Every year when movies are released, the knives come out. Audiences, critics, or both cast their gimlet eyes across the cinematic landscape and when a victim has been selected, they proceed to tear it to shreds. As long as I’ve been into film, I’ve noticed this, and every single year people get up in their feelings about a movie.

This year’s victim is Supergirl. As I write this, it’s bombing. It was made with a budget somewhere between $170-$186 million, and thus far it’s earned $68 million. To break even, it will have to pass $300 million, which looks vanishingly unlikely. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 54% critic’s score and a 76% audience score. People are divided, which is nothing new in the good old United States of America these days.

Sometimes films bomb because they’re not good. Sometimes they bomb because they’re so niche that a viable audience doesn’t exist. Sometimes they bomb because audiences disregard them, and they become beloved classics down the road. Sometimes audiences are sick of the genre, and sometimes they’re a victim of culture wars. The sad irony is that Supergirl seems to be cratering because of all those reasons, yet I don’t think it deserves the shellacking it’s receiving.

In a galaxy far, far away from Earth, Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) is getting sloshed. Her cousin is Superman (David Corenswet), and he’s worried about her. He knows that when she’s bathed in the rays of a yellow sun, she’s virtually indestructible, strong, fast, filled with nearly limitless power. Her power can’t stop a feeling of disconnectedness, loneliness, and memories of the doomed planet Krypton.

What can stop those feelings is a ton of booze. Kara knows that when she’s on a planet with a red sun, her Kryptonian power fades, and she becomes something approximating human. So the plan is an intergalactic pub crawl to commemorate her twenty-third birthday. Accompanying her is her ball of canine chaos, Krypto, which is just fine. Krypto is all Kara needs, anyway.

On one such planet, as Kara drowns her sorrows, in strolls Ruthye (Eve Ridley). She announces to the bar that her family has been slain by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) of the Yellow Hills, a brigand of fearsome reputation. Ruthye seeks vengeance, and as her now deceased father was a swordsmith of some renown, she promises an immaculately crafted blade to anyone who can help her usher Krem into the next life.

Kara feels for the girl, but a vengeance quest is none of her business. Unfortunately, Krem makes it her business when he steals Kara’s spaceship and shoots Krypto with a poisonous dart. Kara has three days to recover the antidote from Krem before Krypto expires. She’ll have to deal with pirates, traffickers, the interstellar bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa), and a young girl who burns for revenge.

Supergirl feels like a movie at war with itself, and for every aspect that’s clever, another aspect undercuts it. Director Craig Gillespie is a solid filmmaker, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his films I, Tonya* and Dumb Money. While I like his work, I’m not convinced he was the right choice to direct an interstellar superhero movie. It’s true that Gillespie does nice work in dramatic and dialogue-driven scenes. He knows how to use their rhythms and how to let them play out. The intergalactic set design has a Mad Max by way of Guardians of the Galaxy vibe, which is fun, and I enjoyed the practical effects and creature design. 

What I didn’t enjoy was the film’s almost phobic aversion to color. We’re treated to a color palette that’s copper, brown, tan, beige, burnt umber, and sometimes dull gold. I reckon Gillespie made that choice so that the bright reds, blues, and yellows of Supergirl’s costume would pop more. The decision bothers me, though, since huge chunks of this film are an adaptation of the graphic novel “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” by Tom King and Bilquis Evely. The source material is a riot of compelling imagery and color, while the film…isn’t. The action direction also leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. Camera angles and edits are often off-kilter, which I think is done to put us in Ruthye’s POV and help Supergirl look more mythic. Instead, we’re never quite sure where combatants are in relation to one another. That drains the energy from the scene and doesn’t allow us to appreciate the fight choreography. I should also mention the frequent needle drops that rarely inform character, plot or theme. They just feel there, for the sake of being there. One of which is so out of place, I said out loud, “What the f–k is this?” Gillespie usually knows how to use music effectively. Here, it doesn’t work.

Like the graphic novel, the screenplay by Ana Nogueira is a riff on True Grit, where a determined girl links up with a drunken badass to avenge a murder.** It’s a smart move for Kara to play the role of the disillusioned hero for two reasons. First, it gives her character a place to go and an arc. Kara begins the film jaded, and ends (kind of?) in a place of more hard-won responsibility. Second, if Superman’s characterization is that of a sweet optimist, more opportunities for conflict exist if Kara is a cynic. For the most part, the script’s characterization works. But there’s one running theme that doesn’t hit correctly. To avoid spoilers, I’ll tread lightly. Ruthye has a moral choice that allegedly carries significant weight. She and Kara argue it, debate it, and in the end it kind of doesn’t matter? I think it might have been lost in the final edit, and that’s a pity. There are also a few strange choices made by the script. We learn that Krem carries around kryptonite-tipped darts, in case he runs into any Kryptonians. But in this universe, Superman is not galactically known, so Krem is carrying around weapons to use against…people who are already dead? There’s also a moment where Kara is poisoned on a planet with a green sun. She’s vulnerable to kryptonite, not the color green. Does she need to worry about getting her ass kicked by Lucky the leprechaun?

If there’s one true reason to see this film, it’s the star-making performance by Milly Alcock. Her Kara has an old spirit, one that’s been scarred over by trauma and horror. Alcock is a smart actor, and she knows there’s a way to play this kind of role without it becoming a super bummer. It becomes a balancing act between sadness, anger, wry humor, and a thawing sense of purpose. Alcock fundamentally understands this iteration of Kara. She takes the trope of a world-weary warrior and makes it new. As Krem, Matthias Schoenaerts plays a character written as a marauding bandit and plays him as…well, that. It’s not his fault, and his Krem is gleefully evil. I have no issue with that, since we can all think of real-world examples of people who are irredeemably vile. Jason Momoa has a blast as the boisterous Lobo. I like him and I’m okay with the character, I just wish the film gave Lobo a reason for actually being there. He shows up, snarls sarcastically behind a stogie, kills some guys, then leaves for a while. Lobo doesn’t actually have a damn thing to do with either the plot or Kara’s character, and I can see a couple of ways the script could have organically used him.

The majority of the anti-Supergirl hate seems to be a combination of online misogynists and cooler-than-thou types mad that superhero movies still exist. They’re yelling from the rooftops that Milly Alcock is the spawn of the Devil, and that her movie is a cinematic war crime. She isn’t and it isn’t. Supergirl has massive flaws, but when it works, it soars. 

*This film is proof that Gillespie is a rock-solid director, because he made a movie that makes fun of the specific moment that Tonya Harding found herself in and the rocket-fueled dipshits who surrounded her, yet it never tears down Harding herself. 

**Apparently in the original graphic novel pitch, Supergirl was the young idealist teamed up with the hard-bitten Lobo. That’s a too obvious direction, and pushing Kara into the weary gunslinger role was a smart move.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.