Supergirl: Ensuring the new DCU never takes flight.

Riot’s Reviews: Supergirl

No need to mince words, let’s get down to business because I think there is a lot to say here. A year ago, in my final review before my hiatus, I wrote pretty extensively about the DCU, superhero fatigue, and what I imagined the future of both was. Coming out on the other side of Supergirl, I’m forced to acknowledge a few things. 1) Superhero fatigue is real and I have been hopelessly in denial about how dire the situation really is. 2) The DCU, under the helm of James Gunn, has already failed itself and its fans and it’s really hard to see any way out of the hole its dug. 3) I feel a little vindicated about my assessment of the DCU, the general malaise surrounding its properties, and the aimlessness of its “purpose,” whatever that may be. The online conversation about Supergirl pre and post release also opens up a difficult discussion about Hollywood, the hubris of its talent, and the toxicity of its fan bases.

Obviously the film isn’t getting a high mark from ol’ Riot, but in fairness sake, you know I always throw in props where they’re deserved. First off (and I will address this point a little further later) I thought Milly Alcock was a solid pick for the character. While I do think her performance was a little lacking due to a bad script, she not only physically embodies the character, I think she maintained the tone of what this version of Supergirl was supposed to be. It was a good choice to sprinkle in cameos from Superman (David Corenswet) as well and I think the chemistry between the two (limited as it was) fits the tone of what this Kara and Clark are supposed to be to each other.

Though Jason Mamoa’s performance as Lobo was critically under-utilized, he looked great, embodied the part, and served well as comedic relief on more than one occasion. There was quite a few fascinating alien designs/costumes and the set work (though muddled by some poor cinematography) was fairly decent. The action sequences and special effects vacillated wildly from some pretty inspired stuff to awkward and hokey. But I enjoyed the good while it lasted. Oh, and tragic as the circumstances are, I appreciated Krypto taking a back seat in this story. We got the right amount of puppy fan service. It is always a bad sign when the positives have to come with caveats, but it is what it is.

The negatives are plentiful to be sure. Supergirl’s worst problem is by far the script. The plot holes abound and it frequently opens up questions that are never properly answered or are downright ignored entirely. Examples: 1) When given “3 moons” to save Krypto, why does that translate to 72 hours? Does time work the same in every planet in the universe? 2) Why is Kara a skilled fighter/warrior on planets with red suns, where she goes intentionally to drink because she…has no powers?! 3) Why would revenge only be justified for attacking her dog but not for the murder of an entire family? Are the writers really making the argument that a dog is worth more than the lives of 3 family members?! Nitpicky though some of those might be, there were probably 10-15 more I could list, but I’m already toeing the line of spoilers as it is.

Everything feels flat and one-dimensional from the actual performances, to the dialogue, and the plot. The audience isn’t given any real reason to care about Kara for a majority of the film and when you finally do get a window into the “trauma” that is motivating her party-girl, nihilistic antics, it’s not nearly substantive enough to motivate you to care. She spends 60% of the film being poisoned in one way or another, by elements that would require some pretty intensive knowledge of Kryptonians. When these actions come from a villain who never proves himself other than being a psychopathic, Mad-Maxian, renegade pirate, it pushes too hard against believability. Most of the action sequences are so chopped up and scatterbrained you can tell it was hastily stitched together in post-production and if it wasn’t, that would prove a profound lack of vision for what was happening and where the story was going. There’s hardly any risk to anything that happens, especially when the ex machina of a yellow sun is just a moment away from bailing Kara out of every bad situation she gets into. The audience doesn’t learn anything and neither does the film’s characters. Summed up, if Supergirl should be accused of anything, it should simply be called: boring.

I say “accused” because the online (and real life) conversation around this film has been toxic at best and it’s highlighting a pattern that I think is not only a problem for cinema, but is tuned particularly to the superhero genre and why the fatigue has become so real. Let me start by saying outright, I think both sides of this weird debate are in the wrong. Hollywood and its talent haven’t learned to keep their mouths shut. I’m baffled by the sheer hubris of telling people who should or should not be able to enjoy a film. Then when the backlash comes in, these actors/actresses pull the shocked Pikachu and bemoan whatever “ism” they think is going to save their image when nobody made them say dumb s*** in the first place. Don’t alienate the people who pay your bills! Seems pretty simple to me really, but I’m often reminded of the depth of knowledge from Agent J in Men in Black, “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”

On the flip side, the backlash is a long list of keyboard “warriors” who go beyond the merits of legitimate criticism and start saying more dumb s*** like mocking the physical characteristics of the actress. It’s perfectly fine to acknowledge a bad movie without resorting to stupid and frankly asinine personal attacks.

Superhero films have a unique problem of trying to satisfy a broad audience that is intimately familiar with the content and the multitude of versions and alternate realities these characters have been involved in. So it begs the question why a writer would choose a (from what I gather from online conversations) not-particularly-popular comic book run to base their story off of. The DCU was betting big on James Gunn turning things around for them and with two movies in, I have a distinct lack of confidence going forward.

Maybe we are at the end of the yellow brick road and the façade of the superhero genre is finally coming apart. Either way, I think it might be worth these studios and creators having a real conversation about moving on for good and just allow audiences to hold onto the good memories.

Riot’s Rating: 5.4/10: Supergirl does very little to almost nothing to abate the worries of DCU fans and is likely only to set new records for the failure of recent superhero films.