Supergirl 1984

So it’s Christmas afternoon, the presents have been opened and we’re just spending a relaxing Sunday Afternoon together as a family. And I decided to ruin it by looking up Supergirl for us all to watch together this holiday afternoon. Ok, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but the movie was not that enjoyable aside from the ability to laugh at it when it got so bad it was just plain funny. Of course, since it was Christmas afternoon, and Jena got quite a few presents for herself, she paid almost no attention to the movie, preferring to play with her newfound Angry Bird plushies, Monster High doll, and a Rainbow Brite and Sprite doll.

This was made shortly after Superman III and it’s really in the same vein as that movie, but it didn’t have a well known comedian making funny on the screen, it just had Faye Dunaway hamming it up as Selena with a spotlight shining on her face in every single closeup. It reminded me of Morticia Addams in the Addams Family movies. I always thought in those movies it was done for some comedic effect, at least I thought it was funny. Anyway, she played a witch who seemed to have only recently converted because of her warlock boyfriend, although she felt she had already outgrown him and wanted to strike out on her own for more power.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, while she does take up an ample amount of screentime for her character development as a villain, and by development I mean that she wants power, she gets power, and she gets destroyed by a stronger power. The movie however starts out on Krypton. Well technically it’s not Krypton since that got destroyed, but it’s a city full of Kryptonians that somehow survived the destruction of Krypton and are now living using the power of the spinning globotron. That’s not what it’s actually called, but that’s how I remember it as. Zaltar “borrows” it and lets Kara play with it until she loses control of it, it gets sucked through the wall, into space off to Earth, and straight into Selena’s lap. Zaltar exiles himself to the Phantom Zone while everyone else worries that they will die in a few days without power so Kara takes it upon herself to follow the globotron to Earth and retrieve it.

Did I forget to mention that Kara is Kal-El’s cousin? So when she arrives at Earth she comes fully dressed as Supergirl even though no one was dressed like that on Krypton, I mean Argo City. She shows off some of her powers, including fighting off a couple drunk horny truckers before stumbling upon an all girl’s school and revealing her power to create clothes and change haircolor out of nothing. She cons her way into the girl’s school with a fake reference letter from her cousin Clark Kent and sets up a fake identity as Linda Lee. Because obviously if she would have used her real name Kara then everyone would know who she really was… um… yeah. And to tie her even more into Superman, she ends up rooming with Lois Lane’s little sister Lucy.

Now I’m only familiar with Supergirl from Smallville and from what I remember she’s not too far off from her Smallville counterpart. She’s rather naive but she’s a quick thinker and can take care of herself. Lucy Lane also has some familiar traits, like being headstrong enough to try and stop the runaway construction equipment herself. And Jimmy Olsen makes a return appearance as Lucy’s boyfriend and the only real tie in to the Superman movies aside from a poster in Lucy’s room and the quick radio announcement explanation why Superman isn’t around.

They tried to shoehorn a love interest into this movie by way of a personality-less prettyboy gardener for the girl’s school who Selina falls for and tries to concoct a love potion which of course goes awry and makes him fall for Linda Lee instead. I’m sure no one saw that coming. He supposedly snaps out of it halfway through the movie yet continues to have “real” feelings for both Linda and Supergirl making the connection between them through a kiss. The action scenes were all a joke as well, the first action piece is when Selina sends her shadow demon after Linda which has some pretty decent set up as a giant invisible monster. And yet Supergirl defeats it by charging a lamppost with lightning and shooting it at the beast. I wish I was kidding. The next action scene is when the boytoy gets captured by a giant piece of construction equipment that starts running loose around town. Supergirl stares at the destruction it’s causing for what feels like several minutes before finally jumping in and riding along with it for a bit and ripping the claw off, saving the guy. And the final action scene is mostly a bunch of wobbly glowing floor tiles and a big demon.

If I had to pick something about this movie that I liked, I thought Helen Slater’s performance as Supergirl was pretty good considering all the crap acting around her. There were a few of the flying sequences that were well done and I really loved Selina’s sidekick. I think she was about the best part of the movie. She reminded me a lot of Karen Walker since she always seemed to have either a cigarette or a drink in her hand. It was a shame that she got caught up with Faye in the Supergirl twister thingy that defeated them. And at least Supergirl didn’t have to give everyone amnesia kisses at the end, she just got them agree to not tell anyone about her before heading back to Argo City hopefully in time before everyone died. But of course we never know since it just happens during the credits. We do see the lights go on, but we don’t know if anyone besides Kara was still alive. Oh well. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.