in shady establishments across the cosmos. Nogueira’s script is less quippy than Gunn’s work, but Kara is still handy with a snarky remark and quick to piss off the wrong people just to amuse herself.
Like her cousin Superman, Kara is a refugee from the doomed planet Krypton, although while Superman was sent to Earth as an infant, growing up among humans, Kara lived until adolescence in a sealed-off Kryptonian city that was temporarily preserved from destruction, growing up with her Kryptonian parents. That made it much harder for her to leave her dying world behind, and less inclined to integrate into life on Earth. The movie parcels out this back story in sometimes frustratingly incomplete increments, as Kara goes on a perilous space adventure in the present.
At first, all she’s trying to do is get drunk and forget her woes, as she celebrates her 23rd birthday by frequenting various far-flung bars, traveling in a ramshackle spaceship that resembles a tricked-out RV. The opening credits play across a montage of Kara’s life of debauchery, promising a funnier and more freewheeling movie than what actually follows. Kara is forced to sober up quickly when she meets determined youngster Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), who is on a mission to avenge her murdered family.
Kara initially wants nothing to do with Ruthye’s quest, but she’s enlisted against her will when the villainous Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) shows up tracking Ruthye and shoots poor Krypto with a poison dart. Informed that her beloved dog has only three days to live unless she can procure the antidote, Kara reluctantly agrees to join Ruthye in going after Krem. “Woman of Tomorrow” is told from Ruthye’s perspective, but she’s a more subdued presence in the movie, and the bond that inevitably develops between Kara and Ruthye lacks the intended emotional resonance.
That doesn’t mean that “Supergirl” entirely lacks emotion, though, and Kara’s journey toward understanding and accepting her position in the universe is quietly affecting at times, thanks almost entirely to Alcock’s winning performance. The onscreen history of Supergirl is spotty at best, and this movie arrives as only the second solo Supergirl feature film, the first since a notorious 1984 flop starring Helen Slater. Gillespie’s film is a significant improvement over that campy debacle, in which the witchy villain played by Faye Dunaway targets Supergirl for stealing away the man she was hoping to seduce.
Alcock’s Kara has more agency and more complexity than Slater’s, even if she’s often dragged from one place to the next, either by nefarious aliens or by Ruthye’s undeniable persistence. There’s still a slight sense of backsliding in this portrayal, especially in contrast to Sasha Calle’s intense, commanding take on Supergirl in 2023’s otherwise disastrous “The Flash.” Alcock can easily stand alongside Slater and Melissa Benoist of The CW’s “Supergirl” TV series as traditional versions of the character, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But even when adapting a sometimes radically unconventional comic-book series, the filmmakers here largely deliver a conventional superhero movie.
That extends to the supporting role for cult-favorite DC character Lobo (Jason Momoa), an ultraviolent intergalactic bounty hunter with a face that makes him look like a lost member of Kiss. Momoa, who played Aquaman in the previous incarnation of DC’s movie universe, spent substantial time lobbying to play Lobo, and he’s clearly having fun in the same way that fellow fanboy Ryan Reynolds does as Marvel’s similarly nihilistic Deadpool. Yet the cigar-chomping, motorcycle-riding Lobo never quite fits into the story, and his appearances feel more like the kind of long-term world-building that has derailed too many recent Marvel movies.
David Corenswet’s scenes as Superman, making concerned long-range video calls to his dissolute cousin, come off as more organic, highlighting the way that Kara feels disconnected from the people who care about her. Corenswet is as dorkily endearing as he was in “Superman,” and there’s plenty of potential in seeing the cousins team up in a future DC movie.
On her own, Kara gets to engage in some impressive battles against various alien baddies, although the action isn’t as grand as the set pieces Gunn staged in “Superman.” After that movie’s bright color palette, “Supergirl” is more muted, which is especially disappointing as it travels from one world to another without doing much to differentiate them. While King’s purple prose in “Woman of Tomorrow” can be grating, Evely’s art is consistently breathtaking, and the movie fails to capture that visual grandeur, despite naming one of its planets after the artist.
“Supergirl” ends up as something slightly less than the sum of its influences, yet it’s relatively fast-paced and engaging, making for an easy, undemanding watch. With its underwhelming villain, scene-setting for future movies, and familiar-looking action scenes, “Supergirl” is closer to a B-level Marvel film than the fresh new start Gunn probably wants for DC. It’s decidedly not super, but like Kara, it’s doing its best to get there.
Image credit: “Supergirl”
Video Game Town 