Forty years in the past, superhero cinema modified without end with the discharge of what’s undoubtedly the worst film inside the style. Supergirl, directed by Jeannot Szwarc and written by David Odell, stars Helen Slater because the titular character and acts as a direct sequel to Superman III and a derivative of the vastly profitable Christopher Reeve superhero sequence. The movie, ostensibly made to capitalize on Reeve’s recognition, made sure sense, no less than on paper — if one thing works, why not do extra of it?
Alas, Supergirl obtained scathing opinions and shortly cemented itself as a timeless basic of hideousness, a woefully misguided mess of a film with little to no redeeming qualities. Certainly, it takes quite a bit for a film to be actually thought of terrible — the ’80s are filled with so-bad-they’re-good films that also have worth and surprising riots of pure leisure.
But, Supergirl will not be that type of film; it’s plain dangerous. Loud, bafflingly misguided, and responsible of committing the cardinal sin of pondering the viewers is as dumb as itself, Supergirl is a cautionary story about all the pieces a superhero film shouldn’t be. On its fortieth anniversary, let’s look again on the notorious legacy of Supergirl, certainly the worst superhero film ever made.
The Final Daughter of Krypton
Like your typical superhero origin story, Supergirl introduces its titular character as a spunky, can-do hero-in-the-making. Kara Zor-El lives in Argo Metropolis, which survived the doom of Krypton by escaping to a pocket of transdimensional area. When the mysterious object that powers Argo Metropolis is by chance rocketed into Earth, Kara should journey to the blue planet, the place she poses as Superman’s cousin and discovers her newfound powers courtesy of the yellow solar. Quickly, Kara will enter a struggle with Selena (Faye Dunaway), a would-be-witch who seeks to say the item to free herself from an inconvenient relationship with a warlock.
From that premise alone, you possibly can just about guess what sort of film Supergirl is — a batsh*t loopy one. It makes an attempt to mix conventional superhero tropes — big-scale motion scenes, ditzy humor, world-ending stakes — with the silliest features of fantasy: witches with foolish tunics, love potions, would-be-princesses. The result’s a very puzzling and uneven excuse for a film, a malformed wannabe blockbuster determined to recapture the lighthearted allure of Christopher Reeves’ Superman films with out an oz of their honesty or intelligence.
Supergirl is such a foolish film. The plot is childish, the visible results (if you happen to can name them that) are hilariously ridiculous, the directing is inept, and the performing … oh boy, the performing. Slater, bless her coronary heart, is making an attempt her finest, and you’ll inform. She brings appreciable enthusiasm and dedication to her efficiency, and with a greater, much less amateurish screenplay, she might need delivered a strong efficiency.
But, Supergirl buries her well-meaning efforts below a pile of nonsense. With such a juvenile story executed so lazily, Slater’s efficiency goes from bubbly to outright childlike. “What’s a prepare?” she asks in a method that makes you wish to gag and giggle on the identical time. Supergirl makes her efficiency appear rougher and clumsier than it ought to be, which is a disservice to her in any other case trustworthy efforts.
Slater isn’t Supergirl‘s solely sufferer. Even consummate professionals like Peter O’Toole and Mia Farrow can’t escape the movie’s laughably horrible grasp — I’ll offer you a minute to course of the truth that eight-time Oscar nominee Peter O’Toole is on this garbage. O’Toole, after all, does quite a bit higher than Slater, bringing some much-needed dignity to his function on account of being a famend thespian who might have made the phonebook sound like Shakespeare. But, there’s solely a lot he can do when requested to repeatedly say the phrase “squirt” unironically.
Witchie dearest
Of their 1980 overview of the camp basic Mommie Dearest, Selection wrote that “Dunaway doesn’t chew surroundings. Dunaway begins neatly at every nook of the set in each scene and swallows it entire, co-stars and all.” They may have very effectively been speaking about her efficiency in Supergirl. Certainly, one merely can’t discuss Supergirl with out addressing the large elephant within the room that’s Faye Dunaway because the villainous Selena.
By 1984, Dunaway was firmly in her camp goddess period, maybe as a result of these had been the one roles she obtained provided post-Mommie Dearest. Thus, she comes into Supergirl weapons blazing, able to as soon as once more devour your entire film entire. Subtlety isn’t a phrase one would relate to a film like Supergirl, and it’s largely due to Dunaway’s efficiency. Because the witch Selena, Dunaway could be very clearly there to have enjoyable and luxuriate in herself. There’s a really clear ingredient of self-awareness in her efficiency, which makes it all of the extra satisfying, but in addition terribly laughable.
Particularly in her scenes with Oscar nominee Brenda Vaccaro, Dunaway is delightfully bigger than life. At one level, Vaccaro and Hart Bochner’s character — a bland male lead who in some way will get each Slater AND Dunaway to fall head over heels in love with him — sit right down to eat chips whereas watching Supergirl attempt to escape the Phantom Zone. In the meantime, Selena places on glasses and sits right down to peruse a number of books, searching for the reply to her Supergirl drawback.
Close to the top, Selena declares herself “princess of Earth,” which is hilarious in and of itself, however results in a remaining confrontation with Supergirl that’s the stuff of camp desires. Dunaway enunciates each phrase with telenovela-like inflection, certainly lamenting the shortage of a mustache to twirl. At many factors, you type of suppose she’ll spew one thing like “Barbara, please!” at Vaccaro’s Bianca. Selena then proceeds to make use of her magic (full with a voodoo-like scepter, as a result of, after all) to struggle Supergirl by making the bottom beneath shake; by no means thoughts that Supergirl can fly!
The ultimate sequence is all the pieces Supergirl does proper and incorrect: it’s loud, foolish, talky, laughable, and ridiculously satisfying. The entire thing is cartoonish, which isn’t essentially a nasty factor, however Supergirl doesn’t know learn how to have enjoyable with it. As an alternative, it’s as much as Dunaway to make the entire thing extra entertaining, and to her credit score, she does so admirably.
Girl of Yesterday
Briefly, Supergirl‘s drawback could be very clear: it’s an antiquated film, even by Nineteen Eighties requirements. It tries to duplicate the magic of the Reeve films by imitating them to the tee. To its credit score, Slater was pretty much as good a companion to Reeve as they might have discovered, and the primary two films had been so beloved that it made sense to repeat them. However audiences had modified by the early Nineteen Eighties, and the healthful, can-do method of the Superman films already felt stale — even Reeves’ films had been damage due to that: Superman III and the infamously horrible Superman IV: The Quest for Peace show it.
But, the problems with this film run deeper than simply being overly indebted to what got here earlier than. Supergirl is a misguided effort in each sense. It goals to entertain by providing the dumbest, easiest, least difficult narrative by a screenplay that thinks spelling all the pieces out is the way in which to go. To make up for it, each little element is taken to the intense, however with such a blah story, all that muchness turns into, dare I say it, silly.
And what a disgrace as a result of the forged is excellent, and with higher writing and directing, they could have delivered a reasonably first rate film. Supergirl would nonetheless be relatively simple and undemanding as a result of its ambitions don’t transcend preserving your eyes on the display for two-plus hours, however it will no less than not be the prepare wreck it’s right this moment. Alas, it’s not about what might have been, however about what’s, which is Supergirl. Fact be informed, Slater’s honesty and Dunaway’s grandness deserve higher than it, and also you do, too.
Supergirl is offered to lease or buy on Amazon and different digital distributors.
