Segun Akinyemi

Christian, Software Engineer, Tech Enthusiast.

The Headlines Are Doing A Lot

If your feed looks anything like mine, you’ve probably seen headlines like these:

I get why you might be thinking, man, is it really that bad of a movie?

It isn’t. Some of those headlines are sensational, the internet is overreacting, and plenty of fans are overcorrecting in the other direction. Spend five minutes on r/boxoffice, r/DC_Cinematic, or r/DCU_, and you’ll see people defending the movie from slights both real and perceived.

Reality, as it often is, is far more boring. The truth is, Supergirl isn’t that bad. It just isn’t that good. Let me explain why the best way I know how. With examples.

Movies That Were Actually That Bad

Black Adam was that bad. It was every bit as bad as its 39% score on Rotten Tomatoes would indicate. In fact, I’d say it was worse. Loud, weirdly hollow, and convinced that being big was the same thing as being interesting (which is par for the course with The Rock).

Madame Web was that bad. There’s not much to appreciate there. Not in a fun way. Not in a “well, at least they tried something weird” way. Just bad.

Morbius was that bad. Although it did give us some great memes (stay morbin friends), one can’t deny that it was a disaster class of a film. There’s nothing there. Nothing redeemable, nothing to give you hope, just Jared Leto and all the strangeness that comes with him.

An Aside: As strange as Jared Leto is, I’ve got something of a soft spot for the man because of his glory days as lead singer of Thirty Seconds to Mars.

The Kill, From Yesterday, This Is War, Alibi, and Attack are all songs I love. If I ever made an anime, those songs would be in the OST. They’re built for either anime opening sprinting toward destiny, or anime closing gazing off into the distance. I’m a fan of both.

Or to illustrate, my range of emotions when listening to Thirty Seconds to Mars fluctuates from this to that:

Banger song reaction
Monkey listening to music reaction

Anyways, I could keep going…and I will.

Suicide Squad, the first one, which funny enough also featured Jared Leto doing a terrible job, was that bad. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was that bad. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was that bad, so bad I ranted about it. Thor: Love and Thunder was that bad, so much so that it had me questioning how the MCU even works.

Those are the kinds of movies where the online discourse of “ayo this is 💩 trash” makes sense. You can hardly even defend those films. They’re train wrecks.

Supergirl is not in that category. It isn’t that bad.

MCU Comparisons

Forgive me, but it’s no secret that any conversation about the DCU somehow, someway, turns into a comparison to the MCU. It can be annoying, but it is what it is. The MCU is the standard of excellence for superhero franchises on the big screen.

And if you think back, what the MCU did was remarkable. The run from Iron Man in 2008 to Avengers: Endgame in 2019 was generational. We’re still sleeping on it. Life moves on, we keep scrolling, our attention spans get cooked, and before long we’re barely reflecting on things that happened a few minutes ago, let alone recent history. But that stretch up until Endgame was insane. It was a cultural moment. It was, to use the precise academic term, peak.

So, let’s remember how the MCU kicked off. Iron Man was great. The Incredible Hulk was not. As the second entry in the MCU, it was a shaky follow up. It wasn’t franchise killing bad, but it also wasn’t proof that Marvel was about to become the biggest thing in cinema.

Now, in similar fashion, we have Supergirl, the second film in the still nascent DCU, flopping at the box office. And similar to the MCU, it’s following a very strong first entry in the franchise, namely Superman. But that’s where the similarities end, because Supergirl is better than The Incredible Hulk. Not by much, but it’s better.

If the MCU’s leadership weathered the storm that was The Incredible Hulk’s failure, how much more should the DCU do the same with Supergirl when it’s not even that bad. Any calls for the firing of James Gunn and Peter Safran, the leads of the DCU, are premature.

Can you imagine if Kevin Feige got fired after The Incredible Hulk? We would’ve missed out the greatest franchise in cinema history.

An Aside: I said what I said. The MCU is the greatest franchise in cinema history. If you disagree…let me stop you right there. I might be able to guess what you’ll bring up in contention.

Trilogies aren’t a franchise (and College Park is not Atlanta). So, as much as I love them, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and the original Spider-Man trilogy are out. Star Wars has the cultural weight, but the sequel trilogy hurt its case, and you can leave my prequels out of this because they’re flawed but wonderful in their own way. Harry Potter is close, but the MCU surpassed it around Infinity War. Jurassic Park, despite somehow always making money at the box office, lags behind the MCU.

So yeah. MCU. Greatest film franchise ever. Argue with yourself.

My point is, early stumbles don’t have to define an entire universe. If the MCU could survive The Incredible Hulk being bad, the DCU can survive Supergirl being mid.

What’s Wrong With Supergirl

I’ve never been accused of being a poet, but here’s my attempt at summing up the problem with Supergirl.

It isn’t that bad. It just isn’t that good.

Does that make sense? I doubt it, so let me expand a bit.

Coming after Superman, which was genuinely great, Supergirl feels like a side hug from your crush. It’s not that bad. Things might still develop. It just isn’t that good.

Without spoiling anything, Milly Alcock is fantastic in the role. She’s the right person to play Supergirl. The problem is the movie around her.

The story kind of wanders from scene to scene without giving you much to hold onto beyond a middling interest in seeing Supergirl in action. I mean, watching superpowered people fly around and punch things is always fun, at least to me. But the story itself feels predictable from the jump, which would be fine if the journey were stronger.

We all know the good guys are going to win. It’s a superhero movie. The destination is not the problem. The problem is that the journey doesn’t give us enough emotional investment in the characters, a world beautiful enough to get lost in, or dialogue engaging enough to make things feel fresh. It’s all pretty meh.

The villain doesn’t help. He’s milquetoast, and the only strong thought I had about him was logistical in nature. Specifically, how is this guy eating punches from a Vitamin D doused Supergirl? If he can go toe to toe with a full powered Kryptonian, why is he this bland? Like flesh him out a bit, someone so strong deserves more back story.

But more than that, the color palette of the film might be my biggest gripe. Superman was bright, colorful, and full of life. Supergirl, stylistically, is drab. That choice is especially strange because the graphic novel the movie is based on, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, is extremely colorful and full of vibrant scenery.

Taking that source material and making the film look so dull was certainly one of the decisions of all time. The universe feels lived in, sure, but it’s missing the comic book pop that made Superman feel so refreshing, especially for those of us who are sick and tired of grimdark superhero movies. Life already sucks, let the movies be bright, colorful, and hopeful PLEASE!

Still Worth Seeing

It’s not all bad though, there’s still plenty in the film that works. The scenes with Superman are great. Krypto the Superdog is fun whenever he shows up. Jason Momoa is fun as Lobo. The aliens look great, in that original Star Wars cantina kind of way. And most importantly, Milly Alcock as Supergirl is not a problem. She feels right for the role. It’s the movie around her that’s a letdown.

If you were thinking about seeing the film, I hope this article hasn’t discouraged you. It really isn’t a bad movie. If you paid to see any of the other films I mentioned in this post, you should absolutely go see Supergirl. You wasted your money on those. You won’t be wasting your money here. Not entirely at least.

In fact, I think most fans who don’t overanalyze things and aren’t very online will find the movie entertaining enough to be worth their time. If you watch it without immediately running to read everyone else’s opinions, I think you’ll walk out like, “that was alright”, and then probably forget about it in a week because it doesn’t give you a ton to meditate on afterward.

Which is fine. Not every movie needs to rearrange your soul. Sometimes “good enough” is good enough.

Let Them Cook

All that said, I stand by the very simple premise of this article.

Supergirl isn’t that bad.

To bring it back to the MCU comparison from earlier, imagine if Kevin Feige had been fired after The Incredible Hulk came out and stumbled. We would’ve missed out on a generational run because people panicked too early.

Firing James Gunn and Peter Safran over Supergirl would be an overreaction. The movie is mid. That’s not the same thing as catastrophic.

Calm down. Let them cook.

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