Supergirl

Let me start off by getting your inner lunatic out of bed before we get going here.

Envision a flick anchored by a perpetually hungover punkette who rages all night until the anything-but-super next morning, then gulps down some yellow sun like it’s five Advil and the hair of the dog that bit her so she can extend her reign of bar fights and good times to the next planet. She’s followed around on this intergalactic bender by her flying dog, who wakes up every morning and pisses out judgment—quite literally—and the just-unearthed fifth member of KISS, who, being every bit as fucking rock and roll as our main riot grrrl, completely hates her until he gets enough exposure to her to go, basically, game respect game.

Is that something you might be interested in?

Yeah, she had me at fuck off too.

Enter Supergirl’s mall-punk screenplay to completely piss on that parade and ruin what could have been the movie with the most attitude we’ve seen in years. Virtually nothing in this thing can keep up with the energy Milly Alcock was ready to bring to the titular character. Her would-be girl-power partner in crime—Eve Ridley—is so one-dimensional they might as well present her between two panes of glass and call it an homage to the franchise’s long-forgotten beginnings. And even when the added components sound sick on paper—let’s have her fight a space pirate with enough face piercings to make an MRI tech hit the emergency stop before he even enters the building—they’re dumped into this thing with all the enthusiasm of corporate checking boxes before agreeing to loan Alcock the obnoxious suit.

Stripped of the feral energy that looked like it might be enough superpower to overcome the Hulk on leg day, we’re left with a now-caped-up half-pint trying to sell fight scenes on little more than the good lineage emblazoned across her newly donned Candyland spandex. And nobody’s buying that this girl would make it past the first hair pulling from the one we meet at the film’s opening.

That’s the kick in the balls here: this movie had the hard part already solved. Alcock showed up ready to play a Kryptonian train wreck who could drink you under the table, beat the shit out of somebody in the parking lot, and still somehow be the coolest person in the room. All the screenplay had to do was stay the fuck out of her way. Instead, it made her the designated driver.