The new ‘Supergirl’ is a cheerless comic book movie

While watching the ostentatiously trashy new movie Supergirl, I could not help but think how the mighty have fallen. Or should I say, how the mediocre have fallen? Not being a reader of any iteration of the Supergirl comic books published by DC Comics, I cannot comment on their quality as compared to the subsequent screen adaptations, but I can say that the 1984 film version, with Helen Slater as Supergirl, was passably diverting and perfectly inoffensive: a piece of Reagan-era hokum somewhat redeemed by practical special effects, a rousing Jerry Goldsmith score, and, though the movie was a British production about a gal exiled from Krypton, its makers’ abiding belief that the Supergirl character represented a continuation of her cousin Superman’s commitment to truth, justice, and the American way.

So, yes, while watching Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl) maneuver through outer space in a vehicle that more closely resembles an ill-maintained, barely running motorhome than a spaceship, express a preference for remaining in a drunken stupor rather than marshaling her superpowers, and ultimately consent to participate in a series of incomprehensibly brutal and chaotic fights with assorted alien lifeforms, it becomes obvious that even the marginal achievement of the earlier Supergirl movie is preferable to the deadbeat nihilism of this new one.

Of course, the present Supergirl — overseen by DC Studios leader James Gunn, directed by Craig Gillespie, and written by Ana Nogueira — has already been subjected to extensive critical pans and equally extensive audience indifference, so it is perhaps a bit redundant to raise further objections two weeks after its release. Yet there is something singularly unbecoming about a franchise as American as Superman (and its adjuncts) being willfully stripped of its patriotism and good cheer.

As the movie opens, Kara is humorously (but completely uncritically) presented as the embodiment of a certain kind of single, disaffected twenty-something female: When not lounging around in that untidy spaceship, she is seen barhopping and indifferently organizing a game of outer-space fetch with her dog Krypto — her loyalty to whom goes so far as her sharing with him a bowl of soggy cereal. Yes, James Gunn and company have turned Supergirl into a childless cat, er, dog, lady, with hipster affectations.

Milly Alcock and Matthias Schoenaerts in “Supergirl.” (Courtesy of Warner Bros)

Alcock plays the role with admirable tenacity, but the fact that her take on the character was already fully evident by her cameo in last year’s Gunn-directed Superman film demonstrates the limitations with which she has been shackled: There is nothing that the new movie reveals about Kara that did not come across in that one scene a year ago.

That is not to say that Supergirl is not stuffed with character and incident. The plot turns on the annihilation of three-quarters of a family by a so-called “Brigand” named Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), a roving gangster who demands pie from the victims from whom he plunders. (We are a long way from the suave Lex Luthor.) The remnant of the family taken out by Krem is young Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a girl who makes public her plans for redress at a bar where Kara is conveniently getting drunk. Little could Superman creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel have guessed that a descendant of their original creation would end up at the bottom of a bottle.

At first indifferent to Ruthye’s plight, Kara only consents to pursue Krem when the fellow poisons Krypto, whose life can be saved by the administration of an antidote in the possession of … Krem. To repeat, this version of Supergirl is a childless dog lady, and the stakes are not the fate of America or the world but an admittedly cute (though obviously CGI-manufactured) pup.

WE’RE ALL TOO OLD FOR THE NEW ‘TOY STORY’ MOVIE

What follows in this depressingly desert-bound, earth-toned movie — one that calls to mind the world-building of the last Mad Max movie, 2024’s Furiosa, more than bright-hued comic books — is a series of increasingly frenetic chases and fights. At various points, Jason Momoa logs appearances as a muscle-bound mercenary called Lobo. Surely I can’t be the only critic who feels this character has adopted the look of Randall “Tex” Cobb from the Coen brothers’ classic comedy Raising Arizona?

For long stretches, the only reminder that this film exists in the Superman universe is occasional FaceTime-like messages from the Man of Steel (played, as in last year’s movie, by David Corenswet), who functions as a kind of long-distance substance abuse counselor to the wayward Kara. Shockingly, in the finale, Kara — now, at last, dressed as Supergirl and presumably aware of the costume’s moral weight — counsels Ruthye against exacting revenge on Krem but, outside of Ruthye’s presence, she proceeds to do just that in the name of her (happily soon-to-be-fully recovered) dog.

Yes, this movie takes the Supergirl character on a voyage throughout the universe, but the filmmakers could have just as easily plopped her down in a dog park across the street from a bar.

Peter Tonguette is the Life & Arts editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.

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