Supergirl

I loved James Gunn's reboot of Superman so I was really looking forward to Supergirl, the next installment in the DC Universe.  I went to see it last night with my nephew and, unfortunately, I was really disappointed.  Zor-El (David Krumholtz) and his wife Alura (Emily Beecham) manage to create a force field around Argo City which separates it from the planet Krypton before the core explodes.  Their daughter Kara is born is born eight years later but, when they realize that everyone in Argo City is dying from radiation poisoning, they decide to send her to Earth to be with their nephew Kal-El (David Corenswet).  The teenage Kara (Molly Alcock) is incredibly traumatized by the death of her parents and everyone she knew in Argo City so she frequently leaves the yellow sun of Earth, which gives her power, for planets with a red sun like Krypton so she can get drunk enough to forget her past.  On one such planet she is approached by Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) who wants her help to locate Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), the leader of the Brigands who killed her family, to exact revenge but she refuses.  However, Kara changes her mind after Krem shoots her dog Krypto with a poison dart and she agrees to help Ruthye in order to get the antidote.  They travel from planet to planet and interact with various creatures in their search until, with the help of the bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa), they have an epic confrontation with Krem to free a group of women who have been trafficked by the Brigands but Kara ultimately convinces Ruthye that vengeance is not the answer.  The source material is incredibly dark and I really wish that the filmmakers had committed to the darker tone but there are lots of attempts to make the characters more humorous and quirky, especially Krem and Lobo, and the humor didn't really land for me (I didn't hear anyone in my audience laughing).  The action sequences and the visual effects are surprisingly dull because all of the planets look the same with a dark and washed out color grading (I started to get really bored because the battles become so monotonous).  There are some emotional moments between Kara and Ruthye but they are not as moving as they could have been because Ridley gives such a stilted performance (I found her annoying).  However, Alcock is great in the role (her performance is the best part of the movie) because she balances her character's strength and vulnerability very effectively.  I hope that she will be able to continue playing Kara in a better movie in the DCU but I don't recommend this one.