Although I loved David Corenswet in his Superman movie, I can’t say I was too excited about Supergirl, who appeared in a brief scene at the end of the movie. She was rude and obnoxious. So I wasn’t looking forward to seeing more of her. My negative feelings intensified when I heard Lobo would be in the movie too. (Ugh!) Lobo was created in the comics in the 1980s to mock all the ultra-violent characters introduced at the time.
A week ago, I read an online article that theorized that Supergirl’s bad attitude was due to her experiencing firsthand the destruction of her people and the death of her parents. This contrasts with Clark leaving Krypton as a baby and growing up in a wholesome environment with the Kents. That explains their different outlooks… one hopeful, the other not so much.
So based on that interpretation, I decided to see it despite my misgivings. Before sharing my review, I should mention two comments I overheard at the end. A guy behind me said, “It wasn’t that bad.” His friend replied, “It wasn’t that good either.” I thought it was somewhere in between.
The plot is simple… Supergirl (aka Kara) is away from Earth, partying on a planet without a red sun, where she can feel the effects of booze. But an evil alien shoots Krypton with a slow-acting poison. So she needs to track down the alien and get the cure. Along the way, she meets a young girl who wants to find the alien and kill him because her murdered her family.
Krypto is mostly only in the beginning and the end. Which is good because a little of him goes a long way.
I liked Milly Alcock as Kara/Supergirl. While she isn’t “hopeful” like her cousin Clark, you can feel her potential. She carries the movie and makes it worth seeing. I also liked Eve Ridley, who played the alien teen. She’s a good counterpoint to Kara’s bad attitude.
Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts plays the alien villain, the head of a gang that kidnaps women and girls to make them sex slaves. He never felt like a real threat. His “look” is meant to be scary/grungy, but he comes across looking comical.
Jason Momoa as Lobo, an alien bounty hunter, doesn’t add anything to the plot. He feels shoehorned into the movie. All of his scenes could be cut, and it would make no difference to the plot. Worse, Lobo could have been played by anyone. Momoa’s voice sounds like it was heavily processed, the makeup hides his face, and it even looked like he had rubber muscles. They probably wanted Lobo to be the next Wolverine… but he comes across more like another generic villain. To make Lobo edgy, he even refers to Kara as “tits”— ugh!!!!
I liked the flashbacks of Kara’s origin. As in the comics, her father saved hundreds of people from the destruction of Kyoto by using a force field. But over the years, the same atomic reaction that caused Krypton to explode caused the ground beneath the city to turn into Kryptonite. Kara’s father sends her to Earth to save her life.
I’ve always enjoyed the glimpses of Krypton in the comics, the cartoons, and movies. But Krypton’s “culture” in this movie doesn’t jibe with the evil-alien-overlords depicted by Bradley Cooper in Corenswet’s movie.
Early parts of the film are heavily influenced by the cantina scene in Star Wars. Some of the weird aliens are cool or cute, but many look like CGI. There are a number of fight scenes throughout the movie that all look and feel the same.
Kara disappears from the plot for 10 minutes towards the end to give Jason Momoa some screen time. But he doesn’t do anything useful.
Kara finally confronts the evil alien while Lobo/Momoa looks on using binoculars. (I told you he was useless.) Then Kara does something that I think lots of fans will hate. I was “okay” with it, but maybe instead Lobo could have stepped in and actually helped.
The director and writer must think urinating on screen is a thing nowadays. It’s “shown” three times.
AND it was nice seeing David Corenswet a few times.
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