just saw supergirl, here are my initial thoughts:
spoilers ahead, be warned
a lot of this is negative, but please believe me when i say i did thoroughly enjoy this introduction to kara. i will be watching it again, and again, with more and less of a critical eye just to see. these are my first thoughts.
- despite all the hate, i believe milly alcock is the right casting. she embodied supergirl in a way that made me feel like the script and direction were keeping her from fully exploring supergirl’s range as a character — there were multiple moments where kara’s anger, trauma, humor, viewpoint could have been explored and yet the plot dove headfirst into another action sequence. in the moments milly was allowed to lean into kara’s character and emotional evolution (which there was very little of, story-wise) you could feel the vulnerability and raw emotion and understand her so clearly in those moments, we needed more of them and a clearer emotional arc for kara.
- needed more krypto. there, i said it. if you hadn’t seen superman, the significance of krypto and kara’s motivation the entire film is lost. this film did nothing to create meaning behind character decisions.
- maybe unpopular opinion, but i think james gunn should have directed this one and would have done a better job at it. i think he understood the contrast in tone and personality that supergirl required, while craig and ana noguiera (the writer, who had never written a movie let alone a major film for a large studio), focused too heavily on half-formed jokes and fight scenes. milly and ruth’s performances far exceeded the direction and writing.
- the alien designs!! i’m so glad every other alien wasn’t humanoid. i liked the variety of languages as well. costuming and linguistics did great work.
- ruthye and kara played really well off each other, and i’m sad it seems like we’re saying goodbye to ruthye as a character. the moment she takes initiative in the brigands’ prison to escape was well acted, but ultimately her big moments are glossed over. she is quite literally set to the side for the majority of the movie. throughout the movie she’s positioned as a helpless sidekick, even though she learns from kara and is a determined, quick thinker in her own right. she should have played a bigger role, seeing as kara brings her in the comic (and suggested in the movie) to show her that revenge won’t give her peace.
- more conflict between kara and ruthye would have gone a long way in establishing the main idea and the viewpoint/trauma/anger of both characters.
- related to point one, kara’s anger should have been explored more. there are plenty of times it’s mentioned, from breaking the dude’s hand in an arm-wrestling match to ruthye’s question about when it goes away, yet we only see kara express her anger in short scenes that are brushed off to get back to another fight where kara and ruthye are outwitted, imprisoned, or worse, oversexualized.
- as much as i enjoyed jason momoa as lobo, he didn’t need to be there. if at all, he should have been positioned as the anti-hero killing for money as another insight for ruthye. maybe he could even explicitly oppose the trafficking plot line (which, btw, not in the comic and adds nothing but extra people for kara to save into the narrative), but instead he’s comic relief.
- changing kara’s backstory to being born on argo city takes away a part of her character (for me, at least) — kara’s struggle with identity, loneliness, and her seperation and resentment of clark are severely lessened and almost entirely nixed, just like any mention of the phantom zone.
- the flashback sequence should have been more spread out, or cut down at the very least.
- kara’s big emotional moments — with krypto at the healer/vet, screaming into space, ruthye’s speech to her in the cave were all well done. they should have leaned into them, given them room to breathe. those are what made the movie for me. i would argue that kara’s decision to put on the suit should have been emphasized as well as her final speech to ruthye.
- i don’t actually mind that she killed krem, especially since ruthye walked away and perhaps doesn’t know, but i do wish if that was the final point that they had set up kara and ruthye (and by extension, clark) as better foils. i think they get into the surface of this with ruthye and kara’s conversation in bomar’s home, but it’s not touched on in a significant way beyond this.
- i thought the joke about superman vs supergirl could have made for a meta-humorous exchange and expanded upon the consistent theme of adversaries underestimating kara, but they didn’t even finish the joke.
- the pacing is super off. i’ve said this multiple times already, but there were so many moments that i wish had been allowed to breathe instead of sucker punching us into the next action sequence.
unlike superman, supergirl is not set up to continue her story. considering this is the second movie of the new dc studios, i expected them to be setting kara up as a leader within future narratives, not a secondary character in her own story. i left the theater feeling like this adventure was not given enough emotional weight (which gunn’s superman handled beautifully, so we know they’re capable), and couldn’t help but think its b/c they didn’t expect supergirl to succeed anyway.
overall, i enjoyed the movie, but not for the plot and not for the writing. the acting, the sets and world-building, and the film as a jumping off point for future kara stories (and let’s be real, character study fanfics) is what made the movie for me. misogyny rears its ugly head every time a female-led and centered superhero is made, and i feel like this one is another victim of it. the studio did not have faith in the woman of tomorrow.
