Supergirl: the “Woman of Tomorrow” deserved a better film (review)

A year after James Gunn’s Superman, the new DC Universe is already crumbling with the intergalactic adventures of Clark Kent’s cousin: a series of generic scenes in a shabby space fantasy setting.

Whatever one might have thought of Superman by James Gunn at the time of its release last summer, we were obliged to recognize a real aesthetic coherence – the director of Guardians of the Galaxy y reinvented the legend of the Man of Steel by adapting it to his childish vision of the world, full of pop colors and cartoon humor, childish villains, big kaiju and friendly dogs. It was the first stone of a new DC Universe (after the defeat of the previous one, concluded with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in 2023), a promise made with enough enthusiasm for us to want to believe that Gunn, filmmaker but also boss of DC Studios, knew where he was going. So place this Supergirlteased at the end of Supermanthe direction of which was entrusted to Craig Gillespie, a man with a more than honorable CV, author of a maritime adventure film old school loved by the editorial staff of First (The Finest Hours), and rather skilled director when it comes to probing the moods of foul-mouthed anti-heroines, Me, Tonya has Cruella.

A final reason to rejoice, finally, was that this Supergirl is adapted from an excellent comic book, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrowsigned Tom King and Bilquis Evely, where the portrait of the super-heroine (tortured, in mourning, searching for her place in the universe) was painted through the look of a young extra-terrestrial, Ruthye, encountered by Supergirl during her intergalactic wanderings (and hangovers). Ruthye and the Woman of Tomorrow were brought together by the same quest: to get their hands on the infamous Klem of the Ocher Hills, who had killed the former’s father and possessed the serum that would allow the latter to cure the super-dog Krypto, badly damaged after her violent encounter with this space barbarian.

Wasted opportunity

The story of the film sticks very closely to that of the comic and, yet, everything that worked on paper completely collapses on screen. A great wasted opportunity, and a textbook case of messed up adaptation. The strength of the original story lay in the fact that Supergirl’s exploits were recounted retrospectively by an admiring narrator, who had learned alongside Superman’s cousin to meditate on the meaning of the word “justice”, as well as on the moral consequences of the application of the law of retaliation. The tone was epic, grandiose, mythological, sprinkled with the perfect dose of humor and irony.

In the film, if nothing works, it’s because there is no longer a point of view, Ruthye (played by Eve Ridley) having lost her functions as narrator to be relegated to the rank of sidekick generic. As generic as the universe of space fantasy variegated – somewhere between sub-Guardians of the Galaxy and bad Star Wars – which unfolds over sequences that are never removed, never completely worthless either, just standardized and super soft. The action scenes are drowned in CGI and camera movements attempting to imitate the “elastic” style of James Gunn. Everything is regularly made fun of by the appearances of Matthias Schoenaerts as a big bad guy with a mouth studded with luminescent diamonds and a completely irrelevant Slavic accent.

Hideo Kojima defends Supergirl

Jason Momoa just entertains the gallery during a few appearances as Lobo, a motorized nag mercenary, while the likeable Milly Alcock (in the title role and for her great baptism of post-cinema fire)House of the Dragon) gets by as best it can with its monolithic score, attempting to give substance to Gunn and Gillespie’s very questionable definition of the word “punk” – which mainly consists of wearing a Blondie T-shirt and waking up every morning with a floury face and sunglasses crooked on one’s nose. Either a very poor characterization, like this film without ideas or creative juice, which will quickly collect dust alongside the previous one Supergirl (Jeannot Szwarc, 1984) on the shelf of DC movies anecdotal, not even sufficiently flamboyant in their failure to hope for any sort of cult destiny.

Supergirlby Craig Gillespie, with Milly Alcock, David Corenswet, Eve Ridley… At the cinema on July 1st.