I kind of noticed that this movie’s been unfairly maligned? It’s certainly far from perfect, but it’s fine as a film. Not great, just… fine.
But it could have been so much better, y’know?
Supergirl, based off of Tom King’s Woman of Tomorrow comic, tells the story of Kara Zor-El on an interplanetary adventure, roped into it because some dick shot her dog. The dick in question, Krem of the Yellow Hills, carries the antidote to the poison on him, so Kara has to journey to try and find him while facing a lot of bad guys, and protecting Rutheye, who has her own reasons for hunting Krem.
I noticed that a lot of reviews didn’t quite give this movie a fair shake. A couple acted like it made no sense as to why Krem carries the antidote to the poison with him, when that’s something explained in the movie itself: Brigands use the poison as a torture device, and the antidote as an incentive to get prisoners to tell the truth. There was also one reviewer that was convinced that Lobo called Supergirl ‘Tits’ as a nickname, taking huge issue with it, which, uh, no, he calls her ‘Ditz’, and in context I can’t imagine how anyone would seriously make that mistake, much less put it in writing.
I mean, really? The context is that Lobo says, “Hey, aren’t you that Ditz from the dive bar?” to which Kara replies, “That’s what I’ve been calling you.” How on Earth someone heard that line and thought what Lobo said was, “Hey, aren’t you that Tits from the dive bar?” and Kara’s reply, and didn’t immediately rethink what they thought they heard instead of doubling down??? I’m sorry, I should be over this, but I can’t take you seriously as a reviewer if you can’t follow the movie’s dialogue. If you don’t understand exactly what you heard in a film, you can work out through context what someone said.
Think about the things you’re writing about for thirty seconds. C’mon.
Really, though, a lot of the criticisms seem to be about how the movie doesn’t make the same choices that the comic does. That there are things that are twists in the comic that are instead played straight in the movie. I kind of get that criticism, but overall I also understand that, in adapting something into a movie, you’re going to have to be a lot less complex, and sometimes twists and turns are going to be flattened. You just don’t have time to develop all of the layers. I remember when the Aquaman movie came out, I was a little bummed that they didn’t do the twist with Vulko, even though it was clearly based off of the New 52 comic version of the story. But the story still worked as a movie for me.
That being said, the comic has amazing artwork that the movie doesn’t do anything with, really. Supposedly the director admitted that he didn’t want to even look at the comic, to make sure that he was just going off of the script he had, and, uh… that’s a really stupid choice in my opinion. I like what they’re going for, as I’ll discuss in a bit, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have had some of the amazing imagery from the source material in there.
A lot of reviewers complained about the look of the movie, and how it felt a lot like Guardians of the Galaxy or something, and while I understand that comparison, I think I liked how it felt like a road trip in space. No, not everything’s shiny and spectacular, because that’s not the part of space that our hero is going through. It’s the backwater planets and inter-planetary rest stops, which of course exist in a universe where space travel is pretty regular. I liked that, though not using the comic art was still a missed opportunity in my opinion.
Milly Alcock does a good job as Kara, who proves herself to be a very different character from Clark. I’m not sure how I feel about where the character ends up, but I also think that they have plans for the character beyond this film, and so we’ll see something interesting out of her in future movies.
Because her contrast to Clark is so interesting to me. Unlike the TV show, which started with Supergirl being just like Clark in a lot of ways, this one asks how her different upbringing changed her perspective, and gives her a much more harsh view of the world. I think the movie could have done a better job of earning the ending of her character arc, but overall it went well.
There is one aspect that I tend to agree with the critics on: the Brigands being involved in a trafficking ring, kidnapping women to act as sex slaves? That felt unnecessary, as if you needed extra reason to hate the villains when they’ve already shown themselves to be quite detestable. It doesn’t really add much to the story that I noticed.
And speaking of things that didn’t need to be there: Lobo! I mean, I enjoyed him, but he really didn’t feel like a necessary part of the story. Jason Momoa’s having a ball, and I’m all for that. But he doesn’t contribute much. Call his inclusion Rule of Fun, I guess.
One can also point out: we’re told the Brigands use one type of poison, so Kara didn’t actually NEED to find Krem, she only needed to find one Brigand, get the antidote, and then bail. She could have picked any of them. I get why, dramatically, it had to be Krem, but that doesn’t explain why at no point Kara doesn’t consider the possibility of coming back for Krem later on, after she’s cured Krypto.
So it’s a bit of a hot mess, sure; I still think it’s fine as a movie. Supposedly, part of the reason the movie turned out the way it did is because there were two competing versions that came out of the edit. Which is an odd way to decide how a movie turns out, and I think it kind of explains a lot. Still, if you like the character, or enjoyed Superman, I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this one, too, though it’s (sadly) not as good as its cousin film.
Academy Award Winners for Best Cinematography:
1991 — Dean Semler, ACS, ASC
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Directed by Kevin Costner
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
"Kevin [Costner] initially wanted to shoot in 1.85 because it was a very personal story, and I said maybe we ought to do some tests. So we went up to South Dakota and shot 1.85 vs 2.40, and it was obvious that it had to be a widescreen because it was about the land and the sky."
— Dean Semler for Global Cinematography Institute, April 2016
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