As the second entry in the James Gunn-helmed DC film franchise, “Supergirl” is tasked with following up the immensely popular “Superman” with its own take on a superhero origin story. Despite a charming turn from Milly Alcock as the titular hero, “Supergirl” is a forgettable diversion with superficial character work, an overreliance on CGI and poorly staged action.
“Supergirl” opens with Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) on a birthday bender, avoiding calls from her earnest, try-hard cousin (David Corenswet) in favor of another drink, another blackout. Drawing her superpowers from the strength of the yellow sun, Kara seeks out red sun planets that render her practically human, letting the alcohol numb the painful memories of her parents’ deaths and the reality of her own meaningless existence.
During one drunken stupor, Kara meets a young girl, Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is looking for a guide to help her hunt down the space pirate Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) and kill him in vengeance for her murdered family. Kara initially declines, but when Krem poisons her beloved dog, Krypto, she brings Ruthye along on her quest to retrieve the antidote held by Krem – and fight for justice along the way. Jason Momoa hams it up as Lobo, a super-powered bounty hunter who becomes an unlikely ally to Kara and Ruthye even as his blatant self-interest leaves no room for considering the suffering of innocents.
Craig Gillespie’s directorial successes have been mostly in the world of low-budget dramatic comedies, and he feels particularly ill-suited for the sort of effects-driven spectacle demanded of blockbuster superhero films. Where Gunn’s “Superman” was a triumph in color and clarity, the action sequences here are muddled and incomprehensible, with editing that leaves the viewer disoriented as to who’s doing what and where.
It’s not only that the action scenes are confusing, they are also bizarrely paced and, often, conducted in the periphery as Gillespie chooses to focus the camera on Ruthye’s face in medium close-up while the chaotic action occurs around her. Using this trick once would be fine to solidify Ruthye as an audience surrogate witnessing Kara’s uniquely chaotic strength, but using it on multiple occasions feels less like a creative decision than an excuse to avoid crafting an adequately choreographed and staged action scene.
A poor sense of action timing serves to highlight a flaw often present in superhero films: a protagonist’s constantly changing power. In some scenes, Kara struggles in hand-to-hand combat, in others she blows through crowds and spaceships with ease, suggesting that Kara is just as strong as the plot needs her to be in any given moment. Toward the end of the film, an action sequence set to a bizarre cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” is just such a poorly paced scene, in which Supergirl enters the arena with triumph, only to be rendered powerless, then to benefit from some “deus ex Momoa” that spurs her onward to fight the enemy. Gillespie doesn’t allow moments to breathe, removing viewers from the emotional thrust of the action and leaving them forced to consider the implausibility of it all.
Shoddy action sequences can be forgiven if the character arcs and emotional beats are poignant and distinct. Yet here again the movie falls short, delivering the most generic versions of superhero backstory and motivation more at home in a cheap monster-of-the-week serial than a blockbuster film. Krem and his band of bad guys lack any dimensionality, murdering Ruthye’s family on a lark, shooting Krypto just because. There is no nuance, no interiority, no hint of an existence beyond giving Kara an unambiguous enemy to battle.
The film often feels in tension with itself, wanting to be a Gunn pastiche with quippy one-liners, underdog superheroes and ironic musical cues while also handling difficult subjects through a story about overcoming trauma, processing grief and the emotional toll of seeking vengeance instead of forgiveness. The hero is a drunken layabout who takes nothing seriously, but the villains are mass murdering sex traffickers who enslave women to continue their patriarchal race. If this sounds like a nightmare world, it should. But given the movie’s desperation to keep things light, the stakes never feel all that serious, as if sex trafficking were a frivolous concern compared with the more serious matter of saving Kara’s dog.
This all-over-the-place feeling is not limited to the thematic material. Even the characters and performances often feel like they belong in different movies. Momoa gives the antihero version of his over-the-top performance from “Fast X,” and each time he appears on screen the film feels more like a cartoon than the emotionally nuanced dramedy it otherwise wants to be.
“Supergirl” is an unfortunate, tonally inconsistent mess that never commits to the kind of story it wants to tell. Is it a dark, serious feminist take on how to overcome personal trauma to find goodness in others? Is it an irreverent subversion of the unattainable purity from “Superman”? Neither? Both? I don’t know, and regrettably neither do the filmmakers, resulting in an uncomfortable, forgettable waste of some charming performances.
A version of this review was posted at Curt On The Movies.
“Supergirl” Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, action, language and smoking. Running Time: 1 hour and 48 minutes. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Written by Ana Nogueira. Starring Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, David Corenswet, Jason Momoa. Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama.
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