One of the biggest ways that the modern comic book movie has changed the course of film storytelling is also one of the more subtle. While the post-credit tag scene wasn’t invented by the genre (hell, the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie had one), the Marvel Cinematic Universe truly brought it into the mainstream, using the occasion to either tack on one last joke or to tease upcoming projects and reinforce the interconnected nature of the franchise. It’s gotten to the point that full-on trailers have been added to these pictures (oddly reestablishing the original meaning of the word), and they’re now so expected that you can in essence tell who the “real” fans are by who actually gets up and/or leaves the auditorium once the credits start rolling.
However, the tag is also a double-edged sword. If the scene ends up being a lame gag, the audience feels cheated in the moment, especially if the movie was particularly long and the viewer is holding their bladder. Even worse, though, is when something is promised that is then not delivered, making us feel even more duped and lied to, our future money taken on false pretenses. This happened with Multiverse of Madness, which reneged on the first Doctor Strange film’s promise of Mordo as the new villain, instead reducing him to a cameo in a different timeline and making Wanda the baddie for reasons known but to God. It also sort of happened with Captain Marvel and Endgame, as Infinity War teed up Carol Danvers’s messianic arrival, only for her introductory film to be pretty blasĂ©, and then she was shunted off to the sidelines until the climactic battle with Thanos because she was so powerful as to render the conflict meaningless. It’s honestly kind of amazing that the MCU found two completely different ways to make this character underwhelming.
So given that James Gunn was one of the few people who learned from the mistakes of this kind of worldbuilding, we all thought he’d right the ship over at Marvel’s chief rival when he took over and rebooted the DC Universe. The opening salvo, last year’s Superman, was fantastic, giving the Man of Steel (David Corenswet) a common sense makeover while still maintaining Gunn’s sense of humor and cinematic eye. The film ended, like the vast majority of comic properties do now, with a tag scene where Kal-El’s cousin, Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), aka Supergirl, was introduced as a fun-loving, foul-mouthed, hard-partying hero who also happened to be the owner of the adorable dog Krypto, who made for the best sidekick imaginable in Clark Kent’s story, not to mention being the first CGI dog to actually be convincing and adorable as the goodest boy. This scene set an obvious expectation that Supergirl would not only get her own standalone film, but that the character would be a massive departure from the version played by Helen Slater in the campy 1984 film (and we’d get more Krypto).
A year later, with Gunn as producer and Craig Gillespie at the helm (his highs include I, Tonya and Dumb Money, his lows include Mr. Woodcock and Cruella), Supergirl gives us exactly what we were anticipating… for about 10 minutes. The rest of the film is a near-complete betrayal of the exciting new badass we wanted to see, shoehorning Kara into the same formulaic (and boring) plot beats and character traits of every other milquetoast superhero, especially the more reductive ones saddled onto the female leads, creating a movie that just looks like a cheap imitation of something Gunn could have directed in his sleep.
We get a nice dose of Kara in montage at the (sort of) start of the film, with her flying to various worlds, palling around with Krypto, getting into some derring-do, and drinking ALL the booze in celebration of her 23rd birthday. This is in keeping with the charismatic, stumbling young adult we briefly met last year, who takes her beloved pooch with a sassy, “Thanks for watching him, bitch!” to Clark. When she gets a hangover, waking up in sunglasses from the night before, you get the impression that this is going to be a fun romp, that this version of Supergirl is closer to Tank Girl than her famously buttoned-up cousin. Whether you agree with her behavior or not isn’t relevant, it still makes for a nice change of pace, and within a few minutes Alcock infuses Kara with more personality than so many of her genre counterparts.
But alas, that’s basically all we get. See, unfortunately, the film actually opens with some trite nonsense where our main baddie, Krem of the Yellow Hills (sounds like an aborted Twinkie flavor), played by a completely wasted Matthias Schoenaerts, goes to some dude’s house, presumably to steal the high-quality weapons he supposedly makes (we see none of this). Krem enters the home, removes a really weird metal mask only to reveal a face covered in metal studs – almost literally a hat-on-a-hat situation – and says vaguely threatening things, until the eldest son of the family stupidly jumps out to attack him, instantly getting a bloodless axe in the back. The rest of the family is quickly killed in this straight ripoff from the opening of Rogue One, except for the youngest daughter, Ruthye (because a “y” is more clever and alien than an “i” for proper spelling, I guess), played by Eve Ridley in her film debut (though apparently she was the voice of Wendy Wolf on Peppa Pig before this).
Taking one of her father’s swords, Ruthye swears revenge on Krem, and goes looking for a mercenary in a Mos Eisley cantina knockoff, where Kara just happens to be. Once the drunken Supergirl saves the ignorant child from someone trying to steal the sword, Ruthye decides to tag along with Kara in her quest for vengeance. While the pair argue about how none of this is Kara’s problem, the fugitive Krem sneaks aboard Kara’s ship and flies off, but not before launching a poison dart that hits Krypto, meaning the poor bubbert will die in three days (very convenient that some random planet in the galaxy also operates on a 24-hour clock), and the only antidote is dangling from Krem’s neck, forcing Kara to team up with Ruthye for their now common goal.
So yeah, in the span of 20 minutes, we got a glimpse of the movie and the character we were promised, only for Supergirl to get anchored down by an annoying Mary Sue kid sidekick who lectures her about her drinking, and the actual sidekick we paid to see is taken completely out of the picture. Bravo, Gillespie. I’ve seen children’s soccer games with less embarrassing own goals.
From there it’s just one tired plot point after another, with just about every lazy clichĂ© of the genre apathetically trotted out until we get to the inevitable finale. We’ve got space pirates who rob the, uh, space bus that Kara and Ruthye are traveling on, only for the light of a yellow sun (Kara was staying on a planet orbiting a red star so that she could get buzzed more quickly) to activate her powers so she can lay waste to them. Oh, and they somehow speak an alien tongue before the fight and English (or the “common tongue,” as Kara puts it) after they’ve lost, because consistency is for nerds. We meet a poor family at another Mos Eisley clone who’ve been wronged by Krem and the Brigands before, and since they’re the only black people in the movie we already know what’ll happen to them. Kara tries to convince Ruthye that revenge won’t make the pain go away, but since we don’t know anything about Ruthye’s family until a flashback montage of images we never saw at the moment of truth, we simply don’t give a shit.
And of course, there’s Jason Momoa as Lobo, a take-no-shit grizzled bounty hunter who also happens to be trying to collect a contract on one of Krem’s lieutenants. He basically adds nothing to the proceedings, and it’s really weird to even see Momoa on screen, knowing that just a couple years ago he was fucking AQUAMAN! There have been instances where actors in these comic films have ended up playing multiple roles, most notably Chris Evans playing Johnny Storm before becoming Captain America. But this is more egregious, because even in that instance (which was playfully lampooned in Deadpool & Wolverine), Evans was early in his career in the first two Fantastic Four movies before becoming a huge star. Momoa was at the height of his celebrity when he became Arthur Curry for several films, and he’s still at that apex today, so the recycling is that much more glaring. We don’t see an anti-hero vigilante. We just wonder why Aquaman decided to rob Gene Simmons’s makeup kit. It just screams that Gillespie (and really Hollywood as a whole) just decided that there are only four muscular action stars they can hire, and since John Cena’s still playing Peacemaker, Dwayne Johnson had a falling-out with DC over how much Black Adam sucked, and Dave Bautistua is a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney and Marvel, Momoa was the only option in their minds. I mean, why not just cast Arnold Schwarzenegger’s kid? He’s buff, and he’s had a couple of roles already, so he’s primed for a breakout performance. What justifies casting Momoa in this flick, especially when he doesn’t really even get to do anything but grumble a couple wise cracks and pretend to smoke a cigar?
Everything else just reads like a half-assed copy of Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy. The fight scenes have catalog songs playing in the background, but they don’t tie into anything. In the aforementioned projects, Danvers had a 90s soundtrack to match the film’s setting, and Peter Quill had his “Awesome Mix” that enhanced his character. Here we just have what sounds like some executive taking his best guess at what 20-something women might like if they’re into indie music (including a very odd cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” during the climax), and for some reason the alien singer in the bar does “Cheek to Cheek” and “The Girl From Ipanema,” because Earth jazz staples totally make it across the cosmos.
The action sequences leave a LOT to be desired, filled with the frustrating quick cutting that the MCU made intolerable, to the point that you genuinely wonder if a single stunt performer was even cast. Sure, you see some names in the credits, but nothing on screen would indicate that any actual stunt choreography or design took place. Just CGI on top of CGI, and none of it looks convincing. There are entire shots that are just Alcock or Momoa swinging some chain-like weapon around as the “camera” zooms out to show goons getting knocked down. I could almost hear Gillespie on the green screen set saying, “Okay, Jason, and you’re swinging your arm, you’re swinging your arm, lots of stuff going on, you’re still swinging, look at the camera, we’ll fill the rest in later.”
And yes, not only is Ruthye insufferable (I won’t knock Ridley as a child actor, as the writing and directing did her no favors, making anything other than a terrible performance almost impossible), she’s completely superfluous. Half the events in the film only happen because Kara tells her to stay put, and she does the exact opposite because fuck you, and absolutely none of it was needed.
If this is indeed the “origin” story you wanted to tell for Kara, it could have been easily accomplished without Beatrix (literal) Kiddo getting in the way, and it would have likely saved 15 minutes of runtime. You already have your “moralizing” in the form of Kal-El occasionally popping in via video call to ask her to “come home” to Earth and settle down a bit. You already have your requisite heartstring tugs via flashbacks to her father (David Krumholtz) and the Kryptonian survivors. You already have a quippy sidekick in Lobo, and arguably you could have given him a bigger and more involved role if you didn’t have this prepubescent albatross around Kara’s neck. And most importantly, while I’m vehemently against the way they sidelined Krypto, you still had Krem’s attack on him as a plot motivator. You could have easily excised the entire Ruthye storyline and had Krem and the Brigands just do some random destruction (I mean, it’s not like the casual fan has any idea who Krem even is – freaking Condiment King has a bigger DC profile these days), have Krypto get hurt in the crossfire, and then have Kara go full John Wick on their asses. Would it be derivative? Sure. But it’s not like the rest of this picture isn’t already doing that. But no, we have to deal with a homeless man’s version of Lyanna Mormont dragging down the entire affair, often making Supergirl a passenger in her own film when she was supposed to be the breakout star.
How do you mess this up, especially when Alcock is giving it her all in every scene, doing everything she can to make this not just watchable, but genuinely entertaining? This is a “how do I kill the bunny” level of not seeing the obvious. You know the audience loves Krypto. You know the audience got excited for this version of Kara in the brief moment we saw her last year, and given the popularity of the Melissa Benoist TV show and the desire to expunge the ditzy non-entity of the 80s from our memory, you know the audience was primed for some cool buddy comedy hero antics from a fully-realized Kara Zor-El with agency, a sense of humor, and an aggressive zest for life. All of that information was right at the studio’s fingertips, and yet the powers that be decided to make her a glorified babysitter getting scolded by a child about how drinking must be some way to cover up pain she hasn’t dealt with, and you took away the pup that we all adore.
The flick still functions as a basic, run-of-the-mill comic property, but we were sold something that was supposed to be so much more, and the rug was pulled out from under us yet again. This isn’t as insulting as Michael, nor is it as cringeworthy as Disclosure Day, but that doesn’t excuse what was clearly a false advertising campaign that swapped out intrigue for mundanity at nearly every turn. It’s ironic that the overarching message for Kara is that she doesn’t need to be overly kind or stop being tough, she just has to be “good.” Because it’s clear Gillespie didn’t even take that very lesson to heart to make this movie “good.” When it’s all said and done, Supergirl the person is all kinds of awesome. Supergirl the film is basically trash.
Grade: C
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? What’s the most disappointing comic book movie you’ve seen lately? Why does Kara just change into her super suit for the final battle when nothing about it would register with the Brigands that they’re in trouble? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
I Actually Paid To See This 