Pour one for supergirlthe latest installment of the DCU Gods and monsters chapter, which has been beset by attacks from online trolls, mixed reviews, and a very disappointing opening weekend box office: it is not the result that Warner Bros. expected with this continuation of last year’s. Superman. It’s actually a pretty good movie, as those movies tend to say, but it’s not a excellent movie. And in today’s crowded superhero market, that’s simply not enough to get people out of their homes and into theaters, instead of waiting for the movie to hit streaming platforms.
(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)
The studio hired Ana Nogueira to write the script, a holdover from the DCEU’s previous plans for a standalone Supergirl film. (The character appeared in the 2022 finale. The flashplayed by Sasha Calle.) The project was reinvented when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over and launched the “soft reboot” DCU. Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the real girl, me Tonya) signed on to direct.
The story is adapted from the comic book miniseries. Supergirl: the woman of tomorrowwhich was partially inspired by the 1968 classic western, True value. Gillespie envisioned his film as a kind of interplanetary road movie, with Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock) teaming up with Jason Momoa’s savage bounty hunter, Lobo, in a dynamic reminiscent of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn. Lobo ended up being more of a cameo; he does not appear at all in the comic book miniseries, which focuses on Kara’s budding friendship with an alien boy seeking revenge. That’s the arc the movie was set in, one that dates back to the Silver Age of DC Comics.
The film opens with a montage showing a rebellious Kara celebrating her 23rd birthday by bar-hopping on red-starred planets with her space dog, Krypto, because she can actually get drunk there, instead of healing/empowering yellow-star worlds. (The green star worlds will kill her, which will unsurprisingly become relevant later.) She mostly ignores concerned calls from her cousin Kal-El/Superman/Clark Kent (David Corenswet). She is cheerfully cynical, while he adopts a naïve optimism and continues to encourage her to return to Earth and try to make it her home. But for Kara, home is wherever Krypto is.
