American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1994)

I was dreading going into the first big superhero blockbuster of the year, Supergirl.  I really shouldn’t have been.  This movie is pretty good.  Not great, by any stretch of the imagination, but I still liked it.  Supergirl provides lots of fun and a strong lead performance, and I think that justifies watching it. 

The biggest reason why I was dreading going into the film was the humor. I expected a lot of gross humor involving bodily functions. You certainly get a lot of it…but it’s pretty well contained to the first fifteen or twenty minutes. Most of the humor in this movie is what you’ve become accustomed to seeing in MCU movies, Jurassic World movies, and other Hollywood blockbusters. Very few if any jokes will actually make you laugh, but many of the jokes will make you smirk. It’s extremely pedestrian, but it’s also inoffensive, which means it doesn’t drag down the better aspects of the film.

Among those better aspects of the film, probably the best is the fighting.  Supergirl ups the stakes and makes its action scenes not only big in scope, but also big in roster.  These action sequences are huge not just because they involve buildings collapsing or colors flashing on screen, but also because there are a ton of people involved at the same time.  To imagine a typical action scene in this movie, think about another DC property: the Batman Arkham games.  This is like watching one of those fight sequences, where you’re surrounded by goons and combo’ing them with unique moves.  Only the main character has Kryptonian powers, which makes it even cooler.  The best action in this film is elevated even beyond that, featuring not just spectacle but genuine tension, using villains who already know our main protagonist’s weaknesses and featuring classic situations of citizens in peril until the very last second.