Review: Supergirl is not the disaster its low box office suggests

影评：《女超人》并非其惨淡票房所暗示的那样是一场灾难

Pour one out for Supergirl, the latest installment in the DCU’s Gods and Monsters chapter, which has been beset by online troll attacks, mixed reviews, and a very disappointing opening weekend box office—not the outcome Warner Bros. was hoping for with this follow-up to last year’s Superman. It’s actually a pretty good movie, as such films go, but it’s not a great movie. And in today’s over-saturated superhero market, that’s just not sufficient to get people out of their homes and into theaters, rather than waiting for the film to come to streaming platforms. (Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)

为《女超人》（Supergirl）倒上一杯酒吧，作为 DC 宇宙“神与怪”（Gods and Monsters）篇章的最新力作，它正饱受网络喷子的攻击、褒贬不一的评价以及令人极其失望的首周末票房困扰——这显然不是华纳兄弟在继去年《超人》之后所期待的结果。平心而论，作为同类电影，它其实还算不错，但称不上是一部伟大的作品。在如今超级英雄电影市场严重饱和的环境下，这显然不足以让观众走出家门走进影院，他们宁愿等待电影上线流媒体平台。（以下内容包含部分剧透，但无重大情节泄露。）

The studio tapped Ana Nogueira to write the script, a holdover from the former DCEU plans for a standalone Supergirl film. (The character appeared in the finale of 2022’s The Flash, played by Sasha Calle.) The project was reimagined when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over and launched the “soft reboot” DCU. Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, I Tonya) signed on to direct. The story is adapted from the comic book miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which was partially inspired by the 1968 classic Western, True Grit.

华纳兄弟聘请了安娜·诺盖拉（Ana Nogueira）撰写剧本，这是此前 DCEU 独立《女超人》电影计划的延续。（该角色曾由萨莎·卡列饰演，出现在 2022 年《闪电侠》的结尾。）当詹姆斯·古恩（James Gunn）和彼得·萨夫兰（Peter Safran）接手并开启 DC 宇宙的“软重启”后，该项目被重新构思。导演克雷格·吉勒斯佩（代表作《充气娃娃之恋》、《我，花样女王》）受邀执导。故事改编自漫画迷你剧《女超人：明日之女》（Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow），其灵感部分源自 1968 年的经典西部片《大地惊雷》（True Grit）。

Gillespie envisioned his film as a kind of interplanetary road movie, with Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock) teaming up with Jason Momoa’s wild bounty hunter, Lobo, in a dynamic reminiscent of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn. Lobo ended up being more of a cameo appearance; he is not featured at all in the comic miniseries, which focuses on Kara’s budding friendship with a vengeance-seeking alien child. That’s the arc the film settled on, one that harkens back to the DC Comics Silver Age.

吉勒斯佩将这部电影构想为一种星际公路片，由卡拉·佐-艾尔/女超人（米莉·阿尔科克饰）与杰森·莫玛饰演的狂野赏金猎人“暴狼”（Lobo）搭档，这种动态让人联想到《大地惊雷》中的马蒂·罗斯和鲁斯特·考伯恩。最终，“暴狼”更多是以客串身份出现；他在原著漫画迷你剧中并未登场，原著主要聚焦于卡拉与一名寻求复仇的外星孩子之间萌生的友谊。电影最终选择了这条叙事线，这让人回想起 DC 漫画的白银时代。

The film opens with a montage showcasing a rebellious Kara celebrating her 23rd birthday by bar-hopping around red star planets with her space dog, Krypto—because she can actually get drunk there, as opposed to healing/empowering yellow star worlds. (Green star worlds will kill her, which predictably becomes relevant later on.) She mostly ignores the concerned calls from her cousin Kal-El/Superman/Clark Kent (David Corenswet). She’s breezily cynical, while he embraces a naive optimism and keeps encouraging her to return to Earth and try to make it her home. But for Kara, home is wherever Krypto is.

电影开篇通过蒙太奇展示了叛逆的卡拉与她的太空狗“小氪”（Krypto）在红巨星行星周围的酒吧间穿梭，庆祝她的 23 岁生日——因为在那里她真的会喝醉，而不像在治愈/赋予力量的黄恒星世界那样。 (绿恒星世界会要了她的命，这在后来不出所料地成为了关键情节。) 她大多无视表弟卡尔-艾尔/超人/克拉克·肯特（大卫·科伦斯韦饰）关切的电话。她表现得玩世不恭，而他则拥抱天真的乐观主义，不断鼓励她回到地球，试着将其当作自己的家。但对卡拉来说，有小氪的地方就是家。

Kara also isn’t inclined to be a superhero, although she does help young Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) when some bar lowlifes try to steal Ruthye’s father’s sword. But she declines Ruthye’s plea to help her find the man who slaughtered her family: a Brigand leader named Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts). Kara changes her tune when Krem hijacks Kara’s ship and shoots Krypto with a poison dart. Poor Trypto will die in three days if she can’t retrieve the antidote from Krem. The two team up, one seeking a cure, the other revenge. There’s also some sex trafficking thrown in, just to drive home the villainy of the Brigands.

卡拉也不想当超级英雄，尽管当一些酒吧混混试图抢走年轻女孩露西·玛丽·诺尔（伊芙·里德利饰）父亲的剑时，她确实伸出了援手。但她拒绝了露西请求她帮忙寻找屠杀其家人的凶手——一位名叫“黄山克雷姆”（Krem of the Yellow Hills，马提亚斯·修奈尔饰）的强盗头目。当克雷姆劫持了卡拉的飞船并用毒镖射中小氪后，卡拉改变了主意。如果她不能从克雷姆那里拿到解药，可怜的小氪三天内就会死去。两人结伴而行，一个为了寻求治愈，另一个为了复仇。片中还加入了一些人口贩卖的情节，旨在进一步凸显强盗们的邪恶。

As with last year’s Superman, I was initially skeptical and then pleasantly surprised by how entertaining Supergirl proved to be. The plot is refreshingly straightforward without overpacking itself with super-character cameos like its predecessor. Like Kal-El, Kara must make peace with her past, but it’s a darker past, and hence so is the overall tone of the film. There are some humorous beats but Supergirl works best when it’s not trying too hard to be funny. The strongest segments were the flashbacks to Kara’s childhood on Argo City.

和去年的《超人》一样，我起初持怀疑态度，但随后被《女超人》的娱乐性所惊喜。剧情简洁明快，没有像前作那样塞入过多的超级角色客串。和卡尔-艾尔一样，卡拉必须与自己的过去和解，但她的过去更加黑暗，因此电影的整体基调也更为沉重。片中虽有一些幽默桥段，但《女超人》在不刻意搞笑时表现得最好。最精彩的部分是关于卡拉在阿尔戈城（Argo City）童年生活的回忆片段。

In this telling, while Kal-El was evacuated to Earth as a baby right before Krypton was destroyed, Kara’s father, Zor-El (David Krumholtz), figured out how to dome off the city in a separate chunk so it survived; Kara was born under the dome. But the surviving Kryptons eventually start dying of radiation sickness from kryptonite under the city, including Kara’s mother, Alura (Emily Beecham). After her mother’s death—Krypto adopts Kara during the funeral procession—Zor-El sends them both off to join Kal-El on Earth. She’s more of a super antihero than her clean-cut cousin.

在这一版本中，当卡尔-艾尔在氪星毁灭前夕作为婴儿被送往地球时，卡拉的父亲佐-艾尔（大卫·克鲁霍尔特兹饰）想出了将城市的一部分用穹顶罩住的方法，使其得以幸存；卡拉就出生在这个穹顶之下。但幸存的氪星人最终开始死于城市下方氪石引发的辐射病，包括卡拉的母亲阿露拉（艾米丽·比查姆饰）。在母亲去世后——小氪在葬礼游行中“收养”了卡拉——佐-艾尔将他们两人送往地球投奔卡尔-艾尔。相比她那形象光鲜的表弟，她更像是一位超级反英雄。

Alcock, best known as the young Rhaenyra Targaryen on House of the Dragon, is terrific as Kara, combining manic pixie/burnout energy with hidden depths and vulnerability, plus she has a solid onscreen rapport with Ridley’s Ridley’s Ruthye. And Krypto naturally dominates his brief scenes. While Momoa’s appearances are welcome comic relief, he’s really just here to sow a bit of colorful chaos; he’s not a fleshed-out character. And Krem of the Yellow Hills is a rather dull one-note villain, despite Schoenaerts’ valiant efforts to make him something more. Those are pretty minor dings.

因在《龙之家族》中饰演年轻雷妮拉·坦格利安而闻名的阿尔科克，在饰演卡拉时表现出色，将那种“疯狂精灵/疲惫不堪”的能量与隐藏的深度和脆弱感结合在一起，此外她与饰演露西的里德利之间也有着扎实的银幕默契。小氪自然地主导了他出现的短暂场景。虽然莫玛的客串提供了受欢迎的喜剧调剂，但他实际上只是来制造一点混乱的色彩；他并非一个丰满的角色。而“黄山克雷姆”是一个相当乏味、单一的反派，尽管修奈尔努力想让他变得更有深度。这些都只是小瑕疵。

So why isn’t the film measuring up financially? Everyone seems to have an opinion, but there are likely several contributing factors, ongoing superhero fatigue chief among them. Fans weren’t exactly clamoring for a standalone Supergirl movie; the character barely appeared in Superman last year. Plus the trailers pretty much gave away the entire plot, which is completely predictable anyway. And the Hollywood Reporter cites competing versions and the proverbial “creative differences” between Gillespie and Gunn as contributing factors.

那么，为什么这部电影在财务上表现不佳呢？每个人似乎都有自己的看法，但很可能有几个促成因素，其中最主要的是持续的“超级英雄疲劳”。粉丝们并没有强烈要求拍摄一部《女超人》独立电影；该角色在去年的《超人》中几乎没怎么露面。此外，预告片几乎剧透了整个情节，而剧情本身也完全在预料之中。《好莱坞报道》则指出，竞争版本以及吉勒斯佩与古恩之间众所周知的“创作分歧”也是导致这一结果的因素。