Forget superhero movies for a second. There are so many stories about sons born into privilege who waste their youth on pleasures and have to grow up, however belatedly, to be worthy of their family legacies. (Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One is a good example.) How many such stories are there about daughters? Aren’t they as likely to need straightening out? It’s true that for centuries such stories weren’t needed because expectations for girls were limited to having children, but what excuse do we have now?
From the moment Supergirl (Milly Alcock) appeared at the tail end of last year’s Superman, the character had a whole new take. Where Kara Zor-El has so often been merely a pretty blonde female version of her more famous cousin, this iteration made her into the family screw-up who’d rather order another cocktail than save the universe. That is easier to relate to, not to mention more fun. It’s where Supergirl’s own movie starts, and it successfully distinguishes the film from the herd of other superhero flicks. I just wish it had advanced the idea further than it does.
As stated at the end of Superman, Supergirl prefers to spend her time on planets with red suns, where she doesn’t have superpowers but can much more easily drink herself into oblivion. She spends much of this movie wearing a Hole T-shirt, and Courtney Love ca. 1992 is just about her vibe. This gives life to some of the fight sequences, where her male enemies have a chance against her because she’s drunk or hungover. One nameless bad guy kicks her in the stomach during a bar brawl and makes her vomit copiously. She says, “Thanks, I needed that” and rejoins the fight.
The drinking has a solid psychological base, too. A flashback reveals young Kara’s parents (David Krumholtz and Emily Beecham) bringing her into being after Krypton explodes and her father manages to preserve a fragment of the planet. The little girl then grows up watching her parents and everybody else die slowly from kryptonite poisoning before she’s sent to Earth to join her cousin (David Corenswet). As Kara points out, Clark never had to deal with that.
The Australian newcomer from TV’s House of the Dragon and Sirens, Alcock gets in a nice crack at Supergirl’s anger and pain and self-pity. Against all of that, Superman’s wholesome optimism comes off as refreshing when he shows up. Her backstory even gives emotional weight to Krypto, the dog, seen as a stray puppy who comes up to Kara during her mother’s funeral. This movie’s villains shoot the dog with a slow-acting poison, and I’m glad Ana Nogueira’s script comes with a logical reason for this, because there’s no movie if the poison acts fast. (Or rather, there is a movie, but it’s John Wick, and we don’t want that.)
What doesn’t work is most of the rest of it. The action sequences are not only muddy, but they’re also not well integrated into the story. The flashback revealing Supergirl’s past comes during a huge lull in the plot, and director Craig Gillespie can’t keep it from turning into a dead spot. In fact, he can’t even come up with a single memorable visual or set piece. Balancing action and character material is an issue for him all movie long, and the story’s forward movement is consistently clunky.
Supergirl reluctantly has to look after a girl (Eve Ridley) whose family was murdered by the same gang of bandits who shot Krypto, and the whole subplot is flat. We don’t believe that Kara turns her life around by convincing this girl not to take revenge. Even the time element of Kara needing to retrieve the poison’s antidote from the robbers before Krypto dies doesn’t appreciably raise the movie’s tension.
Jason Momoa turns up as a rude, cigar-chomping bounty hunter who alternately works with and against Supergirl. His wit and verve do much to leaven the proceedings and bring out a different form of humorous toughness in the heroine. The superhero genre is rife with male characters who have to work through their personal issues while coming to terms with their powers. There’s plenty of room in the genre for women who are in the same spot. Supergirl sets up that story, but I can’t help thinking that it could have been that great film. No such luck here. I guess we’ll have to wait for the sequel.
Supergirl
Starring Milly Alcock and Eve Ridley. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Written by Ana Nogueira. Rated PG-13.
