Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl” really wants you to think it’s cooler than it is. With a raised middle finger wedged up the nose of “Truth, Justice, and All That Jazz,” the second film in the rebooted DC Extended Universe tries to zag against the simmering earnestness of last year’s deeply affecting “Superman” by showing the lasting disaffection and trauma of a Kryptonian old enough to remember the destruction of their entire civilization. A broken home will mess anyone up, send them pinwheeling into dangerous situations, sleazy backroom bars, and pining for a happiness that unwarranted tragedy chose to decimate. In many ways, the slow self-desecrations of Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) are not only understandable but even relatable, which should help an audience immediately empathize with her plight and collectively hope for her evolution into a hero worthy of her name. Should, being the operative word here, because whereas James Gunn’s “Superman” was a comforting, in some ways even challenging, reclamation of what makes the first superhero not only unique but prescient, “Supergirl” can’t seem to find its own path, choosing instead to saddle itself with plot threads and characters that were more innovative and better executed in other films. While there is some charm to “Supergirl,” this is a movie without a soul; a patchwork abomination weighed down by a desperate need to make Kara seem “cool” instead of compelling, a thousand-pound gorilla that even the rays of the most blazing yellow sun can’t save the film from smothering beneath.
“Supergirl” begins with Kara mid-birthday bender. Assuaging the responsibility of serving Earth alongside her aw-shucks, corn fed cousin, Clark (David Corenswet), Kara has chosen instead to spend her days bar-hopping from red sun planet to red sun planet alongside her rambunctious, yet adorable, dog Krypto. Being Kryptonian, various types of sun radiation are a big deal. A yellow sun like Earth’s can instill one with superpowers, while a red sun makes you essentially like everyone else. Kara likes being like everyone else, mostly because it allows her to get white girl wasted whenever possible. In oversized sunglasses and a Blondie t-shirt, Kara wants nothing to do with responsibility or “doing good.” She just wants to be left alone, until a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) wanders into a seedy biker bar looking for a hero to help get revenge for her family, who were murdered by a bunch of “Mad Max” rejects known as the “Brigands.” Kara is unbothered until the Brigand leader Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) shoots Krypto with a poison dart and steals her ship. Left with only a few days before the poison takes effect, killing the only creature in the universe that she truly loves, Kara joins up with Ruthye to hunt down the Brigands in search of an antidote and righteous revenge; a journey that will take them into the scuzzier underbelly of the intergalactic community and into the sphere of noted bounty hunter, biker, and all around scum bag Lobo (Jason Momoa).
“Supergirl” flails when it tries to pawn off the aesthetic of better movies as its own. Take almost any frame of this film and place it against a similar frame from any of James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, and you’d be hard-pressed to notice any distinguishable difference. Who knows where this edict was handed down, but there seems to be a marrow-deep fear that audiences would not respond to Kara without being enveloped in the comforting confines of a familiar world; a fatal error in judgment. As it stands, it’s difficult to find the aspects of “Supergirl” that are wholly its own, so overwhelming is the onslaught of copycat aesthetics, tired needle drops, and lackadaisical villains. The Brigands are perhaps the most lazily conceived group of scoundrel bad guys in a movie of this ilk. Not only do they look like the bastard spawn of Immortal Joe from “Mad Max: Fury Road” and the Ravagers from “Guardians,” but they also have no dimensionality, no character, no purpose beyond their unrelenting desire to mine planets for young girls for breeding purposes. Their leader, Krem, has the energy of an eighties action movie henchman in the sense that his antics are pedestrian and easily disposable. To place such a limp antagonist as the introductory villain for “Supergirl” is patently foolish and borderline insulting. God forbid they offer a complimentary bad guy that Kara can face, perhaps someone with an ideology worthy of dismantling and contending with. It’s hard not to continually compare this film to “Superman,” but how can you not when so many elements of the films share narrative real estate? In “Superman”, Lex Luthor is a megalomaniacal monstrosity, a tech billionaire gone supernova, whose belief that this alien from another world is destructive and dangerous is an honest, if corrupted, one. They pair nicely, the hopeful Superman and the cynical Luthor, which is surely why they will forever be linked in our collective unconscious. Kara should, in theory, deserve a foe of equal complexity, one that nudges at her worst impulses and requires growth to overcome. Instead, we are left with a band of leather-clad Proud Boys with a penchant for face studs and sexual assault. Are they worthy of being smashed into the dirt, obviously. Are they a worthy adversary for the last daughter of Krypton, whose guilt of abandoning her home world to die plagues her every sober moment, absolutely not.
The ways that “Supergirl” simply plays cover versions of other films are legion, perhaps most notably with the major plot point of saving Krypto. While this same story choice was tear-jerking in “Superman”, showcasing Clark’s goodness in sacrificing himself in order to save his cousin’s dog, there is no universe where this film allows Krypto to die, leaving Kara’s journey to save him as little more than a plot to string set pieces along. That being said, one of the few aspects of the film that works, and should have been a more pronounced feature, is the introduction of Jason Momoa as Lobo. Essentially, DC Comics’ answer for Deadpool, Lobo is a character that Momoa has been lobbying to play for years. Here, it’s clear that actor and character are in sync, allowing Momoa the chance to lean into the blowhard bravado of a cigar-sucking space pirate whose own mission dovetails with Kara and Ruthye’s. His inclusion in the story only makes one wish that he were integrated even more so, perhaps as an overt ally in Kara’s journey. Instead, his presence is almost incidental, allowing him to pop up in a few action sequences, spout some one-liners, before firing off in his space chopper for some other adventure. So far as foils for Kara go, the fun-loving, responsibility-eschewing Lobo would have been a perfect yin to her yang, the dark side of selfish greed which she very well could have parried against. Unfortunately, their interactions are mostly quip-based and surface-level, leaving behind merely the aftertaste of a movie that could have been, one that actually had something up its sleeve besides half-funny asides and sad girl covers of “Jimmy Eat World” songs.
“Supergirl” feels all the more trite and disposable in the afterglow of what “Superman” was able to achieve only one year ago. That film, staunchly political in the most universal of ways, knew what it stood for; allowing Clark to be a bastion for hope in a world gone mad, a flawed figure of unending compassion who wanted to heal the rifts mankind self-inflicts. “Supergirl” has no such desire, no grander theme beyond the need to establish Kara as her own character for later inclusion in DC’s big screen plans, which is a shame. The best sequence in the film, one where we witness the agonizing death of Krypton through the eyes of young Kara, is quite moving. As her family and people die around her, each infected by a pandemic of Kryptonite, Kara tries to remain strong and brave, only agreeing to be sent to Earth and safety when her father (David Krumholtz) explains that her life is bigger than herself. She is the repository of her father, of her mother, of an entire people. By living, by doing good, she is keeping them alive. THERE is a story worth telling. THERE is a character worth investing in and even coming to care for. If only the film believed enough in itself to see it.
Do good.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Supergirl” is playing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
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