Movie Review: SUPERGIRL

With last year’s SUPERMAN, James Gunn broke the mold of the dour, downbeat, “punchy, punchy” types of movies the the DCEU was known for (most notably with the Batman and Superman entries). And…at the end of that David Corenswet starring vehicle we were treated to a scene toward the end that delightfully introduces Clark Kent/ Kal El’s cousin, Kara Zor El (a wonderfully disheveled Milly Alcock).

The question was as we entered the Cineplex to watch SUPERGIRL (this NOT directed by Gunn, but rather Craig Gillespie) would this film be able to keep the lighter tone of Superman.

And the answer is…it does…but it does so at the cost of depth of characters and really meaningful dialogue that this film would have benefited from.

Alcock, of course, stars as the titular SUPERGIRL and she is quite good (but not great) in the role. Her Kara Zor El is more interested in partying (at least in the beginning) than saving those in need. Alcock excels in this early part of the film, giving us an anti-hero that should be noticed but something was missing in her performance.

What was missing became obvious when she shared scenes with Corenswet’s Superman - what Alcock was missing was charisma. That spark that makes her character jump off the screen and demand to be noticed and rooted for. Her character just doesn’t have it.

A large reason for that is the script by Ana Nogueira that is light on character moments and heavy on wisecracks and action. The writing and the quick-cut, “keep the action moving” direction of Gillespie didn’t do Alcock any favors.

Jason Momoa is along for the ride as LOBO, who is the Han Solo of this piece. His character would have been much much more interesting had we not have seen Momoa play these types of characters many, many times before (including in the DCEU as Aquaman).

The rest of the cast are “fine”, Eve Ridley (the Netflix series 3 BODY PROBLEM) is the standout as the determined youth that enlists Supergirl’s begrudging aide while Matthias Shoenaerts (AMSTERDAM) is about as generic as can be as the villain of the piece.

And that can be said for the CGI aliens, the CGI landscape and the myriad of fight scenes. They all are professionally completed and rendered but they are all very generic. You could take ANY of the fight scenes, or the CGI Aliens or the CGI backdrops in this film and drop it into any other SuperHero film and one would not be able to tell the difference.

The BankofMarquis was entertained by the proceedings of SuperGirl but, unfortunately, this film is destined to fade away like sand being washed away by the tide.

Letter Grade: B - about as benign, vanilla and generic as you can get.

7 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)