The DC Universe rebooted with last year’s Superman, where Kara (Supergirl) was given a cameo to introduce her. She gets her own flick in this year’s followup, fleshing out the character and giving her her own adventure. Unfortunately it does not reach the heights of her cousin Superman’s movie.
Enjoying her birthday week (turning 23), Kara has left Earth and is living on a planet orbiting a red sun. Red suns make Kryptonians “normal,” and without her superpowers, Kara is getting drunk and being a normal 20-something. Her party days are numbered though, when she gets drawn into a young girl’s plight. The girl, Ruthye, has just seen her entire family murdered, and is seeking revenge on the evil Krem, leader of an intergalactic gang of thugs. Kara lacks Superman’s sense of purpose to protect the weak, so initially she wants to stay out of Ruthye’s problems, but when Krem shoots Kara’s dog Krypto with a poisoned arrow, and only he carries the antidote, Kara signs up for the adventure. During the 3 day venture, we get Kara’s backstory.
Whereas Superman was sent away from Krypton as a baby, and thus has no memory of it, Kara was born amongst the destroyed planet’s few survivors, and lived with them for a decade as she saw them whither away and die, including her own parents. With no hope of survival, her dying father sent her to Earth to find her cousin Kal-El (Superman), knowing Earth’s yellow sun will make her strong. Kara’s been carrying that baggage around, which explains her cycle of self-destruction with booze. But if she’s going to help Ruthye, she’ll need to conquer her own demons.
The best part of the movie is when Kara goes all Supergirl on the bad guys, which happens 3 times. The rest of the movie is sort of a mess. It’s really hard to like Supergirl, as she’s often selfish and bratty and generally not a fun person to be around. There’s also a really poorly conceived idea of introducing the antihero Lobo into the universe, portrayed by Jason Momoa. With his gray skin and silly quips, he comes off as a superhero Beetlejuice. Even sounds like Beetlejuice at times. In the end, I didn’t care much for any of the characters. After I loved Superman so much, I hope this doesn’t mean bad things for a DC Universe that is supposed to just be getting started. ★★½
Jons Movie Takes 