By Marc S. Sanders
I don’t understand it. A billion-dollar movie studio like Warner Brothers, with DC Studios, has all of the resources imaginable and nearly ninety years of source material to draw from and they opt for absolute dreck populated with three literal vomit scenes. In the first twenty seconds of the movie, the hero’s dog urinates on the floor! This is Supergirl, and this is the best they came up with?
Milly Alcock is a fine actress. She’s got an unusual tomboy appearance (that is unfairly and cruelly being ridiculed online) and she’s ready to offer gusto and nerve. Unfortunately, with her first big marquee picture, she is wrongly lent a disservice with a terrible script written by Ana Nogueira (The Vampire Diaries). The story is simple and that’s not a complaint. Basically, a villain called Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who looks like a foreground extra from a Mad Max picture, gets his spot in the limelight when he slaughters the family of a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and poisons the super terrier dog Krypto. Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl) has 72 hours to find Krem and recover the antidote or the lovable mutt will die. Plus, she has to discourage Ruthye from slaying Krem out of a means of revenge. While they are at it, Kara might as well try to break up a trafficking ring of young girls held in captivity. The pair hop from one seedy bar to another in their quest and encounter the ugliest alien beings imaginable. These are all Star Wars rejects of the worst looking kind. None of these characters would even make good action figures.
Spliced within this main plot line, Kara recalls her origin on Kryton, followed by her arrival on Earth where she meets Kal-El, aka Clark Kent/Superman (David Corenswet), for the first time. These flashbacks are the best parts of the picture. Kara struggles with staying by her dying family or leaving them to survive and prosper as a hero. The demise of Krypton is covered again but then there are residual moments that pertain specifically to Kara that were not extensively covered in other films.
Otherwise, this gal is a miserable drunk, wanting to celebrate her twenty-third birthday by herself, because that’s entertaining and healthy. When she’s not drunk, she’s just hungover. How is any of this fun or appealing? Moreover, this is Supergirl. So, I want to see her dressed as Supergirl. The imagery sells these comic book characters, right. It’s about pictured aesthetics first. Kara allows her oversized trench coat to drape sloppily over her hair and untucked Blondie t-shirt. Bubble size sunglasses hide her red eye. It’s like the costumer and creators are trying as hard as they can to make her as repulsive as possible. Are we meant to enjoy this? Supergirl is not John Belushi in Animal House. He made drunkenness an art form.
Kara’s Kryptonian mother gets sick. So, she throws up. Kara gets poisoned. So, she throws up. Kara pees with the door opened. She munches on alien poop and then realizes it tastes like shit. Duh! Ruthye spits on Krem. Krypto pees on a Superman newspaper article. Every bodily fluid imaginable is presented to disgust your pallet, and if it is done for bathroom humor it’s not funny and if it is done for dramatic heights, it really was never, ever necessary.
Jason Momoa is back as Aquaman…I’m sorry Lobo, who’s basically Aquaman now, but caked in black vampire makeup and equipped with a cigar and a motorcycle. He’s a b-character from the DC comics. An anti-hero that I think enthusiasts celebrate like they do with Deadpool. The guy looks like a KISS rocker from outer space. Though I don’t know what he contributes to this movie with the exception of finally bringing the ever so famous Lobo to life. The guy never turns the tides on the narrative. He has nothing funny to say like Deadpool might. His motorcycle doesn’t perform any outstanding stunts. His cigar lights up without a match, and he sits in a prison cell. That’s it! He’s muscle but with no expressive superpowers. He observes, rather than participates. So, what’s he doing here?
After all of the Superman iterations and spinoffs, why does James Gunn, who is blessed with creative control of the entire DC franchise, stay away from the wide gallery of rogue villains offered over the last century of comic books. There’s Braniac (who I’ve read will finally arrive in the next Superman film), Metallo, and Mr. Mytxlplyk. The Toyman too. Heck, Jerry Seinfeld introduced the backwards/opposite functioning Bizzaro Superman in his sitcom about nothing. These are all drawn from the weird cloth that I’d think Gunn would encourage since his success with Guardians Of The Galaxy. Instead, we are dealt an unappealing, truly ugly and uncool, one-dimensional adversary with spikes in his face, dressed in leather. I read that Krem is a featured bad guy in recent comic iteration of Supergirl. I don’t care. This storyline adaptation is a terrible option to follow. The day after seeing this movie, I can’t even recall what accent this guy Krem uses. He’s positively forgettable and I think as unimaginable an invention as that nuclear dude from Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.
Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) has not assembled a good film. I saw it on IMAX, and the enhancement did his picture no favors. Supergirl punches and kicks more than she flies. She shoots the lasers out of her eyes and uses the x-ray vision, but where’s the super breath? Where’s the super speed? The super hearing? Couldn’t we see her fly more? The fight choreography is clunky and at times hard to decipher through dark CGI moving at too many frames per second. Gillispie’s team only makes up for that by deliberately concealing Kara kicking ass and focusing on Ruthye shuddering under a table during a barroom brawl. Not cute. Not funny. Just lazy craftsmanship.
There’s no wit to anything said. Krypto is cute as a misbehaving rascal, but there’s nothing to laugh or cheer for in the rest of the film, and when Supergirl finally defeats Krem, her last act is offensively anticlimactic. Actually, it’s obscenely hypocritical to the doctrines she tried to instill in Ruthye over the course of the film, and it crudely defies what the Superman/Supergirl mythology has always stood for. I wanted to throw my popcorn at the screen.
Supergirl is not a total failure thanks to Milly Alcock. She looks great in the costume and has a heroic appeal in the limited time that’s offered from the script. Krypto is a precocious troublemaker and the Kryton footage and background look sharp, even if unoriginal. Efforts to make the alien dialogue feel authentic works nicely and enhances the fantasy/sci-fi demands. Yet, these are just small ingredients in a stew lacking anything savory.
Since 1984, Kal-El’s cousin has been done criminally wrong now for the third time (don’t forget The Flash from a few years ago) on the big screen. On all occasions it’s clear the filmmakers didn’t even try to research and explore what was easily at their fingertips. Instead, they just literally vomited, shit, spit and pissed out whatever popped into their heads first – a John Wick storyline with a failed Mad Max villain, drenched in an assortment of bodily fluids.
Fly away from Supergirl.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 