By The handful of female-led superhero movies struggle with an identity crisis. They often feel afraid to embrace femininity in both aesthetic and complexity. Wonder Woman was a stoic war hero. Captain Marvel was plainly sarcastic and emotionally withdrawn. It took two attempts to have a Black Widow willing to express any emotion and she’s now entombed in Marvel’s blandest era. The closest we’ve come is the pop confection BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN) which embraced the messy personality of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, but was sadly met with a collective shrug from the male viewers who unfortunately drive the genre’s box office returns. All of that brings us to SUPERGIRL, a darker counterpart to David Corenswet’s “golly gee” take on Superman that sadly finds herself trapped in the hellish tonal nightmare of James Gunn’s iteration of DC.
Gunn has never been afraid to embrace the traumas of his characters. However, now that he’s running the show and “delegating” work to other filmmakers, he seems to have taken on some of former mentor Kevin Feige’s micromanaging tendencies. SUPERGIRL desperately wants to convince you that Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) has a lot going on. She’s a depressed alcoholic who grieves the loss of her home planet more viscerally than her cousin. After Krypto the superdog is injured by sniveling leather daddy Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) she embarks on what should be an emotionally fraught revenge quest. Along the way, she picks up young Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a girl whose family was killed by Krem, who informs Kara that Krem and his goons traffic young girls to continue their all male bloodline. This should fuel Kara’s rage but instead she basically quips “Damn, that sucks” and they continue on their merry way.
Gunn’s DC is determined to include adult geopolitical elements: Superman had an entire subplot alluding to Isreal’s genocide of Palestine (despite his insistance that it didn’t) and now SUPERGIRL introduces sex trafficking. However, Gunn seems all too aware that he’s crafting what needs to be a somewhat family friendly superhero franchise that can act as a functioning artery to Warner Discovery Paramount. As such, these elements can never seep into the story in ways that truly disrupt the fun. They’re window dressing to make the audience members who may be getting self-conscious about being a bit too old for this stuff feel like they are, in fact, watching something for adults. There’s no attempt to pour passion or genuine anger into superheroes being a cure for these very real darknesses, though. SUPERMAN’s fake Netanyahu and SUPERGIRL’s glorified SOUND OF FREEDOM baddies are just scummier action figures to be toppled over.
SUPERGIRL entirely relies on Milly Alcock to be the yellow sun powerful enough to drive us through this sludge. She has some admirable instincts, portraying Kara as a stumbling, hungover, barely engaged rogue who has to find her ability to care. She’s going for a Jack Sparrow meets Han Solo thing, however, so much of that energy purely comes out of her physicality and costuming. When it’s time for her to deliver dialogue, it is clear that she just isn’t digging that deep. She reads the lines with the most straightforward, expressionless delivery possible, often not even enunciating the words. Not in a drunk way, in a “young and unassured screen presence” way. It’s far too polished and manicured to deliver the cathartic transformation that Kara allegedly undergoes. She behaves the same way at the end of the film as she does at the beginning, just with different words. It’s possible that she will grow into the role as time goes on, but I suspect that Gunn will begin phasing her out after opening weekend.
The supporting cast is even worse. Eve Ridley delivers all of her exposition dumps in an emotionless, Little Orphan Annie cadence out of a middle school play. Jason Momoa shows up as bounty hunter Lobo, a performance that he has demanded we anticipate, only to do all of his usual hooting and hollering in white makeup. He’s certainly having the most fun of the group, and his more seasoned screen presence is welcome in a film full of amateurs, but he’s bringing the bare minimum to the table. It’s hard to imagine sitting through a hard-R (oh, joy) solo film with him doing this DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE shtick for two hours. Matthias Schoenaerts has a bit of fun as Krem, but he’s still a shallow snarling villain with very little to offer. Ana Nogueira’s abysmal screenplay has no interest in building any genuine sense of connection between these characters; she just keeps them walking in a straight line, quipping or punching their way through one lifeless scene after another.
One might expect LARS AND THE REAL GIRL and I, TONYA filmmaker Craig Gillespie to inject a bit of edge or energy into the affair. He’s a gun(n) for hire. SUPERGIRL arguably has less directorial flair than the Arrowverse CW shows. We’re lumbering through poorly rendered, orangeish-gray planets that have no sense of vibrance or expression. The action is bog standard, completely disconnected from our characters as they turn into CGI models that bang against each other. This is where some of Kara’s ferocity could’ve shone through, but she just silently whacks goons until they’re all gone. There are also a ton of Gunn-esque needle drops, each new one feeling more like masking tape for a plain score (Claudia Sarne’s work does not have a pulse) to evoke some false sense of “cool” or to spoonfeed us some emotion. The most egregious case of this comes during the “peak” of the climax, in which a TikTok-y whisper sing-y cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” underscores the journey we’ve allegedly gone on with Kara. It might’ve worked in the original form, but it’s fitting that this key moment is a hand-me-down. That’s what all of SUPERGIRL feels like: scraps of something that was once vibrant and meaningful.
James Gunn was brought into the DC fold to renew audience interest in this wilting genre by giving us something fresh. Instead, he’s delivered cinematic press notes. We’re babysat through these shallow arcs with performances that might better resemble their comic counterparts, but lack any sense of unique authorship. SUPERGIRL could’ve been a profound statement that moved women who wouldn’t be caught dead in a comic-book-movie. In a year where the most culturally impactful film of the year is an emotionally devastating horror story about a woman losing her autonomy, there’s a hunger for something that could’ve acted as a more cathartic and hopeful outlet. Instead, SUPERGIRL is just as passive and unengaged as its protagonist, and the mediocre actress who plays her. This isn’t going to work anymore. Superhero movies need to reach the point where they’re kitschy and deeply personal statements from the filmmakers involved. The assembly line is buckling. Gunn is not the man to fix it. I don’t think we’re in the middle of the ride. Everything will not be alright, alright.
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