Producers: James Gunn and Peter Safran Director: Craig Gillespie Screenplay: Ana Nogueira Cast: Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, Diarmaid Murtagh, Imogen Turner, Ferdinand Kingsley, Emily Piggford, Bruce Lennox, Kadiff Kirwan, Thalissa Teixeira, Asha Soetan, Jason Momoa and David Corenswet Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Grade: B-
Craig Gillespe has made the best “Supergirl” movie ever. That might sound like lavish praise, until you remember that the only previous one, the eponymous 1984 effort directed by Jeannot Szwarc from a moronic script by David Odell, was a complete debacle that nearly sunk the fledgling career of star Helen Slater and represented career lows for Faye Dunaway and Peter O’Toole. It’s since become a bit of a camp classic, of course. The character has fared better in other media, like other DC superheroes going through various permutations in the comics since her first appearance in 1959.
Gillespie’s film, adapted from the comic mini-series “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” (2021-2022) by scripter Ana Nogueira, is an uneven affair with perhaps too many moving parts and jostling tones—part origin story, part growing-up tale and part bruising action adventure, and variously violent, comic and sentimental. But despite the sometimes-jarring transitions from one to the other, overall it’s a solid introductory chapter in what James Gunn and Peter Safran, the overseers of the rebooted DC Universe, obviously hope will be an integral part of their canon.
It follows on Kara Zor-El’s cameo at the close of last year’s “Superman,” in which Milly Alcock appeared as a disheveled, abrasive Supergirl just returned from a time of revelry off-earth, discomforting her much more straitlaced cousin Kal-El (David Corenswet). She’s on another bender as this movie begins, having traveled with her dog Krypto to a planet with a red sun where her powers will be eliminated so she can party herself into blissful oblivion. Her combative attitude and dissolute lifestyle are linked to the tragedies of her childhood.
Unlike her cousin, who was sent off to earth as an infant as Krypton exploded, a “sweet boy” as his aunt Alura (Emily Beecham) describes him, and was raised by loving foster parents in Kansas, flashbacks show that Kara survived the destruction when her home city of Argo was violently broken off the planet and became a small enclave where she (played by Imogen Turner) lived with her parents Zor-El (David Krumholtz) and Alura until she was an adolescent.
Then double tragedy struck. It was discovered that Argo was suffused with kryptonite radiation that was infecting the population. Alura died, and to prevent Kara from the infection, Zor-El sent her to earth, where Superman found and adopted her. The relationship between the good-hearted, earth-raised Kal-El and the traumatized girl was strained, as he found it difficult to coax the troubled young woman to accept her new life as he had come to embrace his. The periodic scenes with Corenswet nicely portray his hope that she’ll come around.
What brings a change in her attitude is an encounter on the alien planet with Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), a young girl whose family (Ferdinand Kingsley, Emily Piggford and Bruce Lennox) were killed by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), the leader of a brutal bunch of space pirates who are, among other things, collecting young girls to take to their home planet as forced brides. Ruthye is searching for a champion to help her take vengeance and locks onto Kara, but she’s averse to helping anyone and refuses to get involved until Krem infects Krypto with a poison that will kill him in three days. That sets Kara off in pursuit of the antidote Krem has in a locket around his neck, with Ruthye in tow.
Thus begins an episodic journey in which the two chase Krem and his nasty band from planet to planet, suffering numerous setbacks, as well as some temporary victories, along the way. Kara sometimes gets her powers back from the effects of yellow suns and at others falls into weakened states under red or green ones. A major sequence occurs on a planet where the duo connects with barkeepers Bomar (Kadiff Kirwan) and Mareck (Thalissa Teixeira), whose daughter Sarna (Asha Soetan) is among the girls targeted by Krem. Also introduced there is Lobo (Jason Momoa), a mega-sized bounty hunter who becomes a quasi-ally at some points but is always in it for the money, in this case taking aim at Krem’s lieutenant Drom Baxton (Diarmaid Murtagh).
There are plenty of fight sequences, which are decently staged and shot by cinematographer Rob Hardy but become repetitive as the plot rolls along, particularly since the visual effects supervised by Geoffrey Baumann, while adequate for their purpose, aren’t especially innovative or impressive. There are also scads of aliens around, a mixture of practical prosthetics and CGI work, which sometimes make the picture feel more a part of a “Star Wars” franchise than a DC one (the “cantina” scene was a bit much). The pervasively dark visual scheme favored by Gillespie and Hardy isn’t helpful to Neil Lamont’s production design or the costumes of Anna B. Sheppard and Michael Mooney (Kara doesn’t don her colorful garb until late in the action, preferring her drab overcoat for most of the running-time), but throughout Claudia Sarne’s score keeps chugging away on steroids.
In the end, of course, there’s a big confrontation between Supergirl and Krem (and his band of brigands, of course), in which Ruthye and Lobo are also engaged. By this time our heroine has mellowed, recalling her mother’s deathbed advice to “do good,” and she encourages her young friend to give up the anger that’s been eating away at her, a bit of guidance she recognizes as applicable to her own struggle to adjust to life on earth—though admittedly her conflicted attitude is still on display in how she deals with a fallen Krem.
Alcock makes a feisty, pugnacious Kara, whose last-act turn can make one interested in seeing the character’s future development. But she’s unable to cement a deep emotional link with Ridley’s Ruthye, who remains rather grim and stoic, meaning that the central relationship in the movie remains more presumed than dramatized. Schoenaerts, with an abundance of facial baubles that make him a cousin to Pinhead of “Hellraiser” fame, certainly looks fearsome enough, but Krem is never fleshed out sufficiently as a character to be more than a serviceable villain. Momoa is obviously having a great time as the cigar-puffing Lobo; his over-the-topness is less obnoxious in this case than it was in “Fast X,” perhaps because of the massive facial prosthetics.
Particular praise is due to Turner, Krumholtz and Beecham, who give the Argo sequences as much emotional heft as anything in the movie (the work of Lamont, Sheppard and Mooney is also seen at its best in these Krypton sequences). As for Corenswet, in his brief scenes he again exudes likability as the Man of Steel—or of Tomorrow, as his promised sequel in the role would have it.
And how could anyone forget Krypto? Again, there’s a lot of him here, though not as much as in “Superman,” and you’ll either find him irresistible or a bit much. He’s certainly well-rendered, CGI-wise, though.
So “Supergirl” is somewhat of a mixed bag, a movie that’s a trifle lumpy as a result of trying to cover so many bases in a single package. But editors Tatiana S. Riegel and Fred Raskin have worked hard to make it as smooth a ride as possible, and they certainly deserve praise for bringing it in at well under two hours, a rare accomplishment among superhero movies one hopes others will emulate. By the way, you needn’t wait around hoping for a post-credits stinger.