Retrospective Film Review

Supergirl (1984) • 35 Years Later

After losing a powerful orb, Kara Zor-El, Superman’s cousin, comes to Earth to retrieve it and instead finds herself up against a wicked witch.

Marvel Studios had made almost 20 films before Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) included a female character in the title, and an actress fronted her own film with Captain Marvel (2019). But that’s nothing on their rivals DC, who took a remarkable 76 years to give Wonder Woman (2017) her own live-action movie… although the result is what opened the floodgates. To be fair, 33 years earlier, DC dipped a toe into the water with Supergirl, but the character’s 1984 debut retained the worst elements of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and didn’t capture what made the first two classics.

Having also survived the destruction of Krypton, young Kara Zor-El (Helen Slater) and a small colony now survive in a strange “inner-space” city. But when their power source is jettisoned to Earth, Kara follows after it and arrives in our world, realising her baby cousin’s Kal-El’s since become ‘Superman’. And she…