There’s a scene toward the end of “Supergirl” that perfectly encapsulates how tonally inept it is. After what feels like an eternity, our Kryptonian hero, Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), has quit drinking away her sorrows, embraced her superpowers, thrown on her cape and decided to whoop some evil ass. It’s a moment of triumph for the 23-year-old, whose planet-hopping party-girl persona had masked a deep pain stemming from the loss of her parents and home planet, and demands a rousing tune to mark the milestone. All of a sudden, the sound drops; the action slows to a crawl; and the deafening silence is broken by the strumming of an acoustic guitar, followed by a woman’s voice softly crooning the lyrics to “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World. It’s not only remarkably deflating but also one of the worst needle drops ever. And the man responsible is none other than James Gunn, the new steward of DC Studios.
“That was probably the biggest discussion,” director Craig Gillespie told Rolling Stone of the song’s selection. “And I gotta credit James Gunn for that one.”
The issues with “Supergirl” extend far beyond that one song, of course. As Variety critic Owen Gleiberman wrote in his review of the film, it’s “a comic-book movie with the worst script I can remember” that’s “full of action yet numbingly flat”; it received a B- Cinemascore among opening-night audiences, the lowest of any DC Comics movie adaptation other than “Joker Folie à Deux”; and grossed a meager $38 million in its opening weekend against a $170 million budget (plus worldwide marketing expenses). “Supergirl” is just the latest in a long line of disappointing movies — or, in the worrying case of “Batgirl,” axed projects — centering a female superhero since Patty Jenkins’ impressive “Wonder Woman” back in 2017.
