Review: Supergirl

Helen Slater is Kara, the cousin of Kal-El/Superman, an ‘inner-dimensional’ being who lives in Argo City, basically the remainder of the population of the planet Krypton. She goes on a mission to Earth to retrieve a device important to the survival of Argo City’s inhabitants. On Earth she poses as a boarding school student named Linda Lee, a cousin of Clark Kent and rooms with Lucy Lane (Maureen Teefy), relative of…you can probably guess. Unfortunately, the much sought after omegahedrom is currently in the hands of amateur witch Selena (Faye Dunaway), who wants to use its powers to attract the attentions of a handsome gardener (Hart Bochner). Or something like that. Peter Cook plays Selena’s on-and-off beau who just so happens to be a teacher at Kara/Linda’s school. Mia Farrow and Simon Ward play Kara’s parents, Peter O’Toole plays Kara’s mentor Zaltar, Brenda Vaccaro plays Selena’s smart Alec lackey, Marc McClure briefly reprises his “Superman” role as Jimmy Olsen, and Matt Frewer is miscast in a cameo as a sleazy trucker.

 

Although not quite as bad as “Superman III” and “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace”, the difference in this 1984 Jeannot Szwarc (“Jaws 2”, “Santa Claus: The Movie”) spin-off is ultimately small and negligible enough to earn the same rating from me. This is bloated, silly, thoroughly juvenile stuff. It’s pitched at the kiddie level, with little if anything for anyone in double digits. Helen Slater is pretty, likeable, and absolutely never had a chance here. She has charm, but not a whole lot of acting chops, and even Olivier would’ve struggled with the silly material here. In “Superman” we had Marlon Brando, Susannah York, Harry Andrews and Trevor Howard in the Krypton scenes, which I actually loved (“Superman” being my favourite superhero film of all-time). Here we get Mia Farrow, Simon Ward, and a slumming Peter O’Toole in his post-“Caligula” lack-of-give-a-shit phase. Although Ward looks thoroughly embarrassed, O’Toole is at least lively in his sing-song-y voiced way during the opening stanza. The FX/sets are at least colourful, and as shot by Alan Hume (“Eye of the Needle”, “Bear Island”, “Return of the Jedi”) the film doesn’t look as cheap as say “The Quest for Peace”.

 

Once we get to Earth things settle down into the usual fish-out-of-water formula, albeit a more stupid and youthful variant of it (Fun Fact: Helen Slater in a dark wig looks exactly like Courteney Cox. Tell me I’m wrong!). It’s seriously dumb stuff, with Faye Dunaway OK as the chief villainess, a role that pretty much anyone could’ve played. Dunaway was still in her Joan Crawford phase here (though to be fair “Mommie Dearest” was probably the best performance she gave during that whole 1980-1986 period), and the only thing even closely resembling wit comes from her scenes with a butch-looking Brenda Vaccaro (essentially in the Valerie Perrine and Ned Beatty roles from “Superman” combined). They have their moments, in fact Vaccaro is much more entertaining than Perrine was in “Superman”. The rest? Ugh, not so much. Comedian Peter Cook and his ghastly yellow teeth proves to be a woefully ineffective straight actor, and he’s not given anything funny to say or do either. Why is he here? An actress named Maureen Teefy is uncharismatic and uninteresting as a relative of Lois Lane, a rather too-cute story idea that Teefy hasn’t got a clue how to pull off. Hart Bochner looks about 15 years too old for his role (though he’s actually only about 7 years older than Slater), and has been much better elsewhere. On the plus side, Jerry Goldsmith (“Planet of the Apes”, “The Omen”) is on hand to deliver a class score that admittedly is just a John Williams rip-off. Still, it’s the classiest thing in the whole film.

 

Is this a bad film? Not really. It’s wildly overlong, extremely silly and not remotely designed for anyone outside of the kid/teen market. It’s pretty harmless though. I don’t…hate it. The dopey screenplay is by “Muppet Show” alum David Odell (“The Dark Crystal”, “Masters of the Universe”).

 

Rating: C