REVIEW: "Supergirl" Pilot - Everything Wrong With "Supergirl"

Wow... Just wow...

Yesterday, the pilot of the new CBS show, "Supergirl", was leaked online for everyone to see. Naturally, I was curious to see the first episode of this new DC property and decided to watch it... only to learn I've made a huge mistake...

Where do I even begin with this? This is flat-out terrible. Rather insulting for those of us who want to see strong female characters in film/TV again. The only way I could really sum up what is wrong with the "Supergirl" pilot is by comparing it to the SNL Black Widow parody trailer that was released 2 weeks ago. Everything that SNL was making fun of in the parody trailer is present in this pilot... and not as a joke.

Because this was so surprisingly bad, I will do something I will not normally do on this blogsite. In this review, I will go through everything that is wrong with the "Supergirl" pilot, starting from the very first scene until the very last. Since I am reviewing the whole pilot, here is your SPOILER warning. If you haven't seen the pilot and want to go in with an open mind, DO NOT read this. You have been warned!

Okay, here we go...

The pilot opens with a shot of the planet Krypton, the home planet of both Superman and Supergirl, as we hear Kara Zor-El (Supergirl), played by Melissa Benoist, narrate her own backstory. When I heard this opening narration for the first time, I knew this was all going downhill from here. The narration sounds so forced and so unnatural, it almost sounds like an elementary school play. It's as if the director chose to use Benoist's test recordings rather than using her real take. Sigh... 5 seconds in and I'm already rolling my eyes.

As the embarrassing narration continues, we see Kal-El about to be launched off-planet in a CGI filled background that would make old PS2 games look like "Avatar". We get our first glimpse of baby Kal-El (Superman) and...

WE GET IT!!! SUPERMAN HAS A HAIR CURL!!! You don't need to jam that fact in our throats in the first 30 seconds of the show! This is just pandering. A desperate attempt at winking at the comic book fan base, which, instead, felt more like a stab in the eyes than a wink.

This atrocity is immediately followed by acting that could make high school drama students look like Marlon Brando from a young Kara and her parents. Kara's mother, Alura Zor-El, is supposed to be saying a heartfelt goodbye to her only daughter but is instead spitting more exposition for the audience to "understand". You'd think a mother who will never see her daughter again would say something a little more noble. Their interaction is as cliched as you can get, along with the stereotypical sad violin track that made the scene ever more bland than it already was. The editing in this particular scene is also a jumbled mess. The editor never lets a shot breathe and is more concerned about rushing Kara's entire backstory in the first 2 minutes of the pilot.

Once Kara lands on Earth, after leaving an exploding Krypton and entering the Phantom Zone, she meets Kal-El who has already revealed himself to the world as Superman.

This shot of Superman was surprisingly done very well in my opinion. Not showing his face was definitely the right move and seeing Superman holding young Kara's hands, as he takes her to her new foster parents, was a genuinely sweet moment... Only to be followed by the cringe-worthy introduction of the older Kara.

We see Kara, now played by Benoist, who has grown into the 80's nerd cliche. What do I mean by this? Well (a) she looks "nerdy", (b) easily bumps into people, (c) is in a rush to get to work, (d) is frustrated by her life, (e) can't talk to handsome men without being awkward and (f) is quirky and clumsy but has a heart of gold. It's a character that has been done to death a million times in the past and was also a big part of Superman's characteristics. But is this really what we are going with? This cliche was funny and charming before but now it just seems dated. Even "Man of Steel" tried to make Superman a more relatable and less dorky character to update it for modern times but this... this is just desperate.

And the final nail on this character's coffin is that she has to work under the stereotypical stuck-up, older boss, played by Calista Flockhart, who basically is an all-round terrible human being and has little to no regard for her staff. Again, another cliche done to death. But to give Flockhart some credit, she does seem like the only one who's having fun chewing up the scenery.

And to be fair, Benoist is actually quite likable and cute in the pilot. Her charisma and charm shines above and beyond the horrible writing and direction she was given so I'll give her a pass. She's definitely the best aspect of this godforsaken show and you can tell she is really trying.

After being introduced to Kara [and her boss], we are introduced to another comic book character, James "Jimmy" Olsen. But... is he different? Yes, they did change his race but that's not what I'm talking about. I don't remember Olsen being so suave and cool.

I've always had this image of Olsen being more of a nerdy photographer type but I guess they changed his personality for the show, which I actually didn't mind. It's different but I kind of like it. Mehcad Brooks is charming in the role and plays an endearing character. However the interaction between Kara and Jimmy is so overly cliched, sucking out all life and soul out of these two characters/actors. He's charming and attractive so that makes her stutter a lot and smile awkwardly, like in every pre-2010 era rom-com... Let's just move on shall we?

And really? This is the picture that won the Pulitzer Prize?

No. They put no effort in photoshopping this image.

After leaving work, Kara's sister, Alexandra "Alex" Danvers (played by Chyler Leigh), drops by Kara's apartment to see her and... this show has official devolved into a rom-com. "You're cute and, thanks to your alien DNA, you can't get pimples," is an actual line in this show. I cannot believe what I'm hearing. Did I really need to know the "thrilling" options of what Kara has to wear on her blind date? Is this a sitcom or a superhero show? I understand that we need to take time for characters to breathe but this does not build their characters at all. This pep talk she's giving Kara is simply a waste of time and an excuse to spit out more exposition and make Kara do cutesy things. But, thankfully, this does indeed help us get to a pretty neat scene.

Alex was on her way to a conference in Geneva when her plane's engines suddenly malfunctions. Kara, on her blind date, sees this on the news and attempts to rescue her. She does the iconic Superman move of going into an alleyway, taking off a single article of clothing and flying off into the distance. Although this scene did have some hockey looking CGI effects, I still found this sequence to be rather enjoyable. Sadly, there isn't much tension present in this scene. Unlike the amazing plane sequence in the mediocre "Superman Returns", there was no real sense of danger or suspense to make me emotionally invested. The scene also defies the laws of physics to an almost insulting degree, but it's a superhero show so I can't complain too much about that. Once the plane crashes into the water, the stereotypical sentimental piano track begins to play and I immediately begin to roll my eyes. But, thankfully, that doesn't last long. As the sappy piano music dissipates, we get the typical heroic track as Supergirl flies off into the distance and we see the official logo for the show. Why couldn't we start the episode with this? This could've been a strong opening for the pilot instead of having us trek through her past in a rushed 2-minute explanation...

Either way, the episode continues as Alex returns to Kara's apartment, after the plane crash, as Kara compares the intense and scary feeling of flying to kissing someone for the first time. No... Just no. That was incredibly dumb. This show has 3 writers and that's the best comparison you guys could conjure up? Wow... I'm not going to even address this and move on. It seems that Alex is appropriately worried about Kara exposing herself to the public but Kara seems to revel in the fact that she is now able to be like her cousin, Superman, and make a difference in the world.

The next day at her office, she nervously walks around her office, hoping that no one recognizes her from the low-res picture of her saving the plane that is featured on every television screen at the office. She invites a co-worker, who has been interested in her from the beginning of the episode, up to the roof and reveals to him that she was the one who saved the plane. He mistakenly suspects she was coming out as a lesbian after she tells him that she began to embrace a secret part of her life... Really? Really, writers of "Supergirl"? This isn't the 90's anymore. How much more insulting could you possibly get? This pilot is a pain in my soul...

After that painful scene, we get a first glimpse at some of the show's potential villains. Seems that Faran Tahir, who played the leader of the Ten Rings in "Iron Man", is some sort of evil alien leader that wants to kill... people? It's not made entirely clear what their motivations are, but it is revealed that they were the ones who planted the bomb in the plane to Geneva. At this point, I really could not care less. We're only halfway through the episode and they're already trying to introduce the main villains of this season [I'm assuming].

Meanwhile, the co-worker, Winslow "Winn" Schott (played by Jeremy Jordan), and Kara enter a "training" montage where they go through several different variations of the suits as we see Kara stopping a car chase and a bank robbery. The montage ends with the creation of the iconic Supergirl outfit with the house of El's code of arms in the middle (the "S").

Now this montage sequence was one of the most disappointing aspects of this entire episode because the writers skipped over the essentials of how these two made the suits and how they planned all of this out. How did this guy just make these bullet-proof skin-tight outfits so fast? Skipping all the crucial details of how the costume came to be felt rushed and was definitely a scapegoat for the writers from thinking of a clever way of creating these costumes. Also the final Supergirl costume looks so ridiculously fake. I've seen better Supergirl costumes at Comic Con.

So as Supergirl, in her final outfit, flies over the city, she gets shot with some Kryptonite filled tranquilizer bullets and has been caught by the Department of Extra-Normal Operations (DEO). It is also revealed to Kara that Alex was a DEO agent the whole time. I found be gasping but I had not emotional attachments to any of these characters so this reveal wasn't all that shocking. It seems that the organization was formed after Superman revealed himself to the world in order to protect the Earth from alien invasions. They tell Kara that, because of her arrival, some of Krypton's most dangerous criminals came to Earth with her. The DEO doesn't trust her to keep alien life a secret from the public, which is definitely justified by her actions, and Kara is told to "go get someone's coffee" instead. Are men just lustful or egotistical maniacs in this show? It seems like men are either lusting over Kara or pushing her aside like a rag doll. Either way, Kara is rightfully pissed that Alex was secretly a DEO agent to which Alex responds with one of the most painful lines I have ever heard in a TV pilot: "They recruited me because my background in bio-engineering makes me an expert in alien physiology." Look, I know most of the cast members of "Star Trek" don't know what they're talking about when they say all the science mumbo jumbo, but at least they can act like they know what they're talking about. Leigh's deliver of that single line sounded so forced and so fake, I ended up laughing when I heard it the first time.

The next day at the office, Kara notices that her boss dubbed the new superhero "Supergirl" and Kara gets upset with this and says calling her Supergirl instead of Superwoman could potentially make them anti-feminist. Wow. They are really cramming in this whole feminist idea aren't they? In a pilot where the writers make Kara do nothing but cliched "girly" things that girl characters do in rom-com shows. Yes, the name Supergirl might be a little demeaning because it [sort of] implies that she is not a mature woman yet, but this was a name given to the character in the 50's. I understand that the writers of the show are trying to give a reason why she is called Supergirl and not Superwoman but can you not make it sound so forced and unnatural? This is faux feminism. These 3 male writers really have no idea what they are doing with this script and these characters.

But who cares? The show obviously doesn't. Because immediately after this dilemma [that's quickly forgotten], it seems that the villain wants to meet up with Kara as she flies over "heroically" to his location and confronts him. The villain pummels her to the ground in one hit and says the line, "In my planet, females bow before males." STOP!!! JUST STOP!!! WE GET IT!!! SHE'S A FEMALE!!! WE UNDERSTAND!!! Can this show please stop cramming this down our throats? The writers' only way of giving Supergirl an identity is by constantly reminding the audience that she is indeed not a male. Instead of making her an emotionally strong character, all they could come up with was, "She's not a man." This is just painful...

As we expect, Kara gets her ass-kicked and loses the fight until her sister and other DEO agents come for the rescue. Also, can I add that the missiles that are being fired from the helicopter only result in small puffs of fire? Seriously? That's the best pyrotechnics you can do for a DC comic book show?

So after losing her one fight, she decides that the world doesn't need her anymore and gives up being a superhero... Really? Wow... In "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", it took Gwen Stacey's death to make Peter Parker quit being Spider-Man. Bruce Wayne stopped being Batman after framing himself for Harvey Dent's murder in "The Dark Knight". Bruce Banner has a huge dilemma in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" because of the terrible and destructive things the Hulk is capable of. And what does Supergirl do? Loses a fight, finds out her mother is the reason why all those aliens got locked up, decides she can't handle the situation and quits. Are you a superhero or not? This is not heroism. This is being a coward. She does not take any responsibility for her actions, making Supergirl, one of the most iconic female superheroes out there, unworthy of the title "Super". I'm not saying she has to be noble from day 1 but at least show some emotional strength.

But in actuality, that whole scene where she decides to quit being a superhero didn't matter at all because just 3 minutes after that, she decides to return to being Supergirl again because of a little pep talk with Alex [and a hologram from her death mother]. Wow... The writing in the show is unbelievably unimaginative. Shouldn't this dilemma take up more time? Sam Raimi spent most of "Spider-Man 2" with this notion of abandoning heroism and what that did to Peter Parker. This pilot tires to cram so many plot themes into 46 minutes, making the episode feel rushed and disjointed.

After Kara changes her mind and gets back into her Supergirl costume, she convinces the DEO to trust her to defeat the bad guys. They trust her, sadly, as Kara flies off and, in a rather cool moment, crashes into a trunk, causing the villain to come flying out of the driver's seat. She walks towards the camera as the trunk behind her explodes in typical superhero fashion. Although it had some pretty questionable CGI effects, this is what I want to see from Supergirl!

Following that epic shot of the truck exploding behind Supergirl comes one of the most poorly choreographed, horribly shot, and confusingly edited fight scenes I have ever seen in a superhero property. The CGI and wire works are so noticeable and so blatant, it's almost as if I'm watching a YouTube fan film done on a shoestring budget. The fight continues as Kara finally ends up killing the bad guy... Ummm... Remember when everyone complained in "Man of Steel" when Superman snaps General Zod's neck? I've always defended that scene in the film because that would ultimately lead to Superman never killing again. After realizing what he has done, Superman lets out a painful cry and, finally, kneels before Zod's dead body. Here? She stands heroically over the villain's impaled body. Are they really not going to touch upon her moral code? Is this okay with her? She just killed a man without batting an eye... She's no hero, she's a psychopath.

The episode wraps up "triumphantly" as Olsen reveals to Kara that he knew about her being Supergirl the whole time because Superman [sort of] told him. This last scene was honestly a well constructed moment that connects the world of Superman to this world of Supergirl. But, of course, this quiet moment just had to be ruined by the sappy piano track that plays throughout the whole scene. The episode finally wraps up with Supergirl flying through the city with some of the worst green-screen and CGI effects I have seen.

And here we are at the end of this review. If you made it through this entire rant against this pilot, I am proud of you. "Supergirl" should have been something incredible. Something super [pun intended]. Instead, we got a lazily written, horribly directed, and blandly acted (except for Benoist and Brooks) first episode which also featured a droning, boring score and special effects that are embarrassing even for TV. This was extraordinarily bad and also extremely insulting. This panders to the lowest common denominator and forgets to construct a good story. It sacrifices clever writing for cliches and interesting, new characters for characters we have seen time and time again. This may be the worst superhero pilot I have seen in recent years. In a time where we have the amazing "Daredevil", the entertaining "The Flash", the weird but kind of fun "Gotham" and the popular "Arrow", "Supergirl" comes in and fails on every level of storytelling, character, cinematography, VFX, music, editing, etc. If you liked this pilot, I'm sorry I bashed on it so hard. I tried my best to say some positive things about the episode but it was extremely difficult to find many. I love Melissa Benoist and I think she is a great Supergirl, but she is given a horrible script to work off of and no talent behind the camera to provide us with anything amazing.

This was terrible and I am giving the pilot a generous 3 out of 10.

I would suggest to see this pilot and judge yourself whether or not you are on board with this new upcoming show coming later this year.