Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Superman Week Part 4

Remember when I was reviewing Superman 3 and I had said that Ilya Salkind was originally thinking of putting Supergirl in the film as Superman’s love interest? Well, in 1984, Ilya and Alexander purchased rights for Supergirl and made a spin-off film about her. Making her motion picture debut is Helen Slater playing Kara Zor-El, later to become Supergirl. Faye Dunaway played the villain, Selena and Marc McClure reprised his role as Jimmy Olsen.

This will come as no shock: the film did poorly in the box office and critics and audiences were not impressed at all. However, Helen Slater was nominated for the Saturn Award, and expanding on the Superman mythology, like taking us into the Phantom Zone, which in the first two was represented by a spinning black pane of glass.

So the film is about Kara Zor-El who lives in an isolated Kryptonian community in another universe known as Argo City. Zaltar, played by one of the greatest actors who you might remember from such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O’Toole, allows her to see the Omegahedron, which powers the city. However, it gets blown into space and Kara decides to go retrieve it, even though her parents, played by Simon Ward and Mia Farrow, decide against it. She goes to Earth, transforms into Supergirl, and follows it to find the Omegahedron.

Now the major problem with this film is that she didn’t undergo a transformation when she arrived on Earth. Didn’t Superman go and have his costume made? Why would Supergirl be given the suit automatically, when I believe in the comics, she also got it made as well? Also, when she arrives and sees what kind of powers she has, she plays around with them like some kid who just discovered they have superpowers. FIND THE OMEGAHEDRON!!! And another major problem is that instead of finding the Omegahedron, she instead decides to play high school girl, going under the name, Linda Lee. Hello, you have your home planet to save lady, why are you hiding out playing high school girl? And how ironic that she rooms with Lois Lane’s younger sister, Lucy, played by Maureen Teefy, at the dormitories? I think that with the allotted time this movie has, the planet would be dead by now thanks to her playing high school girl, INSTEAD OF FINDING THE OMEGAHEDRON!!!!!

Selena is some wanna-be witch, assisted by Bianca, played by Brenda Vaccaro, who wants to break up her relationship with a warlock named Nigel, played by Peter Cook. Is this Earth, because there’s no such thing as witches or warlocks. Unless you’re Charlie Sheen who has his head in the fantasy world all the time, which is something no one will understand. Once Selena finds the Omegahedron, she uses it to perform real magic spells. And thanks to Supergirl, Argo City will be dead, and all of Earth will be destroyed. This movie would be over really quickly IF SHE WASN’T PLAYING HIGH SCHOOL GIRL!!!!! I’m sorry; I can’t fathom the thought of why the Salkinds made this film this way. They completely destroyed this character.

You want to know what else? The groundskeeper of the school, Ethan, played by Hart Bochner, falls in love with Supergirl. Why doesn’t she just go out with him? He doesn’t need to know that she is Supergirl. Just go that extra mile and have her go out with him, since she has already been destroyed enough. It's like how Joel Schumacher treated Batgirl in Batman and Robin. It was her only feature film, and they destroyed Batgirl in that film, and we never saw her again. Same thing with Supergirl. This is her only feature film, and there hasn't been another one, which I don't blame them for doing.

Christopher Reeves was supposed to make a cameo, but bowed out early. Thank goodness he did, but they said in a news broadcast in the film that Superman was on a “peace-seeking mission” in another galaxy. Ok, now that’s just bad writing. If you have the opportunity to just pass this by and not watch it, do so. Save yourself and never watch this film, because it is in the top 5 worst comic book adaptations ever made.

What a relief! Now that’s off my chest, let’s see tomorrow how Cannon Films treats the fourth Superman film. Trust me; I’m not looking forward to it either. Up, up, and away!

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