‘Supergirl’ Is a Better Blockbuster Than the Buzz Surrounding Her

A point that’s often missed regarding superhero movies is that, like the Republican Party, they are a big tent. In common with the comic books and graphic novels that inspired them, superhero cinema — the big wide world of fights, flights, and tights — is as much a platform for other received notions as it is a genre unto itself. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the “Ant-Man” movies, especially the first one, are essentially 1960s-style caper and heist movies, the recent “Spider Man” entries, produced by Kevin Feige, are coming-of-age stories. “Deadpool and Wolverine” was an excessively violent but an admittedly compelling buddy- “bromance” movie, while the excellent “Daredevil Born Again” Disney+ series is a hard-hitting political and legal thriller.Last year’s “Superman” reboot movie by James Gunn may be an exception to that idea since it was as pure a superhero movie as has ever been produced, and was wholly successful on every level. In the process, it became my favorite iteration of the Man of Steel ever since George Reeves’s classic small screen series of 1952-1958—and this is not least because they somehow figured out a way to incorporate Lucy and Ricky Riccardo into that early edition of the DC Universe. Even before Christopher Reeve re-booted Clark Kent in the 1970s and 80s, the Max Fleischer animated series, Bud Collyer radio show, and the Kirk Allyn movie serials are also worthy of a place in the canon.With “Superman” (2025), writer-director-producer James Gunn came up with a take on the character that was fresh and new but somehow also consistent with nearly a century of Supermythology. So where, I hear you ask, does the new “Supergirl,” produced by Mr. Gunn, directed by Craig Gillespie, and written by Ana Nogueira, fit into the picture?Even before you watch the movie — and I do recommend actually watching it —you’re aware that there’s an element of a mystery to it. The mystery is why it got such an immediate negative reaction from the very hardcore comic book fans who are supposed to be its core audience. For once, the mainstream film reviewers have actually been kinder to a comic book movie than the geeks and the nerds.To be fair, it’s hardly the instant winner that Mr. Gunn’s movie about Supergirl’s cousin Clark was, but nonetheless, it’s a worthy follow-up that doesn’t deserve such a quick dismissal. It doesn’t actually give us anything new, but it serves its goal of giving us a fast moving outer-space odyssey type narrative (whetting our appetites for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Homeric epic) and keeps us entertained for a well-paced and not overlong 110 minutes.One point in its favor is that, unlike most such films, “Supergirl” is based on a very specific story arc, the 2021 “Woman of Tomorrow” eight-issue mini-series by Tom King and Bilquis Evely. The woman of steel is a 22-year-old slacker, played by the excellent Australian actress Milly Alcock, on an extended birthday binge who is motivated to join a young woman’s (Eve Ridley) quest for vengeance when a space pirate (Matthias Schoenaerts) poisons her dog Krypto.In the graphic novel, the girl, Ruthye, is like a naive medieval European princess; for instance, she mistakes Supergirl’s bright blue uniform for lingerie. But the first influence that Mr. Gillespie and Ms. Nogueira check off their list is Akira Kurosawa, and the plot illuminates the common ground that “Seven Samurai” shares with “The Searchers” and other iconic John Ford westerns. Along the way, we get visual and narrative references to the “Mad Max “movies, “Star Wars”—George Lucas’s notion of a shopworn universe—and other pop culture tropes.We also get space Asians, space Haitians, and the villain Krem (Mr. Schoenaerts) is indisputably Russian. Alas, that’s about the only thing we can say about him; Krem was more vividly realized in the graphic novel, wherein Ms. Evely renders him like a four-color Zeus. Alas, we don’t get any motivation or backstory for Krem; the writers would have done well to pay attention to the latest Star Trek series, “Star Fleet Academy,” in which Paul Giamatti plays a baddie so fascinating that he nearly overshadows all the other characters. The writers devoted more of their attention to Lobo, played by Jason Momoa. The raygun-slinging bounty hunger has been around the pre-cinematic DC universe since 1983, but as far as I can tell Mr. Momoa is the first actor to play him in live action. As always, Mr. Momoa can be counted on to steal every scene that he’s in — looking like an interstellar incarnation of Meat Loaf as Eddie, the motorcycle-riding heavy metal juvenile delinquent in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Would that the team had concentrated more on giving us a believable bad guy.Other than that, the only other mistake the Gillespie / Nogueira team makes is to compound the major error from Mr. Gunn’s film, which was to reimagine Superman’s Kryptonian parents as evil aliens. Somehow, I can’t get jiggy with that. Re-viewing the 2025 film, I kept wishing that this would be revealed as one of Luthor’s evil schemes, but the new movie, alas, only confirms its veracity within the continuity. There’s also an origin-of-Supergirl sequence which takes a completely different tone from the rest of the movie. At first it seemed out of place and unnecessarily series, but I have to admit it contributes much to the character development of Ms. Alcock as Kara Zor-El.Ultimately, “Supergirl” accomplishes what it set out to do. It extends the new DC Universe and holds our attention until the next entries, “Clayface,” a dark outing for a Batman antagonist (although I’ll be disappointed if Alan Tudyk does not provide the voice) in the Fall and Mr. Gunn’s “Man of Tomorrow” next Summer. Soundtrack-wise, composer and music producer Claudia Sarne missed a good bet in not needle dropping Stevie Wonder’s 1972 “Superwoman” but they compensated by including Ella Fitzgerald singing “Cheek to Cheek.” Now if only they’d have figured out a way to incorporate superfans Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza into the new DCU, then they’d really have something.

‘Supergirl’ Is a Better Blockbuster Than the Buzz Surrounding Her

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