After being surprised by just how fantastic James Gunn’s Superman was, i had high hopes that this movie would at least be good, if not great. After all, the story would adapt the ‘Woman of Tomorrow’ story by Tom King. It had a great story, gorgeous art, and is just a great space adventure. It was also directed by Craig Gillespie who did one of my low-key favourites in Lars and The Real Girl, as well as more recent solid entries such as I, Tonya. The foundation for it was solid.

Despite that, the movie fails to really land many of its beats.

The villain is made more the focus here than in the original story, which isn’t a bad thing by itself. But he becomes a generic bad guy, complete with a Pinhead-inspired design it seems rather than the low-stakes criminal who serves as a plot device to motivate their journey. Instead, here he is a flat run-of-the-mill villain with the over the top design that screams “I’m the bad guy, just look at me”.

The relationship between Kara and Ruthye is well handled but the portrayal of Ruthye was more flat than i had expected. However none of the final scenes or overall relationship feels as earned as the comic book story’s version. Perhaps i am a bit unfair to it in comparing the two adaptations but i do feel that if you were going to adapt such a strong and critically acclaimed story, it should at least match it in some ways.

It had none of the great visuals and art that the comic was celebrated for, nor was the editing or writing strong enough to make up for the lack of visuals.

The biggest crime in this movie though was how wasted it felt the newly introduced character of Lobo felt. Lobo as a comic book character has a long and rich history as a conflicting antihero, and whose history and powers (including being able to go toe-to-toe with Superman) made it exciting to finally see in live action. Played by Jason Momoa though, who matches his imposing physical presence, the character becomes a bit over-the-top and doesn’t quite land the scene-chewery that it feels was attempted. It doesn’t feel like this was the right movie, writing, or setting for this rich character to get introduced in, and largely felt underwhelming in his use within the story.

That said, Milly Alcock is Supergirl. Along with David Corenswet’s brief appearances as Superman, they really do seem to embody their characters and their acting is superb. The script and directing may have failed them in some ways, but i really do hope that they get to have further showings with stronger writers and directors behind them.

As it is the movie was just okay, and if not for the aforementioned great performances, would have been simply underwhelming.