There is actually a lot of good things that’s going on for Supergirl. I love director Craig Gillespie’s work on I, Tonya and thought he had a really sharp eye here, capturing the deeper pathos of Supergirl. As a character study, I really enjoyed how the film positions Kara as an ultimately powerful superhero, but whose sense of loss is so catastrophic that she feels lost and without purpose. These are the elements that truly resonated with me. However, I felt that the story that surrounded this and the plot that allowed Supergirl’s story to unfold felt incongruent with her personal journey. There were many moments when I felt as though I was watching two completely different films and I was definitely liking one far more than the other.
Kara Zor-El, the cousin of Kal-El (Superman), was born eight years after the fall of Krypton. Her father, the engineer Zor-El, managed to protect a portion of the home planet within a protective force field as its core melted away.
However, as the remaining survivors of Argo, Krypton are slowly dying off and Zor-El’s only recourse to save his daughter was to send her to Earth to join Kal-El. Unlike Superman, Kara did not experience his idealistic and optimistic childhood; instead, she grew up witnessing the slow death and destruction of her entire race.
Now turning 23, she copes by hopping between planets with her dog, Krypto, getting drunk and avoiding facing the truth about who she is and who she plans to be. Her celebration gets derailed when she meets Ruthye Marye Knoll, a young girl whose parents were killed by the ruthless brigand leader Krem of the Yellow Hills. She is on a quest to find him to exact her revenge.
When Krem and his crew steal Kara’s shop and shoot Krypto with a fatal poison, the antidote to which only Krem possesses, Kara and Ruthye are forced to band together. For Kara, the stakes transform into a desperate mission to save Krypto, the last living connection to her lost home.
As Kara, Milly Alcock is a wonderful personification of Supergirl’s intense emotional turmoil. She layers her performance with the knowledge that she’s extremely powerful, unapologetic about it, but also uncaring about it. Alcock fully embodies Kara’s deep sense of displacement and purposelessness. There’s a tired way by how she goes about things. She’s dazzling to watch because you know underneath all the walls she has put up is a powerhouse that flattens mountains with a punch or a blast from her eye beams. But her heart isn’t in it. It is such an arresting performance that I could easily watch it all day.
What I did not appreciate, however, was how the plot utilizes this young girl’s quest for vengeance tagging along to somehow mirror or parallel Kara’s own emotional journey. I get it, both characters have suffered greatly and it is through each other that they will find some sort of insight about how to push forward. There is something touching about Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a seemingly hapless child carrying her father’s sword seeking revenge. Yet, her tragic backstory is granted a four-minute prologue, the slaughter of her family ultimately feels more like a convenient plot device than a character-driven storyline. We don’t even get to see the weapons her father died protecting. Instead, Rutheye spends most of the movie wanting revenge and getting into trouble, only to be constantly saved by the more powerful Supergirl, leaving no real room for to see her grow. If she’s mirroring or her journey is to parallel that of Kara-El’s, it doesn’t quite help us gain any new insight into Kara’s deep-seated depression.
There is even a subplot of how the brigands are capturing women as brides because they are an all-male species. This add no real bearing to Kara’s personal journey, or Ruthye’s, for that matter, but its includion feels like a forced, surface-level attempt to show how feminist the film’s story is. You can remove that storyline and the movie would remain still strong and feminist, in just how much more of a burden Kara carries over her more idealistic cousin (still played wonderfully by David Corenswet). Same abilities, same trauma, but different approach; different realities.
Utilmately, the film offers fantastic moments of cinema. This is especially true during the breathtaking sequences in outer space where Supergirl absorbs the energy of the yellow sun and comes into her own, alongside some great, complex fight scenes that allow us to see the full extent of who she is as a superhero and as a character. We get to witness her when at her most vulnerable, completely depowered under the dim light of a red sun, and at her most formidable, super-charged under the radiant rays of the yellow sun. Through it all, she is remains fearless and persistent. What Superman possesses in heart, Supergirl matches in sheer grit.
There is undoubtedly a lot of good materials in this film – some great set pieces, a quick pace, some really great character moments – but I wished the plot had dealt more directly with Kara and her personal emotional journey. I felt Ruthye was not compelling enough as a mirror and it gave no real insight to Kara’s own choices. Meanwhile, Jason Momoa’s appearance as Lobo is exactly how I imagined him to be. It is a highly predictable performance that has no real bearing in the movie other than to put another recognizable DC character into the mix. Ultimately, I really just wanted more of Supergirl herself and I didn’t get nearly enough.
My Rating: 2.5 Stars
Supergirl is now playing in theaters nationwide. Check showtimes, grab your tickets today, and see the cosmic powerhouse in action on the biggest screen possible!
