1.5/4 stars
Some days I swear Hollywood thinks that women have nothing better to do. They don’t seem to be aware that the calling to fight for truth and justice or the vices of powerlust and ambition are the provinces of women as well as men. But, too often we see that attempts at creating female equivalents to male figures are not equivalent at all. Their priorities are portrayed as smaller and pettier than those of the opposite sex. The male Hollywood writers render feminism to condescension and being patronizing. And the women are not elevated to the same abilities and concerns of characters that are men.
The writer of Supergirl (David Odell) is, as his name suggests, a man. So is the film’s director (Jeannot Szwarc). In fact, looking through the credits on IMDB I have found that aside from casting and the performances there is not a bit of female input that was applied to the film’s making. Strange for a movie called Supergirl.
Had a woman contributed to the film’s writing I feel that the plot’s main villain would have proven a much more serious and existential threat as were men like Lex Luthor (Superman, Superman II) and Ross Webster (Superman III). Instead, in Faye Dunaway – whose talents are wasted here – we get a villain more akin to a Powerpuff Girls baddie than any foe that would have been worthy of Superman.
Both Lex and Ross were hellbent on world domination and had both the intelligence and apparatus to make it happen as long as Superman wasn’t there to stop them. And Superman himself was a man driven by a strong sense of justice and a moral desire to see the world become a safer place for everyone.
But, Selena (Dunaway) – a literal witch in this movie – has a plot that boils down to this: Selena sees a hunk doing yard work with his shirt off and wants him. But, Supergirl likes him too. And there we have the crux of Supergirl’s main conflict.
This is such a slap in the face to all the women and girls who have found inspiration in Superman. And to the boys, too, who surely must have known what Superman’s values are. Selena is presented as a woman obsessed with black magic which she largely uses for just common mischief until she sets her sights on Ethan (Hart Bochner). As a love interest for Supergirl (Helen Slater) he is more of a macguffin than a character. He’s a live action Ken doll, too oblivious of the situation to say or do anything interesting. Lois Lane and Lana Lang in the previous Superman movies were sincere personalities that Clark Kent was able to have meaningful conversations with and relate to. Ethan is just 200 pounds of meat. Besides seducing Ethan, Selena’s motivations in the movie never extend very far. When she gets her hands on a crucial Kryptonian power source she uses it mostly to enhance her powers and achieve the same aims she had before. Instead of ruling the world or obtaining great wealth, the power source – a swirling orb – is used to manipulate people into saying they like her very much.
To entice Ethan, Selena concocts a magical love potion (AKA a date rape drug, let’s be honest) and feeds it to him. The potion follows the rules of Cupid and Narcissus where the first person he sees he will fall madly in love with. Unfortunately for Selena, Ethan wanders off and, giving no quarter to logical consistency, he sees several people all at once with nary a reaction until setting eyes on Supergirl. Predictably he falls in love with Supergirl and alarmingly she goes for it. Remember, he is the one under the influence. Supergirl is not, but takes advantage of his affections even when it is obvious he is having some sort of mental break. This is arguably the first superhero movie with a female lead and also a woman serving as the main villain, and they are both rapists. But, apparently it is okay since when the spell is broken later in the movie his affection for Linda (Supergirl’s alter ego) remains intact. I guess this is to suggest that Supergirl is good enough to not need a love potion to fall in love with.
And this scene gives us one of the most idiotic moments in the history of cinema. Ethan doesn’t recognize Linda when she is wearing the Supergirl costume. I had always thought it silly that a pair of glasses was enough to disguise Clark Kent, but that pales in comparison to this kind of stupidity. Linda wears no glasses and her face is not altered in any way. Am I to believe that when this guy gets married he will become confused when he sees his bride in her wedding dress and ask who the hell she is? I can just picture his future wife walking home wearing a new sweater and this moron calls the police over a stranger entering his house.
Supergirl, herself, is given a much less noble backstory than Superman. He was sent to Earth when his homeworld of Krypton blew up and he was tasked with learning to use his powers for the good of the weaker earthlings. Supergirl – or Kara, which is her Kryptonian name – is said to be Superman’s cousin and prior to coming to Earth she was living in a sixth-dimensional alternate reality called Inner Space. This realm was created by a Krypton survivor named Zaltar who used the same power source that Selena had stolen to keep it running. He stupidly lets Kara play with it and she in turn stupidly drops it and it floats away from Inner Space into our world. Zaltar, like Selena, represents another wasted talent in the movie. He is played by the very talented Peter O’Toole who deserves better. He would have made a good Jor-El, I think.
Kara, as Supergirl, goes after the power source and in the climactic battle to wrest it from Selena we are treated to some of the most woeful special effects featured in this series to date. Much of it is poor use of super-imposures that are grainier than your grandpa’s old TV with matte lines thicker than the Washington Monument. About as bad as the effects are the performances which have not an ounce of sincerity or conviction to them. Slater smiles and frowns as the script dictates and she speaks in a constant carefree lilt. Dunaway and O’Toole phone every line in and I found myself wondering what sort of paycheck the producers enticed them with. Bochner plays his role well enough, assuming that sitting around looking dumbfounded all the time is all that was required of him.
Positively I can say the movie was at least well photographed. The camera work is quite good, actually. The cinematography is much better than Superman III; a shot of Supergirl soaring behind a thick foliage of trees, being just one favorite of mine. But well-photographed garbage is still garbage. And it stinks just as much.
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Writer: David Odell
Producers: Timothy Burrill, Ilya Salkind
Cast: Faye Dunaway (Selena), Helen Slater (Supergirl/Linda Lee), Peter O’Toole (Zaltar), Mia Farrow (Alura), Branda Vaccaro (Bianca), Peter Cook (Nigel), Simon Ward (Zor-El), Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen), Hart Bochner (Ethan), Maureen Teefy (Lucy Lane)
Composer: Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematographer: Alan Hume
Editor: Malcolm Cooke
Perspectives on Film 