Supergirl

I don't know a whole lot about Supergirl as a character. I know she's Superman's cousin from Krypton and that she goes to planets that have a red sun so that she can get drunk and party and stuff. That I learned from watching the most recent Superman movie. I saw the Helen Slater movie when I was a kid and don't remember anything about it. I have the Woman of Tomorrow trade paperback, but I still haven't read it, so I know I've failed in my duties as a comic book nerd.

What I'm getting at is that I went into this not really knowing much of anything about Supergirl. I also went into it really wanting it to be fantastic. I always root for a cool women led action movie. Especially superhero movies. It's a very male dominated space, and whenever there's a chance for someone other than the status quo to get ahead, I'll show up for it.

I really wish this movie was as good as I wanted it to be. That's not to say it's bad, it isn't... it's just not great. It's decent.

There were flaws that bugged me, especially in the writing, both structurally and in the character work. The villain is some generic space pirate guy who is the most two dimensional villain I've seen in a really long time. Nothing remotely interesting about that guy. So much so that I was instantly annoyed whenever he showed up.

I don't know if he's a guy from the comics or not, but nothing about his character was compelling.

That was kind of my problem with the whole movie. For a movie that takes place primarily on alien worlds populated with every kind of weird alien possible, and what they came up with was a bunch of relatively human looking creatures with weird heads. There were a few big blob aliens, but for the most part, generic humanoid aliens. With weird heads.

Maybe I'm spoiled by Guardians of the Galaxy but I feel like this kind of cosmic space-centric comic book story could have and should have been more interesting. Like I said, not bad, just not great. It was entertaining, and that's sometimes enough. This time, it just wasn't. There were too many things that just fell flat for me.

First of all, before I go any further, Milly Alcock is fantastic. I loved her. She was fun, entertaining, charming, and kicked ass. No problem with her whatsoever. That part was totally great.

Now, I have to tell you a bit about Lobo, the last Czarnian. I was a kid who didn't really worry about whether a comic was from DC or Marvel. I had no brand loyalty. I loved Spider-Man and The X-Men, and I loved Batman and I frigging LOVED Lobo. Lobo was my guy. Especially when drawn by Simon Bisley. When Simon Bisley was drawing and Keith Giffen was writing, that's the good stuff.

Now, was Lobo some 90s edgelord nonsense? Certainly. But he was funny, and he was making fun of the real edgelord nonsense. I was at the age where I appreciated the edgelordness of him (and Wolverine and The Punisher and Frank Miller's Batman) but at the same time, I was savvy enough to recognize that it was all a joke. A tasteless and ridiculous joke, but a joke.

It was hyper violent, nihilistic, and mean spirited in the way that things aimed at pissed off teenage boys in the 90s were like. I was exactly the right kid to love everything Lobo.

So when they announced that Jason Momoa was playing Lobo I was thrilled. I've been saying he should be Lobo since the Game of Thrones Khal Drogo days. The guy was born to play Lobo. He's got the attitude and the look and the build. It was meant to be.

I wish it had been in a better movie. Was he great? The potential was there. Unfortunately, he wasn't given a single thing to do. You could tell that they had a story, and then someone said "Let's put Lobo in this" and then the writers had to figure out how to slot Lobo into a movie that 100% didn't need Lobo.

I'm ALL for a Lobo solo movie. I'm all for Superman and Lobo fighting. I'm all for an R rated gore fest. Jason Momoa has said he won't do a Lobo solo movie unless it's rated R. So my issue isn't with him. I just thought he was wasted. He was cool, sure, but it went nowhere. Does he call Supergirl "tits" at one point? Yeah. So what. That's something Lobo would do.

Sigh. I don't want to just shit on this movie, because, as I keep saying, it wasn't BAD. I'm just disappointed, because I was really prepared to love this movie a lot more than I did.

I'll show up with bells on to another Milly Alcock Supergirl movie. I'm pulling for these DC movies to get their shit together. Superman was frigging awesome. I'm really interested to see what James Gunn does going forward. I just hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Because this was half baked.