Cheap Supergirl (Limited 2-Disc Special Edition) (DVD) (Faye Dunaway, Helen Slater) (Jeannot Szwarc) Price

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Customer Reviews of Supergirl (Limited 2-Disc Special Edition)

The film's special FX are are well done in some scenes. I personally think that Supergirl had some very unique flying sequences that you never saw in the Christopher Reeve Superman films. Argo City bears no design/look or feel of Krypton from the Superman movies as well. Argo City just looked too 1980ish, just a dreadful design look. Hardly a place one would choose to live on. I still love Helen Slater's performance. Supergirl's still an enjoyable film to watch. Slater's performance alone was what served the film justice. The rest of the cast was OK, although Faye Dunaway's villainous Selena was a little overboard in some moments.

Supergirl was produced by Alexander & Ilya Salkind, the producers of Superman I, II, and III (they were not involved with 1987's "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"). They would later go on to produce the successful half hour, live action syndicated TV series "The Adventures of Superboy" from 1988-1992.

Time to Believe a Girl Can Fly...!

"Supergirl" hit the American theater screens in November of 1984, it did fairly well that first weekend, then faded into the backwash of movies that pop up from time to time at 3:00 in the morning while your up with a sick kid. The film is of little or no importance to film historians, usually looked upon as "The movie that was better than Superman III". The film eventually found a niche among a small band of followers that saw it for what it was, a heck of a lot of fun!

Helen Slater débuts as the Girl of Steel, Superman's cousin Kara from a doomed chunk of Krypton that's survived the planet's explosion. (All of this is only breezed over in the film, of course.) Slater does for this film what Reeve did for the other movies in the franchise, she -is- Supergirl when she's on screen, much as Reeve -was- Superman, their presence is almost tangible, you forget it's an actor in a silly costume and simply accept them as the characters.

The effects are, in a word, breathtaking, knocking the previous flying shots in the super-films to the ground hands-down. The "first flight" Supergirl takes is among one of the most watchable effects sequences ever committed to film, and was done in a time before CGI...

Yes, the acting is often hammy and over-the-top (Particularly from the major "names" in the film), and, no it's not a knock-your-socks-off action/adventure...it's more a fairy-tale, as stated in the commentary track of the DVD. If you let yourself ease into it, it's one heck of a lot of fun. The colors on the DVD transfer are incredible, from the swirly red and blue mists and fantastic chromes of the opening credits to the muted colors of the Phantom Zone, the movie looks better than it did in the theater.

If you've only seen this film on cable, or in the American Theater (or the dreadful quality VHS release of a few years back), give it a chance with this release, you haven't seen "Supergirl" at all.

The directors commentary track explains a lot about the "Supergirl" movie that almost was (initially slated to have been "Superman III," I believe, as some of the storyboard cards presented in the supplements state) which would have featured Reeve as Superman, it makes us wonder what we may have missed...

But we've got this, and, all things considered, it ain't half bad...time to watch "Supergirl" again, for the first time...let the child inside out for a couple of hours...and believe a girl can fly...!

Not awful... but not 'Super', either
Before I get down to the review proper, please note that I'm reviewing the 124-minute-long international version DVD of 'Supergirl' (available at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6305842051/qid=1089790747/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-1200342-3991361?v=glance&s=dvd). I'm just letting you know this so as to avoid any confusion, seeing as how there are three different versions of this movie on DVD, and Amazon has decided to lump all reviews together, rather than separate them out by whichever edition each one was submitted under. BTW I wanted to do a write-up of the super-tricked-out 2-disc edition (available at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6305842027/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-1200342-3991361). Unfortunately(?), none of the local rental places had it in stock, so I had to take what I could get...

Anyhoo, let's get on with the show...

In the mood to complete my viewing of the entire Salkind-funded Super-films, I finally decided to give 'Supergirl' a look. After watching it twice (once by itself and once with director commentary), I found it a fair-to-middling entry in the canon. It didn't quite stack up to Supes 1 or 2, but it wasn't quite as silly as Supes 3 or 4. Like most mid-quality comic-book-based flicks it has the usual case of overacting by most of the cast-- especially Faye Dunaway as the show's big heavy, and Peter York as the big heavy's scorned love interest. Fortunately, the overacting is cheesily counterbalanced by the UNDERacting of Helen Slater in the title role, and the just plain dopiness of our heroine's love interest played by Hart Bochner. Helping provide a link to the 'Superman' franchise is Marc McClure doin' his overly-cheerful aw-shucks routine as Daily Planet photog Jimmy Olsen. And even though it never quite reaches the level of hilarity that Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty attained in the original 'Superman', the quirky interplay between Dunaway's character and her sidekick (Brenda Vaccaro) helps add a decent level of levity to the whole affair.

As you'd expect, there's plenty of special & visual FX thrown about, many of which haven't aged all that well. Some of the stuff still looks pretty good though, including most of the Supergirl flying sequences with the painted-out harness wires. Most of the bluescreen stuff, however, isn't quite as convincing. Especially glaring is one scene featuring three transitions in one "pan" that weren't aligned all that well. BTW if you listen to the commentary track featuring director Jeannot Szwarc while watching the movie, you can usually tell which effects weren't quite up to snuff in his estimation when he brings up how much better a particular shot would've turned out using modern CGI effects.

The director commentary track also includes the usual bits of info regarding the movie's production, as well as Szwarc's thoughts on the thespian capabilities of various cat members, and a few somewhat amusing anecdotes thrown in for good measure. But for me the most interesting part of this track was the revelation that the producers wanted further links to the 'Superman' movies in the form of brief appearances by Christopher Reeve as Superman and (rumored) Margot 'Lois Lane' Kidder. Reeve apparently had voiced interest in being involved but eventually decided against it, which forced the film's crew to write and produce a new opening act. Them's the breaks in show biz...

Also included with this edition of the DVD are the usual array of TV spots, theatrical trailers, and an hour-long documentary on the making of the movie. This doc covers the usual "making-of" ground such as how the whole project got started, the casting, and special effects. Unfortunately I didn't find much of interest here, save for the building of the small Midwest town set in the middle of a clearing somewhere in rural England for the "out-of-control backhoe digger" sequence. I tell ya, it was almost a shame to watch the rampaging machine trash half the town in the movie after seeing how much effort the set builders put into making it look like an authentic slice of Americana. Eh, they were just gonna tear it all down after filming was finished, anyway...

Bottom line: while not exactly a high point in the annals of comic-book celluloid, 'Supergirl' ain't a complete waste. There's enough campiness thrown about to keep the average fan of cheeseball cinema reasonably entertained. It's worth at least a rental, if for nothing more than to get the curiosity outta yer system...

'Late