In the middle of celebrating her birthday with a galactic booze-up, Kara Zor-El (Molly Alcock) is roped into helping a young girl (Eve Ridley) seeking vengeance for the murder of her family.
I was in and out on reviewing this movie. I was underwhelmed by last year’s Superman. And I caught some early reviews which put me off.
It had been awhile since I had been out to the theatre, I had a free ticket and I had also heard some interesting news about the production of Superman 2, so I booked.
One can always be hopeful.
I am not the best at tracking story problems, but this movie is a mess.
Repeatedly during the first couple of scenes, I felt like context and structure were missing.
When we first meet Supergirl, she is waking up from a bender in the middle of her shit-heap of a space ship (her costume is shoved in a corner).
But beyond these aesthetic choices, and some poignant flashbacks, the character has no real character, and gets no real arc.
We are meant to leave this story feeling like something has changed - but the film has not done the work to establish her character, nor provided a real turn in the story.
In the lead, Molly Alcock is fine, but the script does not provide her with any structure to build off of.
What makes the film frustrating is that the film ignores the more immediate and compelling story - the snippets of Kara’s life and journey to Earth.
These scenes pack the most emotional impact - unlike Clark, Kara grew up with her family, with Kryptonian language and culture. While born after the planet died, she carries the trauma of watching the survivors die.
And when she arrives on earth, Kara and Clark cannot communicate with each other. Her origin is a fascinating story, about an immigrant and a refugee grappling with her place in a new world.
The problem is the scenes have potential but they are so abbreviated. The film seems to think these moments amount to enough grounding, but they feel like a missed opportunity.
The film does not seem to recognise how important this material is, and how poorly integrated it is with the story this film wants to tell.
The film also gives no real arc to her relationship with Rutheye (Eve Ridley), the young girl who is supposed to ultimately help pull Kara out of her personal doom loop.
On top of this, the film is let down by its aesthetics. The film is so dark and under-lit, and there are a lot of random needle drops that feel like the filmmakers reaching for the James Gunn playbook but with no understanding for how they are supposed to function.
In its favour, the film has a lot interesting aliens and some fun sci-fi ideas (Supergirl having to catch the space equivalent of the Greyhound bus; a planet with a yellow and green sun). But the film is so deliberately colour-graded to negate and hide these elements.
The action scenes are poorly edited and - aside from a fight involving teleportation - lack any imagination or wit.
The biggest sin is how forgettable the movie is. Nothing about it stands out as particularly interesting or egregious.
It suffers from the same issues as other superhero movies - a generic villain, too much weightless CGI, and no real difference or definition to the respective power sets. Aside from one moment involving a green sun, I never really felt like Kara was in real danger.
It ultimately feels like a movie rushed into production.
Alcock - and the character - deserve better than this.
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