★★★
Supergirl is clearly aiming to deliver action, adventure and heart. But the action is weightless CGI, the adventure beats feel rote, and only two characters have any real interiority in this significant step down from Superman.
Step aside, Superman, you do-gooder. Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) did not grow up safely on Earth. She was raised in Argo City, set adrift on a surviving fragment of Krypton. She watched everyone around her die from kryptonite poisoning, and came out harder and more jaded than her cousin, Kal-El.
WB’s sequel to Superman opens on Kara’s 23rd birthday, which she spends knocking back whiskey and crowd surfing in clubs, as she drifts across various red-sun worlds with the one constant she has left from her Argo City days – her dog, Krypto. The de-powering effect of the red suns helps her to drink and forget, but when the evil Krem and his Brigands poison Krypto, she sets out on a quest to seize the antidote from them – joined by Ruthye Marye Knoll, a young girl whose family has been murdered by Krem, and who has sworn a bloody revenge. Jason Momoa’s cigar chomping, chain-swinging alien motorcyclist bounty hunter Lobo turns up along the way.
Credit where it is due, it’s refreshing to see a superhero film that is not built around another planetary threat, and the stakes are the better for being grounded. Supergirl’s dog-centric motivation is essentially the same as John Wick’s, although “poisoned and requiring an antidote” is more kiddie friendly than “dead.” Sure, Ruthye’s whole family has been killed, but audiences can accept that. As every Hollywood producer knows, you can kill anyone, but if the dog dies you’ve lost the audience.
At the centre of all this, Alcock is the real deal, messed up, mussed up and scuzzily charming as Kara/Supergirl. The trouble is that only she and Eve Ridley’s Ruthye have any real interiority. Everyone else stays surface level, and all the character choices seem geared to set up the next very CGI action set piece rather than make any logical or motivational sense.
Make no mistake, while Alcock is a real find the film around her is thin stuff. The script, by Ana Nogueira and overseen by DC Studios’ creative lead James Gunn, is clearly aiming for the “bitter girl with a lost soul finds a family” angle that formed part of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films. But the beats do not land here, because even at her lowest point Supergirl as a character never really shows the darkness or destructive rage that powered Gamora or Nebula.
Supergirl is also, crucially, not very exciting, which feels like an editing and soundtrack problem. The amount of ADR practically signposts that this is a heavily re-cut effort. Time and again the film cuts to a wide shot and lays a voiceover over it, giving the audience helpful emotional and plot exposition along the lines of “now I’m really pissed off” or “I’ve got to find that antidote.” It plays like a post-production decision to have everyone explain themselves in order to paper over a desperate reworking of the material. Indeed, the film was reportedly recut across more than ten test screenings, its runtime trimmed by around twenty-five minutes, with more flashback cameos from Superman folded in late.
I suspect they upped the amount of Lobo too, who is periodically roaring around on his bike but has no really significant effect on the plot. Momoa will satisfy anyone who wanted a comic-book accurate portrayal, but it’s a superficial characterisation. He strikes Lobo poses and says Lobo things, wandering off in the middle of a battle with a quick “G’bye, Tits!” to Supergirl, but there is not much heart or soul there. This is Lobo come to life in the physical sense, but underneath the makeup, motorcycle and quips there’s nothing but a void and some marketing opportunities.
Matthias Schoenaerts is wonderfully hissable, but there is not much to Krem of the Yellow Hills beyond “very evil,” and he has become the early reaction’s most common complaint. His Brigands kidnap “wives” who are all dressed in beige basics, as though grabbed mid-shop in Muji. The overall effect is a Fury Road where the brides do not get to do anything. They literally have no lines.
In fact, it’s the flashback scenes of life in Argo City that are more interesting than anything set in the present, and the practical craft on display there, the gorgeous design and the sense of epic loss and regret, are among the things that the film truly nails.
Supergirl sets out to deliver heart, action and adventure. In the end, it provides a little of the first, thanks to its two main leads, and not too much of either of the others. You can sense the possibility of a better, stranger film lost somewhere across those test screenings. The version that reached cinemas settles for mostly looking the part and delivering some fan service. It’s a big step down from Superman, but it’s at least functional stuff – and, thanks to Alcock, audiences will be left hoping that Supergirl will return in 2027’s Man of Tomorrow.
The machine, as ever, rolls on.
Supergirl is in cinemas from Thursday 25 June.