Posted by Supergirl released in theaters the other week to an astoundingly mixed, if not outright negative, reception. I went and saw it this week. I honestly think that I must have watched a different movie than the one everyone else saw because I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, I have a few critiques, but I thought that the movie was genuinely good. I’m not saying it was amazing or peak cinema, but it was GOOD.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Before I get into the synopsis and my review, I want to first clarify that I am not evaluating the story as an adaptation of the source material. Supergirl is a direct adaptation of the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic story. I have not read Woman of Tomorrow. I did pick up a copy the other day, but I haven’t read much of it yet. As a result, this review is based on my evaluation of the movie as a movie, not as an adaptation. I do have plans to revisit the movie once I finish the comic, so expect more thoughts down the line.
The story follows Supergirl and a young girl named Ruthye as they pursue the dangerous Brigand Krem. Krem came to Ruthye’s family looking for her father’s weapons, an altercation occurs, and her entire family is slaughtered. Ruthye takes her father’s prized sword and seeks out someone to help her avenge her family, with the sword meant to be payment for helping her. In a bar, a patron takes the sword and begins to leave. A thoroughly inebriated Supergirl, who is out celebrating her birthday and drowning her sorrows in liquor, intervenes. In demonstrating her strength, Ruthye wants her help in tracking down Krem. Supergirl refuses until Krem arrives, steals her ship, and shoots Krypto with a poisoned arrow. Supergirl decides to track down Krem, not because she wants to help Ruthye, but because she needs the antidote to save Krypto. She boards a space bus, and Ruthye is not far behind. The bus is attacked by tech pirates, and Supergirl defeats them. They give her a lead on Krem, and the two travel to a dying planet where they can find the Brigands. Supergirl has an altercation in a bar on the planet, and the owners say that they can help them find the Brigands. Supergirl and Ruthye have a bonding moment where Kara reveals what happened to Krypton and what her childhood was like while they wait for this informant to arrive. Kara leave the room to try and learn more from the bar owners, and she finds out that they sold them out to the Brigands in exchange for their daughter. The Brigands are an entirely male race, so they need to find women elsewhere to continue their reproduction. The Brigands attack, and Supergirl almost gets her antidote. She has to turn her attention to saving the captured girls from the Brigands, which allows Krem to get away. She’s briefly joined by Lobo, who is pursuing his own bounty against one of the Brigands. Krem and the Brigands escape, which leads to a falling out between Supergirl and Ruthye. Supergirl gets someone to take her to the Brigands, and Ruthye stows along unbeknownst to her. Once they arrive, a green sun rises, which severely weakens Kara and nearly kills her. Ruthye hides her away in a cave, but then gets captured when out looking for water. Inside the Brigand ship, Ruthye reunites with Lobo, who has also been captured. She’s able to free herself, and begins making her way through the ship in pursuit of Krem. The green sun sets and the yellow sun rises, which allows Supergirl to recover and join the fight. All of the Brigands are defeated, Krem is killed, the kidnapped women are saved, and Kara is able to save Krypto. And in the end, she decides that she’s ready to go back to Earth where she can join her cousin in making it her home.
Concerning the story itself, I liked it. I found it to be a pretty enjoyable and well-executed narrative that didn’t have many plot holes or problems. Thematically, the story placed a big emphasis on “revenge is not the answer; it won’t make you feel better.” I’m not sure how I feel about that message because on the one hand, yeah revenge is bad and you can’t undo past wrongs, but on the other hand I love the John Wick movies. I do think that the movie gets real close to straddling the line of “don’t kill or you’re just as bad as he is *even though the character kills the villain’s underlings.*” What I mean by that is that when she’s escaping from her cell, I’m pretty sure Ruthye kills one of the Brigands. If she’s capable manipulating and killing the Brigand guard, why would her killing Krem be any different? I do think that some of that criticism may be due to suspension of disbelief. It’s a movie; the audience wants to see the heroes get revenge and accomplish their goals, plus the villain is so despicable that there’s no way he should be allowed to continue living and hurting people. That being said, it is worth remembering that Ruthye is only thirteen years old. A thirteen year old killing someone would definitely be traumatic, so Supergirl repeatedly thwarting her efforts to kill Krem is the morally correct thing to do. Krem still gets what’s coming to him, but Supergirl is the one who does it. And I do have to say that one potentially annoying part of the movie is that Supergirl’s lethality is left pretty ambiguous with the sole exception being when she kills Krem. The Brigands are a pretty awful group. They leave a lot of suffering in their wake. If they were to be wiped out, the universe wouldn’t be a worse place. Superman does a good job of establishing his no-kill rule and how he goes out of his way to fight non-lethally. It’s hard to tell if Supergirl follows that same code because her morals do align with Superman’s, but she also differs from him in how she sees the world and other people. In the end, there is a part of me that can appreciate how Supergirl tries to subvert the standard revenge tropes. While it may not be as satisfying as watching revenge come to fruition, I can’t deny that it’s morally correct, and I applaud the movie for having some semblance of a moral core. Yes, Supergirl does still kill Krem, but that situation is different; the movie makes it abundantly clear that Krem is awful and if he’s allowed to live, all he’ll do is spread more suffering. Villains don’t deserve happy endings, and Krem is no exception.
Turning to Supergirl and her characterization, I think that it works. On the surface, she fronts the party-girl life where she drinks all the time and doesn’t care about what’s going on. She looks out for herself first, which can definitely lead to her appearing selfish and self-centered. But as the movie progresses, it becomes more apparent that a lot of her actions are driven by a deep-seated trauma and wandering. She was born after Krypton’s destruction and grew up on a Kryptonian city floating through space until her father sent her to Earth because Kryptonite had poisoned the crops and the population was dying. Kara finds herself on a new planet that’s completely alien to her, from the culture to the language to needing to adapt to her powers from the yellow sun. She was sent to reunite with her cousin, yet she finds him fully integrated into Earth’s society. He had the luxury of arriving as an infant, so he could grow-up acclimating to the planet. Kara didn’t. She’s a wanderer who doesn’t know where she belongs, which creates a vicious and self-destructive cycle in her life. She’s a much more interesting and deeper character than she appears at first glance, especially because she does experience quite a lot of growth over the span of the movie. She shifts from a wandering, drinking, self-centered person who usually tries to do the right thing to becoming an actual hero. She fully accepts and embraces her role as Supergirl and what it means.
And for every hero, there needs to be a villain. Krem is a mixed bag. I have seen A LOT of criticism about him online. I’ve seen complaints ranging from his appearance to his motivation to the threat he poses. The only one I really agree with his appearance. I do think that Krem’s character design ends up looking a tad generic and like some side villain from Guardians of the Galaxy. As for his motivation and the threat he poses, I think that people might be misunderstanding him as a villain. Krem isn’t this all-powerful, universe-shattering threat. He’s just a cruel, evil man doing cruel, evil things. He isn’t going out his way to destroy Supergirl or those around her. He and the Brigands are just carrying on with their business as usual, and it’s up to Supergirl to disrupt the status quo. Sure, her motives are more self-centered at first in that she’s pursuing Krem because it means saving her dog, but by the end of the movie, that’s not fully the case. She’s still trying to save Krypto, but she’s also trying to save everyone the Brigands have hurt while stopping them. I think that Krem is a decent villain because he’s just an evil and despicable person, going about his life without a care for who gets hurt, and that’s the point. The adventure struggle with the Brigands depicted by the movie is simply a snapshot of one tumultuous adventure Kara goes on.
Turning to the aesthetics, another complaint I’ve seen is that the movie looks like Guardians of the Galaxy. On the one hand, there are some similarities, but calling it the same aesthetic is disingenuous to both movies. Supergirl creates a space aesthetic that feels like a fusion of Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It’s fine. The alien designs feel pretty alien a lot of the time. The movie isn’t as colorful as Guardians of the Galaxy, but it’s also not dull and monotone gray. Overall, I do like the visuals. I really don’t think it’s worth hating.
Cinematically, the movie is fine. It looks good. The action sequences are solid and fun to watch. The effects tend to fall into the “I can tell it’s CGI but it isn’t awful or overly uncanny.” The music is good too. I will say that some of the song choices are… interesting. They end up working, but they work in the way that a weird food combo does where it takes a few bites before the flavor combination really hits.
Finally, I want to talk about the acting. It’s solid. I mean, I don’t have any real complaints, though truth be told I feel like movies have reached a point where the acting is usually pretty consistent. I think that Milly Alcock does a great job as Supergirl. I genuinely despise how the internet has taken to bashing her and tearing her down for no real reason. She is a really good Supergirl, and I can’t wait to see more of her. I also think that Jason Momoa nails Lobo. He’s funny, has some solid action sequences, and you can just tell that he enjoyed the role. Again, I’m looking forward to seeing more of him in the future.
SPOILERS END
Supergirl is a good movie. I genuinely believe that. The fact that people online are comparing it to Morbius is utterly insane to me. Morbius and Supergirl should never be uttered in the same sentence together. There is a surprising amount of nuance and complexity in Supergirl that I think people are missing. The characters are genuinely interesting and grow over the course of the movie. The movie has a deep moral core that actually pushes back against the common romanticization of revenge tropes. The action, set pieces, and effects are all good. My first reaction upon finishing the movies was simply, “what are people complaining so much about? I really liked that.” I cannot say with certainty if Supergirl is a good adaptation, but I genuinely believe that it is a good movie, and it’s definitely better than whatever hateful drivel the internet seems to believe it is.
Broad Scope Entertainment 