Milly Alcock brings attitude, humor and messy charm to DC’s entertaining but uneven cosmic adventure
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Are you ready for Grunge Supergirl? When did Warner Bros.’ Supergirl, the star of their new DC film of the same name, become the newest member of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy gang, you may ask, watching this often fun, but uneven and TV-like (even in IMAX) effort. It stars in the title role Aussie Milly Alcock, who plays young Rhaenyra Targaryen in HBO’s not-very-good “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon,” as Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl, directed by Craig Gillespie of “I, Tonya” and “Cruella,” two other tales of female social misfits. The film opens with our eponymous heroine sleeping off a hangover in her bunk aboard her Pixar-ready spaceship, big sunglasses askew. Her sloppy CG dog Krypto, leaping around, takes a leak on a newspaper photo of Superman and licks her face.
It’s her 23rd birthday, and her cousin Clark, aka Superman, aka Kal-El (the very good new Superman, David Corenswet), has been worried and trying to reach her. She’s on a pub crawl on a planet with no superpowers because it lacks a yellow sun (though one is nearby). Her quarters are a mess. Her hair is a mess (and will stay that way). She may puke at any moment (much more puking is in store for us). Dressed in grungy thrift-shop chic, Kara visits a bar obviously inspired by the emblematic “Star Wars” cantina sequence. Why can’t writers seem to avoid this?
Suddenly, we shift to scenes in which “brigands” of many shapes and sizes, led by a nail-faced humanoid beast named Krem (fun Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts in make-up), break into the mountain home of Ruthye (Eve Ridley, TV’s “The Witcher”), butcher her family and steal swords made by her father. In possession of a hidden sword, Ruthye escapes and then, the next day, enters the alien bar, demanding the brigands’ location from the bar’s motley, sketchy patrons.
In this sequence, an intergalactic, demonic, bad boy named Lobo (Jason Momoa, DC’s Aquaman) arrives on the seat of his rocket-powered chopper (Momoa is an enthusiast). In another encounter, Krypto is shot with a poison arrow (What, no poison apple?) by Krem, and Kara is told that the poison will kill her best friend in three days if she does not get the antidote from, yes, the missing brigands.
We can all see where this is headed and how it will end, alas. In between the ending and this are a hijacked bus with a tiny, dyspeptic driver in outer space, a pirate raid by blue-skinned female aliens, several well-orchestrated big fights, and lots of cute/oddball quips from our socially impaired heroine.
The screenplay attributed only to Ana Nogueira, whose credits include “Untitled DC Wonder Woman Movie,” is TV-like. It features flashbacks to Kara’s (and Krypto’s) origins on Krypton with her mother (Emily Beecham) and scientist father (David Krumholtz), which could easily have been expanded into a streaming series. The pod that Kara and Krypto are supposed to be shot to Earth in, like their cousin Kal-El, before Krypton is destroyed, resembles a disco ball.
The film is not really about Supergirl. It’s about Ruthye, the girl on a revenge mission, who keeps showing up, complete with Kara’s totally unconvincing speeches about how revenge won’t solve her problem. One of the reasons the speeches are unconvincing is that the film is a total revenge story that also condemns and avenges the human trafficking of young girls by the brigands. Kara gets her powers back at opportune moments and flies around in full regalia, finally shooting burning rays from her eyes and kicking brigand ass to the tune of indie rock music. In one scene, Supergirl’s hair is in such serpentine disarray that she resembles Medusa. Alcock, who is tiny in comparison to Gal Gadot’s supermodel-sized Wonder Woman, is all bad attitude and devil-may-care. She’s the little, punk, bad-ass, bad-hair Supergirl, and she’s good.
‘Supergirl’
Rating: PG-13 for strong violence, action and profanity
Cast: Milly Alcock, Eve Ridley, Mathias Schoenaerts
Director: Craig Gillespie
Writers: Ana Nogueira, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster
Running Time: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: B
Boston Movie News 