Directed by Craig Gillespie | Written by Ana Nogueira, based on comics by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster | 107 min | ▲▲1/2
People might recall that there was a Supergirl movie back in 1984, a spin-off of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. It starred Helen Slater and didn’t do so well at the box office, so the franchise went away. Kara Zor-El has shown up on TV, and a version appeared in The Flash. We’re now in a new cinematic era, starring Australian actor Millie Alcock. As Superman’s cousin she’s a lot scrappier and less naive than he is, which is welcome. I wasn’t much of a fan of the big blue dummy that is David Corenswet’s Superman, or the movie he was in.
This tale takes place mostly off Earth. We find Kara on a planet under a red sun where she is drinking away her blues. She doesn’t have her powers here, so she can get drunk, something she clearly enjoys. She’s just turning 23 and she feels homeless — the film provides her backstory as we go along, how she arrived on earth much later than Kal-el and never quite assimilated like he did, still carrying trauma from her past.
She meets a teenager with a posh British accent named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) carrying a big sword. Ruthye’s out for revenge against a guy named Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), a brigand who murdered her parents and brother.
Conveniently for Ruthye, who’s looking for help to kill Krem, he goes ahead and steals Kara’s spaceship and poisons her faithful CGI puppy, Krypto. So now Kara has to track down Krem for the antidote to save her dog, and she’s only got three days to do it.
Cue a movie owing a debt to both Guardians of The Galaxy — no surprise there since director James Gunn is the architect of this new DC Universe — and to Mad Max: Fury Road, both in aesthetics and plot points: The brigands’ society is all male, so they collect young girls to become their brides, all dressed in white robes.
The lack of originality doesn’t bother me too much. This isn’t an especially good movie for a lot of other reasons.
It’s got a few major plot holes, the biggest of which is this: If Kara gets her powers from the yellow sun, which makes her so resilient, isn’t the same true of Krypto? Why wouldn’t she take the ailing dog to a system with a yellow sun? Wouldn’t that have given him more strength to fight off the poison? There’s the suggestion they shouldn’t move him, but really?
I never quite believed the connection between Kara and Ruthye. The movie tries to convince us of their sisterhood, but the writing (and maybe the performances) fail to get us to invest. The movie’s too busy setting up the next action set-piece to give us real moments between the characters.
This also could’ve been a whole lot funnier, given that Alcock provides Kara with a lot of edge — she could’ve been burning all these space pirates, but mostly she just punches them. She gets one or two good lines, but if you consider how funny Guardians is, or most Marvel movies? Let’s face it, you can’t help but compare this new, more playful DC era to the best of Marvel since that’s what they’re competing against in the marketplace.
The film’s also got some of the most boring villains I’ve seen in an age. Krem’s got a cool and intimidating look, but that’s no substitute for an actual character. All he does is growl in an Eastern European accent.
Finally, we get Lobo, the nasty space biker beloved from the comics. Jason Momoa’s perfect for this role — much more suited than that other fishy character he essayed for DC. What’s remarkable is how silly he looks — he’s got the size and the attitude, but the powder white face and glowing red eyes look a lot more campy than I expected. Nonetheless, he brings a welcome chaos energy.
Still, this summer popcorn escape should’ve been a whole lot more fun than it is. That’s 0 for 2, new DC. Do better.
