Sunday and Supergirl

[beccaelizabeth]

We did Sunday breakfast and as usual I invited sibling to come watch a film, but for once he accepted.
Then he chose Supergirl, which I have not watched for ages.

It's bothering me on many levels. Like, as soon as Supergirl gets to Earth, the very first thing that happens to her is attempted sexual assault. And granted, she kicked their arses, but still, that's how to start things? It's like they think that's the only strong relevant to girls. Boo.

So then she goes undercover at a girl's school, as you do, and this apparently involves a lot of the camera watching a lot of hypothetically teenage girls in the shower and in their underwear. Which is messed up.

And then there aren't bad guys, there's a witch lady, with a girl sidekick. So on the one hand, there's a lot of female characters, but on the other, it's so women mostly defeat women.

And now there's the bit with the 'love potion' that first knocks the guy out and then leaves him staggering around disoriented so basically it's plain old drugs. And this is what a woman does with grand cosmic powers.

Also the whole thing mostly happens because Superman is off planet for the week. Which, you know, the whole point of Supergirl is she's just as powerful as Superman, not that she's second best and kind of handy if he's away. Or the point should be.

So I gues sI'm remembering why I don't watch this much. As well as the being really slow common to older films.

But, still, there's so many women in this story, I right now can't think of another superhero, SF or Fantasy film with so many. Which is, you know, messed up.




Superman gets crashing space shuttles, Supergirl is about to deal with runaway construction equipment. Oh, and a petrol station on fire, that's pretty cool.

I don't know, maybe it gets more epic later, I can't remember.



Eew now there's drugged kissing with romance music. Love potions are creepy.


Wait, this is one hour in? This is all that happens in the first hour, she starts school and meets a boy?
And stops a JCB.

That's not impressive.


Granted Clark Kent meeting a girl is an important part of that story, but still.


Now there's a big invisible thing sent to destroy an ordinary teenage girl. It's kind of an over reaction. It's difficult to make the good guy look strong if the bad guy is so petty.


The invisible thing effcts are pretty cool, lots of things squishing for no readily apparent reason.

... now she flew into a storm to collect the lightning in an ordinary lap post. I know it's a comic book movie but I feel this is not quite right.

Ooh, zapping the invisible beastie until it's outlined in electric, pretty cool... hmm, very briefly, not so great.

Now the dude's trying to sweep her off her feet and totally epic failing to budge her. That's funny.

Woo, Supergirl vs the runaway carnival ride, that's... that's clearly in a Super's league... *facepalm*



... now the lady witches can't figure out how to use the power so they go and get a bloke.
I do not like this movie.



... the romantic love interest is now talking to Supergirl being all "don't make me get rough"
... creep


(he was trying to get back to save her in her secret identity and then they kissed so he recognised her. I realise the not recognising her is a convention of the genre, but)



The witch stole the power from the evil maths / computer science teacher (yes really).

Now the love interest guy is all chained up to lure Supergirl into a trap. Well that's original. And then she only gets upset when the evil lady is kissing him. Which is super creepy still.

Oh hey, that 2D trap thing, that's always cool. Zapped into the phantom zone, is it?


The girls from the high school are fighting evil by protesting with hand painted signs on sticks. Versus a lot of thugs in motorcycle helmets and one all powerful witch who just made a mountain out of nothing.
Now that takes balls. ... the girl equivalent. Guts. Blergh to gendered everything.
... I'm currently more impressed with them than I am with Supergirl, because her challenges so far have happened in varieties 'pathetically underpowered' and 'instantly overwhelming'.

I like the cages on a chain. Nice aesthetic.

... Sunday is home decorating magazine day.



Kara doing a Never Give up speech to drunk Peter O'Toole. I realise he's playing a character but it's a bit of a familiar character right there.
"There's always a way out" Supergirl, yaays.

Oooh, the more evil powerful these witches get the much better their sparkly dress sense gets. Shiny.



Supergirl is all stripper of her powers in the zone so this climbing along the cliff bit is proper challenging. Yaays.

I feel if the only way you can manage proper challenging is to take away their powers then you shouldn't be writing a Super movie.

Zaltar go splat for no readily apparent reason. I mean he just stayed there and waited for it. That's sort of rubbish.

Supergirl gets all determined now and the music has drums. ooooh, now they're for it.



... these threats remain pathetic. Also the dialogue. "I wouldn't if I were you." "Well you're not" ??? Someone wrote that down and got paid for it in proper cinema?



She's being threatened with wibbly floor now. She can fly. She seems to have forgotten that right now but seriously she's Supergirl she can fly why is she crawling???



I'm currently more interested in the glass in the windows cause it's a pretty pattern.


Oh hey look, Supergirl stands up. "You have no friends" is her gambit now? That kind of only works if you're doing a thing where Supergirl draws strength from her friends, or they team up to defeat aspects of Selena's plan, maybe like in a sport team like we've had two sport sequences already. But those were there for teenage girls in athletic clothes, not any actual plot purpose.



Okay, so, while I was typing that, Selena summoned something bigger than her head that finally looks proper scary. And now Supergirl is all moaning and wailing and stuck.

She hasn't been very super yet. She's all "I can't" and now she's being encouraged by the guy she just pulled out of despair, who is incidentally dead? I mean, that totally makes sense.

But she remembers to fly away. Wow. That was clearly something she couldn't remember without a guy telling her to.

Oh, and the love interest just saved her by putting a lid on the power source. Woo.
This differs significantly from the 'saved by team of friends' plot because bloke and kissing


Supergirl does a tornado thing and... gives Selena to the evil thing? That... that seems wrong. Only I'm not sure what I just saw because she also unbroke the mirror and that was somehow significant?

Oh now there's more kissing. From the secondary characters. ... the mountain lair disappears around them and she's all "wow that was some kiss"


... I'm trying to recall if I liked this when it was new? I mean I presumably liked it enough to buy it. I guess I can't turn my brain off sufficiently?


That just wasn't very good at all.



Now Supergirl takes the whatsit home, because the whole thing where the city is utterly cut off from everything is totally negotiable if you're Supergirl. Only they don't show us saving the city or anything, it's just the end credits.




Okay, so, that was... bad.


I mean, I can see why they put the 'Supergirl vs school bullies' sequence in there, though the fact that I can see why they set it in the girls showers is way below *facepalm*

But the parts where she should get to be Super, they kind of epic failed at that.

Boo.




So, that's two hours of my life.


but hey, my sibling was chattering away happily, apparently mostly reading their magazine. But that still adds up to a successful sort of afternoon.