Supergirl (1984)

Supergirl (1984) 🦸‍♂️

“Superman left Earth for five minutes and everything immediately went wrong.”

Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

Why am I reviewing this now? Because in exactly one month were getting James Gunn’s Supergirl, I am super excited.

Man… this movie is weird.

Not bad weird in the way modern superhero movies are bad where everything feels corporate and artificial and like it was written by a boardroom full of executives arguing over toy sales. No. Supergirl (1984) feels like somebody accidentally opened a magical fantasy portal inside a Superman movie and nobody on set questioned it. This thing feels less like a DC superhero film and more like an 80s fever dream where witches, floating orbs, invisible monsters, ghost dimensions, and romance drama all got smashed together into one giant silver glitter explosion.

And honestly? That’s weirdly why this movie has charm.

This film came out during that awkward era where studios saw the success of Christopher Reeve’s Superman films and basically went:

“Okay but what if… girl Superman?”

And then instead of grounding her in Metropolis crime fighting or doing something safer, they made the movie about ancient magic, a witch played by Faye Dunaway chewing scenery like she’s trying to win an Olympic gold medal in overacting, and a glowing orb that basically acts like the world’s most dangerous lost flashlight battery.

You cannot make this stuff up.

The movie follows Kara Zor-El / Supergirl (Helen Slater), Superman’s cousin, who lives in Argo City — a surviving Kryptonian city floating around in space inside a protective bubble because apparently Krypton exploded but part of the population said “nah” and escaped somehow. Already this movie starts with lore that sounds like somebody explaining comic continuity at 3 AM after six energy drinks.

Anyway, Kara accidentally loses the “Omegahedron,” which is basically the magical power source keeping the city alive. The object falls to Earth and gets discovered by Selena (Faye Dunaway), an evil wannabe witch who immediately starts using it because apparently Earth security standards are so low that random civilians can obtain universe-altering cosmic artifacts.

So now Kara has to travel to Earth, become Supergirl, stop Selena, and save her people.

That’s the plot.

But the plot is almost secondary to the absolute bizarre ENERGY of this movie.

Because this film constantly feels like it’s shifting genres every twenty minutes.

One minute it’s trying to be emotional and majestic like the Christopher Reeve Superman films. Then suddenly it becomes a fantasy movie with spells and magical smoke. Then it turns into a teen romance movie. Then a horror movie. Then a comedy. Then somebody gets attacked by an invisible construction vehicle because apparently the movie remembered halfway through that it needed action scenes.

The tone in this film is all over the place.

And yet somehow… I kinda love it for that.

Helen Slater honestly does a really good job as Supergirl. That’s one thing I’ll absolutely give this movie credit for. She has the warmth, innocence, and optimism you want from a Kryptonian hero. She feels genuinely kind. She has that same old-school sincerity Christopher Reeve had where the performance doesn’t feel cynical or embarrassed to be a superhero movie.

That’s important because if she didn’t sell the role, this movie completely falls apart.

And honestly, she deserved a better movie around her.

Because while she’s trying her absolute hardest to make this feel heartfelt and heroic, the movie around her is descending into magical chaos.

Faye Dunaway as Selena is INSANE in this movie. I don’t even mean that negatively. She’s performing like the director told her:

“Okay so imagine if a Disney villain drank twelve coffees and discovered witchcraft.”

She screams every line.

Every spell is delivered like she’s trying to curse the entire planet personally.

At one point she basically turns into a full-on fantasy sorceress with giant shadow demons and magical transformations and I’m sitting there going:

“Wait… this is connected to the Superman universe?”

Because this does not feel like it exists in the same reality as Christopher Reeve flying around saving helicopters.

This feels like if The Wizard of Oz and Superman crashed into each other head first.

The effects are VERY 80s. And I mean VERY 80s.

Lots of glowing lights. Lots of blue screen. Lots of floating. Lots of weird optical effects.

Sometimes it looks charming.

Other times it looks like somebody edited the movie using a haunted toaster.

But honestly? I’ll take practical weirdness over modern CGI sludge any day. At least this movie has personality. At least it LOOKS like somebody tried something.

Modern superhero movies sometimes blur together into gray mush. You forget them two weeks later.

You do not forget Supergirl (1984).

Absolutely not.

There’s also something unintentionally hilarious about how everybody instantly falls in love with Kara because the movie has that old-school comic book logic where superheroes walk into a room and random people immediately act hypnotized by them.

Meanwhile poor Lucy Lane is over here trapped in one of the strangest romance subplots I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie.

And can we talk about Peter O’Toole in this thing?

Why is he here?

No seriously.

This cast is bizarre.

This movie somehow assembled respected actors and then trapped them inside magical comic book nonsense involving invisible monsters and evil witches controlling construction equipment.

It feels like everyone involved thought they were making a different movie.

And somehow that makes the movie more entertaining.

The atmosphere is surprisingly cozy though. That’s something I genuinely appreciate about older superhero movies. There’s this strange warm fantasy vibe to them. Even when they’re messy, they FEEL like movies. There’s charm to the sets, the lighting, the costumes, the practical effects, the music. The movie feels handcrafted.

Nowadays everything’s so polished and digital that half these films feel manufactured in a laboratory.

This movie feels human.

Messy human, but human.

Now does the movie have problems?

Oh absolutely.

The pacing drags at times. The story gets convoluted. Some scenes feel completely disconnected from each other. The romance stuff is awkward. The magic rules make absolutely no sense. And the final act becomes pure chaos.

But honestly? I was never bored.

Confused? Yes.

Absolutely.

But not bored.

And honestly there’s something admirable about a superhero movie being THIS unapologetically strange.

This isn’t a safe movie.

It’s not polished. It’s not grounded. It’s not trying to be realistic.

It’s a comic book fantasy movie in the purest sense possible.

And while it absolutely fails in some areas, I kinda respect the insanity of it.

Final Thoughts

Supergirl (1984) is not a masterpiece.

But it’s also nowhere near as lifeless as people make it out to be.

It’s weird. It’s goofy. It’s messy. It’s wildly inconsistent. And sometimes it feels like the movie is seconds away from completely collapsing into magical nonsense.

But it also has sincerity. Charm. Heart. And a genuinely likable lead performance from Helen Slater.

Honestly, I’d rather watch a bizarre passionate mess than another forgettable modern superhero movie where everybody quips every six seconds in front of a green screen apocalypse.

This movie at least had imagination.

Even if that imagination occasionally looked completely unhinged.

Rating

7/10

⚠️ Spoiler Warning ⚠️

Alright now let’s talk spoilers because this movie gets EVEN WEIRDER once the magic stuff fully kicks in.

First off, Selena gradually becoming more power hungry throughout the movie honestly works better than I remembered. She starts off basically as a selfish wannabe witch using cheap tricks and then suddenly she has access to literal Kryptonian-level cosmic energy and starts acting like she’s Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

The whole final act becomes absolute fantasy madness.

Supergirl gets trapped in this nightmare shadow dimension that feels straight out of a horror movie. There’s giant monsters, floating darkness, weird demonic imagery, giant spider-web visuals, and at one point the movie feels less like Superman and more like some gothic fantasy nightmare.

And honestly?

That stuff was kinda creepy.

Especially for a superhero movie from the 80s.

There’s also something unintentionally hilarious about how Selena reacts to power. She basically goes from “slightly evil woman” to “I AM THE GODDESS OF THE UNIVERSE” in like twenty minutes.

The invisible monster attack scene is also pure comic book insanity. Construction vehicles start attacking people, invisible forces are smashing through the town, and the whole thing feels like the movie inhaled magical cocaine.

And then there’s the ending.

Kara saves the Omegahedron, returns to Argo City, and everybody acts like this was a completely normal afternoon.

Meanwhile I’m sitting there like:

“Your entire civilization almost died because somebody dropped the universe battery into space.”

Also I love how Superman himself never properly appears outside of references and photos because the movie constantly reminds you:

“HEY REMEMBER SUPERMAN? PLEASE REMEMBER SUPERMAN.”

The movie desperately wants you to connect this to the Christopher Reeve universe while simultaneously being about witches and magical dimensions.

That contrast never stops being funny to me.

But honestly?

The biggest reason this movie still has fans is because of its sincerity.

This movie never feels cynical.

Nobody’s embarrassed to be there. Nobody’s making ironic jokes about superheroes. Nobody’s trying to “deconstruct” the genre.

It’s just an earnest weird little fantasy superhero movie from the 80s trying its best.

And honestly?

There’s something kinda lovable about that.