The new James Gunn and Peter Safran-led DC Studios Supergirl film arrives in cinemas during a busy and profitable summer movie season with plenty of expectations for the new DC regime.
As a follow-up to last summer’s Superman, Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl is a completely different animal (even though the star animal in both films, Krypto, is back once again).
Gunn hold true to his promise to produce films that look and feel different and explore many corners of the new DC Universe in Supergirl, which is the antithesis of Gunn’s Superman, allowing both films and characters to tell their own stories.
Supergirl will get a lot of surface comparisons to Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy series because, you know, it’s a superhero in space and there are a lot of odd looking aliens. People expecting the same formula with a lot of jokes and gags may be in for a surprise with Milly Alcock’s portrayal of Supergirl, who comes off less like a happy, silly drunk from the trailers and more of a woman self-medicating due to trauma from her past.
Supergirl, like the source material, Tom King, Bilquis Evely, and Matt Lopes’ excellent Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, gives Kara Zor-El a new outlook on life, and it is a dark one. Unlike her cousin Clark, who grew up in a loving environment from the very start with his adopted parents from Kansas, Kara faced the horrors of losing her world and parents and has been attempting to cope with it ever since.
This simple set up and distinction from Clark Kent drives the film and firmly established Supergirl as more than just Superman in a skirt. Using the revenge driven story of Ruthye from Woman of Tomorrow, the action starts fairly quickly, with plenty of aliens getting smashed by Supergirl. Supergirl gets her fair share of lumps as well, due to her compromised powers with no yellow sunlight she is used to on Earth, which is always a key to a Superman story: how to make them vulnerable and put them in jeopardy. Gillespie has no trouble doing this, by placing Kara in dangerous and painful situations of the physical and emotional kind (particularly when it comes to the plight of the loveable stray in her life).
The action scenes are well-designed with use of CGI and practical effects, and Jason Momoa’s Lobo adds even more carnage and comic relief. Fans of Lobo will be excited to see their favorite Czarnian on screen for the first time, as Momoa embodies the qualities of the irreverent stories from the 1990s by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, and Simon Bisley. He gets just enough screen time to want more of him in future films, and he probably works better as a supporting character than a lead.
Matthias Schoenaerts’ Krem of the Yellow Hills is a truly despicable villain in a classic sense. His actions are reprehensible and he lacks any redeeming qualities. If you are looking for some complex motivations here for his life choices, you won’t find them here. His deplorable actions speak for themselves as a child murderer, slaver, and human trafficker. His dynamic with both Ruthye and Supergirl drive the narrative, and continue the age old debate about the price of revenge on the human soul.
The film also emphasizes the “women helping women” aesthetic with direct and immediate responses from Ruthye and Supergirl. They spring into action when the captives of Krem and his brigands are at risk without any discussion or unnecessary explanations in the film. The act first, ask questions later approach is pretty constant in the film, and sets it apart from more typical soliloquy-filled dialogue one may find in the genre surrounding topics such as truth and justice.
In the end, the story is truly about climbing out of the hole you are in, due to the careless actions of others, or fate, and not losing hope. While Superman (both the character and the recent film) is all about hope, Supergirl is more about the tenuous balance between hope and despair. Being a superhero film, you can probably guess which one wins in the end, and the result is both a satisfying and thrilling one.