Warning: There will be spoilers to this 30+ year old movie.
Our “40 Days of Supergirl” event has seen Multiversity Comics explore a plethora of media involving young Kara Zor-El, from the comics to the television show, to over 60 artists contributing sketches/pinups featuring her. However, we still have one major piece of media that involved Supergirl we haven’t discussed yet. Oh yes. Going back to 1984 we have Supergirl: The Movie.
After the critical and commercial disappointment that was Superman III, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind thought it was necessary to freshen up the franchise. After failing to get Superman III director Richard Lester for the project, they instead hired french director Jeannot Szwarc, whose experience up to that point was mostly in television, and hired scriptwriter David Odell, writer of The Dark Crystal, along with famed composer Jerry Goldsmith to do the score. After hundreds of actresses screen tested to play her (including Demi Moore and Brooke Shields), newcomer Helen Slater was selected to play the titular role. However, the world wouldn’t be so kind to the movie. It was a commercial and critical bomb, making only $14.3 of its $35 million dollar budget back and currently has a rating of 7% on Rotten Tomatoes.
So, this begs the question: Is it really that bad?
The movie tells the tale of Kara Zor-El of the dimensionally isolated Kyptonian settlement of Argo City. After a mishap, an artifact that powers the city, the Omegahedron, is blown into space and Kara has to go and retrieve it. It lands on Earth (keep in mind, same universe as the Reeves Superman here) but is acquired by the witch Selena (Faye Dunaway) who plans to use its power to Take Over The World and all of that and it’s up to Kara to get it back and save the day, all the while trying to fit in at a high school.
Now, what I just described sounds simple enough, but in execution though…this movie is quite strange and I think I realized why. It feels like two movies were crammed together at times, most of that being because there is quite a lot of time dedicated to the Faye Dunaway witch stuff. Her and her witch friends (including her…sister…minion…it’s a bit unclear, Bianca, played by Brenda Vaccaro, who was also my favorite character in this movie), her and her obsession with Ethan, the groundskeeper of the school Kara goes to (more on him later) and it does at times feel at the expense of Supergirl. It actually does kind of remind me a degree of a problem I have with the first Tim Burton Batman film (Heck, Dunaway and Jack Nicholson get top billing in each of those movies). Now, to be fair, most of the baffling and kind of funny (in a “riff the over-the-topness” way) come from the villains, but it’s attention does feel lopsided at times.
Now back to Ethan, the… hmmmm…“love interest”. I put that in quotations because the only reason he falls in love with Supergirl’s human secret identity, Linda, (who, I need to remind you is a teenager) is from a botched love potion courtesy of Selena. That and what I can only guess is severe brain trauma from the mass amounts of times this dude gets hit in the head. Seriously, it’s almost a running gag the amount of times this happens, except none of them are funny. Anyways, this character is pointless and shaving him out would have made this movie a bit better because way too many of the plot points revolve around him (that is to say: more than zero). The version I watched clocked in at 125 minutes and that already felt too long, not helped by our creepy Ethan.
We come to the big question though: Supergirl herself. More importantly: Does the movie get her? And the answer is: Kinda? Well, the movie gets the elements about her. The sense of optimism and hope, even in an unfamiliar place. There are two things that hold it back though. The change with Argo City ensures that it’s not destroyed (making her and Kal-El technically not the last two Kryptonians) and she actually does return there at the end of the movie. The other is Helen Slater, whose portrayal is kind of mixed. There are moments of real greatness. When she first realizes she can fly is a real heartwarmer (the real bad green screen effects notwithstanding) and the frustration and eventual resolve she attains when trapped in the Phantom Zone stand out here. But then there are moments, like trying to fit in at the school, that feel a bit wooden.
Supergirl: The Movie is an interesting thing. It’s not a “good” movie, but I also don’t think it’s “7% on Rotten Tomatoes” bad either. There are great flashes within that show the potential of a movie with Kara. It gets down a good tone, but it feels so cluttered and unfocused. It could almost feel like a really early alpha build of what the current Supergirl show is. Is it worth a watch? Yeah, honestly. This movie isn’t as well made as something like Man of Steel, but it certainly gets its central character more than that movie ever did or will.
