Supergirl (1984) - Review: Was Everyone On Cocaine While They Made This Movie?

the 1970s and 80s superman films were always intended for families. the first film was made by adults who had grown up with the oldest superman comic books, but also meant for their kids by turning the fleischer cartoons in live action with innovative action sequences. supergirl was created as a part of the sillier kids comics during the silver age, she was created to be a younger sister to superman to appeal to the younger audience at the time. supergirl, the movie, tries to do the same by updating the superman people knew from the 70s for kids by making the movie much similar to the silver age and trying to teach similar lessons to young girls by putting supergirl into a snow white-esque fairy tale. the end result, combined with a low budget, is a very whimsical and innocent movie that tries to appeal to mothers as much as it does their young daughters by using the trademark special effects of the time to bring very silly sequences to life. i find myself much more invested in the film when its being silly and charming, with kara walking around as a human ray of sunshine and defeating an evil queen with a magic mirror. the film tries too hard to appeal to adults at times, which makes the boring drama around the adult woman trying to mind control a man stick out like a sore thumb in something that should, theoretically, try to be… at least a more feminist movie than snow white was. 

despite this, it is still charming to have the movie still occasionally show kara’s life as an innocent child like what other supergirl comics and adaptations would later play with. this is, much like the other 2 superman movies released before this, still the blueprint in a lot of peoples mind for kara, for better or worse.