Was the Supergirl Movie Really That Bad?

Yes and no.

Supergirl reigned as the best female-led superhero movie for 33 years, until Wonder Woman finally came along.

It did not deserve to hold that title for multiple decades, but neither does it deserve the dismal 4.4 rating that IMDb users have given it. I’d take it over Superman IV: The Quest for Peace any day, and Superman III as well, but it comes in at a distant third behind Superman: The Movie and Superman II.

Director Jeannot Szwarc made three excellent decisions: casting Helen Slater as Supergirl, hiring Jerry Goldsmith to compose the score, and envisioning the flying sequences as an aerial ballet.

The scene where Supergirl arrives on Earth and learns to fly is gold. I could watch those few minutes on a loop. Practical effects sell the moment, and Slater sells Kara’s joy. She glides and twirls through the air like a dancer. As she sails among the treetops, you’ll believe a girl can fly.

Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve, and their crew had also put considerable thought and effort into Superman’s flight in Superman: The Movie, and they got it exactly right for that character. Szwarc, Slater, and company achieve the same for Supergirl, but they do so in a way that reflects her own personality.

Unfortunately, the script could have used a few more drafts. Its heart is in the right place, and the ingredients of a better movie are right there. Supergirl came so close to latching onto something good that it makes me want to play script doctor. Or maybe even studio doctor.

A big problem is the lack of Superman. I understand not wanting him to overshadow Supergirl in her own movie. Anything more than a cameo and he easily could have. And a cameo would not have been enough for the emotional weight of the moment. Superman’s loneliness was a huge part of the first movie (as I’ve previously written about). For him to discover that a cousin had survived—let alone a whole city of Kryptonians—would have been monumental.

In the category of “things that shouldn’t need to be said” … instead of teaming him up with Richard Pryor, Superman III should have introduced Supergirl. That could have led to a satisfying, cathartic moment for Superman that tied into the themes of the first two movies and established a meaningful connection between him and Supergirl. And then Supergirl could have spun off into her own movie to establish her own identity.

As is, Supergirl sets its own tone and style, one more in the realm of fantasy and fairy tale than science fiction. That approach makes sense—Supergirl should not be a female clone of Superman. The aim is a little off, however.

We meet Kara in Argo City, an idyllic Kryptonian community that escaped the planet’s destruction thanks to the efforts of a kindly eccentric named Zaltar, played by none other than Peter O’Toole (Superman got Marlon Brando, so Supergirl gets Lawrence of Arabia—balance in all things).

Argo City exists in some vaguely defined “inner space.” Regardless, Zaltar is ready to move on and explore another world, maybe Earth, perhaps Venus. He yearns for something more. He’s even built a vessel that will take him away.

Kara, meanwhile, seems perfectly content with her life and wants nothing more out of it … until she loses a MacGuffin known as the Omegahedron. It’s the source of Argo City’s power, and Zaltar decided to “borrow” it. The kindly eccentric lets the teenager play with the vitally important power source, and you can guess how well that turns out.

The loss of the Omegahedron leaves Argo City with only a few days of power and life support. Kara, naturally, feels bad, so she steals Zaltar’s ship and journeys into a strange new world in order to save her home.

It’s not a bad start, but it’s incomplete. If the intent was to go in a fairy tale direction, then the motivations are backward. Kara, not Zaltar, should be the one who yearns for more and wants to explore the wider universe—we should be able to imagine an “I want” Broadway-style song from her. As is, there’s nothing to sing about.

Or, another approach, Kara’s exit from Argo City is a one-way trip—she can leave to save it, but she knows she’ll never be able to return to the people she loves.

A third option: Zaltar’s hubris results in Argo City’s destruction, and he’s able to save only Kara. Kara—like Superman—is the sole survivor and must adjust to a new life on a new world, with the key difference being that—unlike Superman—she actually experienced Kryptonian life firsthand and knows exactly what she’s lost. Later in the movie, when she encounters Zaltar in exile in the Phantom Zone, the reunion would have much more emotional weight to it.

A quest to save her home is still a decent setup, but Kara quickly loses any sense of urgency. She takes the time to enroll at an all-girls school, attend class, and even play field hockey.

She also forges a letter of recommendation from Clark Kent. How does she know her cousin goes by that name if they haven’t met yet? I can buy her having heard about Superman while in inner space, but Clark Kent? Something’s missing there.

Anyway, by an astonishing coincidence, Kara ends up rooming with Lois Lane’s little sister, Lucy (Maureen Teefy). More so than in other versions, this Lucy Lane does indeed come across as a junior Lois. She’s down to earth, street-smart, and scrappy, and she doesn’t think twice about running headfirst into trouble. She complements Kara’s innocence and naivety.

In a coincidence that does work, the Omegahedron ends up in the possession of an aspiring sorceress named Selena, played by Faye Dunaway (Superman had Gene Hackman, so Supergirl has Bonnie Parker—again, balance). As with Superman, the villains are the weakest part of the movie. Sure, Dunaway goes all in and hams it up, but the character is just generically evil.

Worse, part of Selena’s evil scheme involves … a love potion. The object of her desire? A hunky landscaper (Hart Bochner). That’s pretty much all we know about the guy. He’s a hunky landscaper, and he succumbs to a love potion. But instead of falling for Selena, he falls for Supergirl in her secret identity of Linda Lee. The hunky landscaper falls obsessively in love with a schoolgirl.

How old is Kara supposed to be here? How old is the working professional who falls obsessively in love with her? Some questions are best left unanswered.

Supergirl and Selena fight over the ensorcelled gardener—whose name is Ethan, we eventually realize. Once the love potion wears off, he seems like a decent guy. The movie aims for an innocent Disney-type romance, complete with the machinations of a wicked witch getting in the way.

Supergirl as a Disney princess could work. But the problem is that Kara and Ethan never meet until after he’s enthralled by a love potion. He initially has no choice but to fall for her, and that taints the whole thing. Add in the age difference and the fact that he never develops as a character, and Kara and Ethan are not exactly Lois and Clark.

Kara starts to fall for him, but she comes across as more interested in the idea of love than this specific individual. To be fair, the same could be said of some classic Disney movies as well.

But Supergirl does pick up toward the end, particularly when Selena banishes Supergirl to the Phantom Zone. It’s Supergirl in Hell, basically—a classic journey through the Underworld—taking this bright, optimistic young woman and plunging her into the dreariest, most hopeless environment. The Phantom Zone confronts her with legitimate peril and also reunites her with her mentor figure, Zaltar.

Like other parts of the movie, what’s here is a good start, but it needed to go harder. Specifically, it needed greater emotional stakes with Zaltar, which would require changes to the beginning of the movie, as described above.

Nevertheless, Supergirl climbing out of the Phantom Zone/Underworld is a memorable image, and the climax supplies solid comic book action. She saves the day, saves her home, and returns to that home as basically the same person, just with new experiences under her cape.

Supergirl has its charms, but it should have been an absolute delight.

We’ll always have that flying scene, though.