So, Supergirl. It's not as bad as you've probably heard, but it isn't that great either.
Kara Zor-El (House of The Dragon's Milly Alcock) aka Supergirl is celebrating her birthday with a bar crawl on red sun worlds (where her super powers are suppressed so she can get the full benefit of the alcohol she consumes) with her dog, Krypto, tagging along.
However, she finds herself "recruited" by a vengeance-seeking young girl called Ruthye (Eve Ridley) whose parents were brutally slain by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), the bland leader of a bland bunch of generic ne're-do-wells called The Brigands (I kid you not).
Initially, Kara wants nothing to do with all this, but then Krem shoots Krypto with a drug that will kill the beloved dog in three days - without the antidote that the leader of The Brigands carries around with him.
With Ruthye following along, Kara then sets out to track Krem and get the medicine that will save Krypto.
Along the way they run into the immortal bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa), who is tracking another member of The Brigands, and he kind of ends up helping Kara and Ruthye more by luck than design.
The plot is essentially True Grit in Space, with Ruthye as Mattie Ross, Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn and Lobo as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, with an element of Mad Max: Fury Road thrown in at the end as The Brigands are kidnapping female aliens to use as "brides".
One of the major weaknesses of Supergirl is the wretchedly uninteresting generic blandness of the film's antagonists. Krem is just a bloke with facial piercings who could easily have been "alien number 23" in the background of almost any shot of James Gunn's Guardians of The Galaxy trilogy at Marvel.
And that's the odd thing, Gunn produced this movie, but it was written by first-timer Ana Nogueira (seriously, this was her first feature film scripting credit) and directed by Cruella and I, Tonya's Craig Gillespie, loosely based upon a divisive comic book series from Tom King called Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, yet it is desperately trying to look like a Guardians of The Galaxy movie.
Which is dumb as DC Comics - home of the Superman Family - has its own style for space adventures and a rich catalogue of memorable villains that could have brought some life to the central thread of the film.
Again, this is highlighted by some of the delightfully odd supporting alien characters, making you wonder why the creators of Supergirl opted for the "people on the way to Burning Man" look for the movie's main villains.
The film's lack of inspiration also spills over into the multiple planets the story takes place on, with none being particularly memorable or exciting, the only real variable is the planet bathed in the light of a green sun, which has a crippling effect on Kara for unexplained reasons. Is it a Kryptonite sun? Or is she just allergic to the colour green?
Luckily, though, the planet has two suns... and the other is yellow.
This was supposed to be a clever trap by The Brigands, using the "green sun's rays" to debilitate Kara the Kryptonian, and yet they completely overlooked the fact that the system's second sun would then power her up to full strength again.
The plot - despite being based on one of the greatest Western stories in the canon - is predictable and linear, punctuated with a confusing and messy jumble of fight scenes that aren't really as engaging as good action scenes should be.
Lobo, a tiresome, one-joke character from the comics that I really dislike, adds nothing to the story, except the occasional bit of muscle, but his role is ultimately an extended cameo purely to cement Jason Momoa's role in this new post-Zack Snyder era of the DC movie universe.
Momoa is always good value for money, but I still enjoyed his portrayal of Aquaman in the previous DC movies more than his appearance here.
Conversely, there's some incredibly impressive work done on building Kara's backstory and personality, differentiating it from Superman's and allowing the character of Kara to grow into accepting her role as Supergirl by the final act.
The flashback scenes of Kara's early years on Argo - the protected city blasted away from Krypton when that planet exploded - are truly tragic and give the film heart that the main plot lacks.
Even when she's sharing a scene with David Corenswet's Superman (who pops in for a couple of cameos of his own), Milly Alcock holds her own and gives us an interesting and convincing take on Supergirl, that, I'll confess, going into the film - with all the bigoted baggage it had attracted - I wasn't 100 percent sure we'd see.
I know the film didn't perform as well at the box office as expected (after the great success of Superman), but I really hope we see Alcock's Supergirl again.
Through this film, despite faults elsewhere, she developed into a version of the character that could provide a novel contrast to Superman's Big Blue Boy Scout, without going full-Synderverse grimdark.
Kara Zor-El (House of The Dragon's Milly Alcock) aka Supergirl is celebrating her birthday with a bar crawl on red sun worlds (where her super powers are suppressed so she can get the full benefit of the alcohol she consumes) with her dog, Krypto, tagging along.
However, she finds herself "recruited" by a vengeance-seeking young girl called Ruthye (Eve Ridley) whose parents were brutally slain by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), the bland leader of a bland bunch of generic ne're-do-wells called The Brigands (I kid you not).
Initially, Kara wants nothing to do with all this, but then Krem shoots Krypto with a drug that will kill the beloved dog in three days - without the antidote that the leader of The Brigands carries around with him.
With Ruthye following along, Kara then sets out to track Krem and get the medicine that will save Krypto.
Along the way they run into the immortal bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa), who is tracking another member of The Brigands, and he kind of ends up helping Kara and Ruthye more by luck than design.
The plot is essentially True Grit in Space, with Ruthye as Mattie Ross, Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn and Lobo as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, with an element of Mad Max: Fury Road thrown in at the end as The Brigands are kidnapping female aliens to use as "brides".
One of the major weaknesses of Supergirl is the wretchedly uninteresting generic blandness of the film's antagonists. Krem is just a bloke with facial piercings who could easily have been "alien number 23" in the background of almost any shot of James Gunn's Guardians of The Galaxy trilogy at Marvel.
And that's the odd thing, Gunn produced this movie, but it was written by first-timer Ana Nogueira (seriously, this was her first feature film scripting credit) and directed by Cruella and I, Tonya's Craig Gillespie, loosely based upon a divisive comic book series from Tom King called Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, yet it is desperately trying to look like a Guardians of The Galaxy movie.
Which is dumb as DC Comics - home of the Superman Family - has its own style for space adventures and a rich catalogue of memorable villains that could have brought some life to the central thread of the film.
Again, this is highlighted by some of the delightfully odd supporting alien characters, making you wonder why the creators of Supergirl opted for the "people on the way to Burning Man" look for the movie's main villains.
The film's lack of inspiration also spills over into the multiple planets the story takes place on, with none being particularly memorable or exciting, the only real variable is the planet bathed in the light of a green sun, which has a crippling effect on Kara for unexplained reasons. Is it a Kryptonite sun? Or is she just allergic to the colour green?
Luckily, though, the planet has two suns... and the other is yellow.
This was supposed to be a clever trap by The Brigands, using the "green sun's rays" to debilitate Kara the Kryptonian, and yet they completely overlooked the fact that the system's second sun would then power her up to full strength again.
The plot - despite being based on one of the greatest Western stories in the canon - is predictable and linear, punctuated with a confusing and messy jumble of fight scenes that aren't really as engaging as good action scenes should be.
Lobo, a tiresome, one-joke character from the comics that I really dislike, adds nothing to the story, except the occasional bit of muscle, but his role is ultimately an extended cameo purely to cement Jason Momoa's role in this new post-Zack Snyder era of the DC movie universe.
Momoa is always good value for money, but I still enjoyed his portrayal of Aquaman in the previous DC movies more than his appearance here.
Conversely, there's some incredibly impressive work done on building Kara's backstory and personality, differentiating it from Superman's and allowing the character of Kara to grow into accepting her role as Supergirl by the final act.
The flashback scenes of Kara's early years on Argo - the protected city blasted away from Krypton when that planet exploded - are truly tragic and give the film heart that the main plot lacks.
Even when she's sharing a scene with David Corenswet's Superman (who pops in for a couple of cameos of his own), Milly Alcock holds her own and gives us an interesting and convincing take on Supergirl, that, I'll confess, going into the film - with all the bigoted baggage it had attracted - I wasn't 100 percent sure we'd see.
I know the film didn't perform as well at the box office as expected (after the great success of Superman), but I really hope we see Alcock's Supergirl again.
Through this film, despite faults elsewhere, she developed into a version of the character that could provide a novel contrast to Superman's Big Blue Boy Scout, without going full-Synderverse grimdark.
