Forty years in the past, superhero cinema changed forever with the launch of what’s undoubtedly the worst film inside the style. Supergirl, directed by Jeannot Szwarc and written by David Odell, stars Helen Slater as the titular character and acts as a direct sequel to Superman III and a derivative of the massively 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. Indeed, it takes loads for a film to be actually thought of terrible — the ’80s are full of so-bad-they’re-good movies that also have worth and sudden riots of pure leisure.
Yet, Supergirl will not be that sort of film; it’s plain unhealthy. Loud, bafflingly misguided, and responsible of committing the cardinal sin of considering 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 at the notorious legacy of Supergirl, unquestionably the worst superhero film ever made.
The Last 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 City, which survived the doom of Krypton by escaping to a pocket of transdimensional area. When the mysterious object that powers Argo City is by accident 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. Soon, Kara will enter a struggle with Selena (Faye Dunaway), a would-be-witch who seeks to assert the object to free herself from an inconvenient relationship with a warlock.
From that premise alone, you’ll be able to 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 facets 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 attraction of Christopher Reeves’ Superman movies with out an ounce 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 be able to inform. She brings appreciable enthusiasm and dedication to her efficiency, and with a greater, much less amateurish screenplay, she may need delivered a strong efficiency.
Yet, Supergirl buries her well-meaning efforts underneath a pile of nonsense. With such a juvenile story executed so lazily, Slater’s efficiency goes from bubbly to outright childlike. “What is a prepare?” she asks in a manner that makes you wish to gag and snigger at 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 sincere efforts.
Slater isn’t Supergirl‘s solely sufferer. Even consummate execs like Peter O’Toole and Mia Farrow can’t escape the movie’s laughably horrible grasp — I’ll provide you with a minute to course of the undeniable fact that eight-time Oscar nominee Peter O’Toole is on this garbage. O’Toole, of course, does loads higher than Slater, bringing some much-needed dignity to his function on account of being a famend thespian who may have made the phonebook sound like Shakespeare. Yet, there’s solely a lot he can do when requested to repeatedly say the phrase “squirt” unironically.
(*40*)Witchie dearest
In their 1980 evaluation of the camp basic Mommie Dearest, Variety wrote that “Dunaway doesn’t chew surroundings. Dunaway begins neatly at every nook of the set in each scene and swallows it complete, co-stars and all.” They may have very nicely been speaking about her efficiency in Supergirl. Indeed, one merely can not discuss Supergirl with out addressing the big elephant in the room that’s Faye Dunaway as the villainous Selena.
By 1984, Dunaway was firmly in her camp goddess era, maybe as a result of these had been the solely roles she received supplied post-Mommie Dearest. Thus, she comes into Supergirl weapons blazing, able to as soon as once more devour the complete film complete. Subtlety isn’t a phrase one would relate to a film like Supergirl, and it’s largely as a result of of Dunaway’s efficiency. As the witch Selena, Dunaway could be very clearly there to have enjoyable and get pleasure from herself. There’s a really clear component of self-awareness in her efficiency, which makes all of it the extra fulfilling, but additionally terribly laughable.
Especially 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 someway 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. Meanwhile, Selena places on glasses and sits right down to peruse a number of books, searching for the reply to her Supergirl downside.
Near the end, Selena declares herself “princess of Earth,” which is hilarious in and of itself, however results in a closing confrontation with Supergirl that’s the stuff of camp desires. Dunaway enunciates each phrase with telenovela-like inflection, certainly lamenting the lack of a mustache to twirl. At many factors, you sort 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, of course) to struggle Supergirl by making the floor beneath shake; by no means thoughts that Supergirl can fly!
The closing sequence is all the pieces Supergirl does proper and incorrect: it’s loud, foolish, talky, laughable, and ridiculously fulfilling. The complete factor is cartoonish, which isn’t essentially a foul factor, however Supergirl doesn’t know the way to have enjoyable with it. Instead, it’s as much as Dunaway to make the complete factor extra entertaining, and to her credit score, she does so admirably.
Woman of Yesterday
In brief, Supergirl‘s downside could be very clear: it’s an antiquated film, even by Eighties requirements. It tries to copy the magic of the Reeve movies by imitating them to the tee. To its credit score, Slater was nearly as good a companion to Reeve as they might have discovered, and the first two movies had been so beloved that it made sense to repeat them. But audiences had modified by the early Eighties, and the healthful, can-do method of the Superman movies already felt stale — even Reeves’ movies had been harm as a result of of that: Superman III and the infamously horrible Superman IV: The Quest for Peace show it.
Yet, the points 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 way of a screenplay that thinks spelling all the pieces out is the strategy to go. To make up for it, each little element is taken to the excessive, 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 solid is superb, and with higher writing and directing, they could have delivered a reasonably first rate film. Supergirl would nonetheless be fairly simple and undemanding as a result of its ambitions don’t transcend conserving your eyes on the display screen 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 may have been, however about what’s, which is Supergirl. Truth be informed, Slater’s honesty and Dunaway’s grandness deserve higher than it, and you do, too.
Supergirl is obtainable to rent or purchase on Amazon and different digital distributors.
