DVD : Supergirl (Director's Cut)

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Supergirl!
"Supergirl" thrilled me when it opened back in 1984. Along with Wonder Woman and She-Ra, Supergirl was part of an era of female superheroines. "Supergirl" is a true camp classic. It marked Helen Slater's debut (and subsequent departure) from the silver screen. Faye Dunaway could've shouted,"No more kryptonite wire hangers!" but she's close enough. "Supergirl",along with "Puma Man",is one of the cheesiest superhero movies ever made.

"Supergirl" opens on the heroine's homeworld,with her mother Mia Farrow&her mentor Zaltar (Peter O'Toole,hammy as ever) They need the Omegahedron to restore their world. Supergirl,a.k.a. Kara,is sent to Earth. Her cousin Superman is mentioned, but never makes an appearance,since the late Christopher Reeve wanted nothing to do with this movie. Kara confronts thugs, goes to a boarding school. In the meantime, the evil sorceress Selena (Dunaway) is in control of an amusement park. She has a female companion (Brenda Vaccaro) Lest one think these two dowdy ladies are carrying on a super-Sapphic romance, Selena lusts for a hunky carpenter/gardener. And yet she wants world domination??? Somehow the Hunky Guy is in the middle of all of it. There are numerous cheesy battles. At one point, Supergirl is hurled into the Phantom Zone with Zaltar. Somehow,good triumphs in the end. But not good taste.

"Supergirl" is gloriously campy fun. Take flight!

Rating:

- Supergirl? Almost.
This is an okay pass at a Supergirl movie. In an effort to set this one apart from the Superman series, the filmmakers tried to make this one more about a magical enemy, rather than the more Sci Fi aspect of the Superman movies. Magic had already been introduced into the comics as a force that could harm the Super clan, but it becomes a bit tricky to portray it on the big screen without losing your audience.

The villainess and her assistant have little charisma, which already places them below Lex Luthor in the minds of the audience. This is one of the large problems that plagued Superman III. Of course it doesn't help that the main thrust of Serlena's "evil plan" for most of the movie seems to revolve around getting a hunky construction worker to fall in love with her.

When the spell accidentally causes him to fall for Supergirl's human guise, Linda, Serlena decides to start the catfight to end all catfights. Or that's what it seems like. There's little sense that there is a real threat for Supergirl to fight except for the attacks against herself. Superman and Supergirl work best when the fight they are in is for more than their own lives. We just don't get a sense that that is happening here.

Other than that, the effects are not terrible, but the fight at the end with the force of shadows is a bit obscurely filmed. It comes across as a bit confusing.

In truth, the world is actually in danger because Serlena has been using the Omegahedron to increase her powers exponentially, but it doesn't come across like that.

It's better than Superman IV (big deal) and it may be roughly on par with Superman III, but that can largely rely on your personal preferences in this matter.

Rating:

- A cheezy movie girls 6 to 13 will enjoy.
My daughter got this movie when she was six. Two years later she still watches it from time to time. It is very cheezy, but kids will enjoy it. There is nothing explicit, and the violence is fairly mild.

Rating:

- Not awful... but not 'Super', either
Before I get down to the review proper, please note that I'm reviewing the 124-minute-long international version DVD of 'Supergirl' (available at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6305842051/qid=1089790747/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-1200342-3991361?v=glance&s=dvd). I'm just letting you know this so as to avoid any confusion, seeing as how there are three different versions of this movie on DVD, and Amazon has decided to lump all reviews together, rather than seperate them out by whichever edition each one was submitted under. BTW I wanted to do a write-up of the super-tricked-out 2-disc edition (available at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6305842027/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-1200342-3991361). Unfortunately(?), none of the local rental places had it in stock, so I had to take what I could get...

Anyhoo, let's get on with the show...

In the mood to complete my viewing of the entire run of Salkind-funded Super-films, I finally decided to give 'Supergirl' a look. After watching it twice (once by itself and once with director commentary), I found it a fair-to-middling entry in the canon. It didn't quite stack up to Supes 1 or 2, but it wasn't quite as silly as Supes 3 or 4. Like most mid-quality comic-book-based flicks it has the usual case of overacting by most of the cast-- especially Faye Dunaway as the show's big heavy, and Peter York as the big heavy's scorned love interest. Fortunately, the overacting is cheesily counterbalanced by the UNDERacting of Helen Slater in the title role, and the just plain dopiness of our heroine's love interest played by Hart Bochner. Helping provide a link to the 'Superman' franchise is Marc McClure doin' his overly-cheerful aw-shucks routine as Daily Planet photog Jimmy Olsen. And even though it never quite reaches the level of hilarity that Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty attained in the original `Superman', the quirky interplay between Dunaway's character and her sidekick (Brenda Vaccaro) helps add a decent level of levity to the whole affair.

As you'd expect, there's plenty of special & visual FX thrown about, many of which haven't aged all that well. Some of the stuff still looks pretty good though, including most of the Supergirl flying sequences with the painted-out harness wires. Most of the bluescreen stuff, however, isn't quite as convincing. Especially glaring is one scene featuring three transitions in one "pan" that weren't aligned all that well. BTW if you listen to the commentary track featuring director Jeannot Szwarc while watching the movie, you can usually tell which effects weren't quite up to snuff in his estimation when he brings up how much better a particular shot would've turned out using modern CGI effects.

The director commentary track also includes the usual bits of info regarding the movie's production, as well as Szwarc's thoughts on the thespian capabilities of various cat members, and a few somewhat amusing anecdotes thrown in for good measure. But for me the most interesting part of this track was the revelation that the producers wanted further links to the 'Superman' movies in the form of brief appearances by Christopher Reeve as Superman and (rumored) Margot 'Lois Lane' Kidder. Reeve apparently had voiced interest in being involved but eventually decided against it, which forced the film's crew to write and produce a new opening act. Them's the breaks in show biz...

Also included with this edition of the DVD are the usual array of TV spots, theatrical trailers, and an hour-long documentary on the making of the movie. This doc covers the usual "making-of" ground such as how the whole project got started, the casting, and special effects. Unfortunately I didn't find much of interest here, save for the building of the small Midwest town set in the middle of a clearing somewhere in rural England for the "out-of-control backhoe digger" sequence. I tell ya, it was almost a shame to watch the rampaging machine trash half the town in the movie after seeing how much effort the set builders put into making it look like an authentic slice of Americana. Eh, they were just gonna tear it all down after filming was finished, anyway...

Bottom line: while not exactly a high point in the annals of comic-book celluloid, `Supergirl' ain't a complete waste. There's enough campiness thrown about to keep the average fan of cheeseball cinema reasonably entertained. It's worth at least a rental, if for nothing more than to get the curiosity outta yer system...

`Late

Rating:

- Mediocre story, mediocre SFX, just plain mediocre!
Helen Slater (a dead ringer for the woman of steel) appears as "Supergirl", a survivor of Argo City in pursuit of the Omegahedron...a device that can turn any thought into reality.
A likable adventure. Co-starring Faye Dunaway...who overacts as a wannabe witch. (By the way, When DOESN'T Ms. Dunaway overact?) Also Brenda Vaccaro as her sidekick....who stinks up the screen. Go back to TV commericials, Brenda!

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