After a great start, DC’s new cinematic universe is already slowing down

开局良好之后，DC 的新电影宇宙已显露疲态

Supergirl’s less-than-stellar debut is a reminder that the DCU is fighting an uphill battle. 《女超人》表现平平的首秀提醒我们，DC 宇宙（DCU）正面临一场艰苦的战役。

While Kara Zor-El’s appearance at the end of James Gunn’s Superman was a very pleasant surprise, Warner Bros. Discovery’s plan to fast-track a standalone Supergirl feature always felt a little dubious. It seemed odd that, after Superman, the studio wanted to flesh out its new cinematic universe with films about another Kryptonian and one of Batman’s less notable villains. But Gunn implored fans to have faith in his vision and trust that the DCU would become a world of interconnected stories that put WBD’s last batch of comic book movies to shame. 虽然卡拉·佐-艾尔（Kara Zor-El）在詹姆斯·古恩（James Gunn）执导的《超人》片尾出现是一个非常令人惊喜的彩蛋，但华纳兄弟探索公司（WBD）快速推进《女超人》独立电影的计划一直让人感到有些怀疑。在《超人》之后，制片厂想要通过另一位氪星人和蝙蝠侠麾下名气较小的反派电影来充实其新电影宇宙，这看起来有些奇怪。但古恩恳求粉丝们相信他的愿景，并相信 DCU 将成为一个互联互通的故事世界，让 WBD 此前的一系列漫画电影相形见绌。

Though hopes were high for Supergirl, the movie has turned out to be a bit of a dud. Critics have been rather down on the project, and its lackluster box office performance has it on track to lose WBD somewhere between $100–120 million. Films flop all the time, and Supergirl not resonating with audiences probably wouldn’t be a huge deal if we knew that DC Studios had more exciting things coming down the pike. But Supergirl feels like it could be an early sign that Gunn’s grand plan for the DCU is falling apart before it even really gets off the ground. 尽管人们对《女超人》寄予厚望，但这部电影最终还是表现平平。影评人对该项目评价不高，其惨淡的票房表现预计将使 WBD 损失 1 亿至 1.2 亿美元。电影票房失利是常有的事，如果 DC 工作室后续还有更多令人兴奋的作品，那么《女超人》未能引起观众共鸣可能并不是什么大问题。但《女超人》似乎是一个早期信号，预示着古恩为 DCU 制定的宏伟蓝图在真正起步之前就已经开始瓦解了。

Loosely based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic miniseries, the new Supergirl film follows Superman’s cousin Kara (Milly Alcock) as she embarks on an interstellar bender that culminates in her dog being poisoned by a crew of sex-trafficking pirates. Unlike Superman (David Corenswet), Supergirl doesn’t really have a problem with killing her enemies — especially when they’re trying to stop her from saving Krypto. But with an orphaned girl (Eve Ridley) tagging along for the adventure, Kara tries to set a good (read: no murdering) example. 这部新《女超人》电影大致改编自汤姆·金（Tom King）和比尔奎斯·埃弗利（Bilquis Evely）的漫画迷你剧《女超人：明日之女》，讲述了超人的表姐卡拉（米莉·阿尔科克饰）踏上一段星际狂欢之旅，最终她的狗被一群人口贩卖海盗毒害的故事。与超人（大卫·科伦斯韦饰）不同，女超人并不介意杀死敌人——尤其是当他们试图阻止她拯救小氪（Krypto）时。但由于有一个孤儿女孩（伊芙·里德利饰）随行，卡拉试图树立一个好榜样（即：不杀人）。

Though Supergirl comes from director Craig Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira, everything about this movie — from its focus on animals in distress to its needle drops — makes it feel a lot like some of Gunn’s previous work. Supergirl’s drunken brawls in alien bars and scenes of her schlepping around space in a junky starship look like they could have been ripped from any one of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy features. You can hear Nogueira channeling Gunn’s spiky sense of humor as the movie introduces new faces like unhinged bounty hunter Lobo (a distracting Jason Momoa in comics-accurate garb). Momoa’s presence is a constant reminder of how the DCEU fell apart, but Lobo isn’t really what drags Supergirl down. 尽管《女超人》由导演克雷格·吉勒斯佩（Craig Gillespie）和编剧安娜·诺盖拉（Ana Nogueira）操刀，但这部电影的一切——从对受困动物的关注到插曲的使用——都让人感觉非常像古恩以前的作品。女超人在外星酒吧的醉酒斗殴，以及她驾驶破旧星际飞船在太空中穿梭的场景，看起来就像是从漫威的《银河护卫队》系列中直接剪辑出来的。当电影引入像精神失常的赏金猎人暴狼（Lobo，由杰森·莫玛饰演，身着还原漫画的服装，令人分心）这样的新面孔时，你能听到诺盖拉在模仿古恩那种尖锐的幽默感。莫玛的出现不断提醒人们 DCEU 是如何分崩离析的，但暴狼并不是拖累《女超人》的真正原因。

As refreshing as it was to see Superman gloss over Clark Kent’s oft-repeated tragic backstory, Supergirl spends much of its runtime rehashing the details of Krypton’s destruction. Flashbacks to Kara’s past are meant to help us understand the grief she’s been living with, and to see why her sense of morality is very different from her cousin’s. But rather than unpacking Kara’s emotions in any meaningful way, the movie makes light of her substance abuse while sending her on a by-the-numbers adventure that’s generally lacking when it comes to intrigue or visual spectacle. 虽然《超人》跳过克拉克·肯特那被反复提及的悲惨背景故事让人耳目一新，但《女超人》却花费了大量时间重述氪星毁灭的细节。关于卡拉过去的回忆片段本意是帮助我们理解她一直承受的悲伤，并了解为什么她的道德观与她的表弟截然不同。然而，电影并没有以任何有意义的方式剖析卡拉的情感，反而轻描淡写了她的药物滥用问题，同时让她进行了一场按部就班的冒险，整体上缺乏悬念或视觉奇观。

One of Supergirl’s more glaring issues is the way it struggles to find organic ways to make its titular heroine feel distinct from Superman. Aside from her relative brutality and moody outlook, she’s just another indestructible alien who periodically needs to recharge her powers by basking in yellow sunlight. The movie tries to give itself some stakes by constantly putting Kara in situations where she’s left without her abilities. But by the second sequence in which Kara’s getting punched out by a bunch of dudes, you get the sense that DC Studios never really locked in on a plan to make this story pop. 《女超人》更明显的问题之一是，它难以找到自然的方式让这位女主角感觉与超人有所不同。除了她相对残暴和喜怒无常的性格外，她只是另一个需要定期通过沐浴在黄色阳光下补充能量的无敌外星人。电影试图通过不断让卡拉陷入失去能力的困境来增加赌注。但当第二次看到卡拉被一群男人殴打时，你会感觉到 DC 工作室从未真正制定出一个让这个故事脱颖而出的计划。

That’s somewhat surprising given the way Gunn has previously insisted that DC Studios would “never put a half-assed script in production” simply because the project had already been announced. Half-assed is the perfect description of Supergirl’s entire vibe, and it being the studio’s second major feature doesn’t exactly bode well for the DCU’s future. Supergirl needed to demonstrate that Gunn had a solid plan to build a new universe on the backs of some of DC’s lower profile characters. Though we’ve already seen some of how that could work in HBO’s Peacemaker series, it was less clear whether the studio could pull it off on the big screen. The entire point of rebooting WBD’s superhero movies was to put DC Studios in a better position to compete with Marvel — which is on the verge of its own major reset. But whereas Marvel has a few reliable aces like the X-Men and a new Spider-Man movie up its sleeve, DC is essentially starting from scratch. 考虑到古恩此前曾坚称 DC 工作室“绝不会仅仅因为项目已经宣布就将敷衍了事的剧本投入制作”，这多少有些令人惊讶。“敷衍了事”是对《女超人》整体氛围的完美描述，而作为该工作室的第二部大制作，这对于 DCU 的未来来说并不是什么好兆头。《女超人》本需要证明古恩有一个扎实的计划，即利用 DC 一些知名度较低的角色来构建一个新宇宙。虽然我们已经在 HBO 的《和平使者》系列中看到了一些可行性，但制片厂能否在大银幕上实现这一目标尚不明确。重启 WBD 超级英雄电影的全部意义在于让 DC 工作室处于更有利的竞争地位，以对抗正处于重大重置边缘的漫威。但与漫威手中握有 X 战警和新《蜘蛛侠》电影等可靠王牌不同，DC 本质上是从零开始。

Some of Supergirl’s problems might not be so readily apparent if there had been more time before it and Superman’s theatrical debuts. The two movies coming out so close to one another emphasizes their characters’ general similarities, and makes it seem like DC might be a little too comfortable putting out iterative projects. This calls into question Gunn’s decision to prioritize a series about the Green Lanterns and a Clayface film before introducing new versions of more well-known heroes. 如果《女超人》和《超人》的上映时间间隔更长，它的一些问题可能就不会那么明显了。两部电影上映时间如此接近，突显了角色之间的普遍相似性，也让人觉得 DC 可能在推出迭代项目方面过于安逸了。这让人质疑古恩的决定：在引入更多知名英雄的新版本之前，优先考虑《绿灯侠》系列和《泥面人》（Clayface）电影。