Supergirl poster & wallpaper

Brenda Vaccaro, Faye Dunaway, Hart Bochner

After mistakenly losing the Omegahedron, Argo City's life-sustaining power source, Kara takes off on a mission to Earth to retrieve it and save the city.

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29% liked it

44,567 ratings

PG, 1 hr. 29 min.

Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc

Release Date: November 21, 1984

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DVD Release Date: August 8, 2000

Stats: 1,215 reviews

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Helen Slater Supergirl Helen Slater Supergirl Supergirl Helen Slater and Peter O'Toole Helen Slater Supergirl Supergirl SUPERGIRL STACHU Supergirl SUPERGIRL IN PARIS Supergirl Peter O'Toole and Helen Slater Supergirl supergirl Supergirl
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Flixster Reviews (1,215)

  • SirPant
    September 29, 2009
    SirPant
    Not great, but one star for Peter Cook, one star for Marc McClure linking the 'super' films as Jimmy and 2 stars for Helen Slater being so damn sexy in a short skirt and red boots!
  • RiderOfTheStorms
    June 16, 2008
    RiderOfTheStorms
    entertaining enuff 2 watch, shitty storyline doh
  • bennytheclown
    August 18, 2007
    bennytheclown
    my god i watched this more than once as a child
  • sheens431
    August 5, 2007
    sheens431
    Saw this a long time ago and remember thinking then that this movie was no where near as good as Superman. I remember laughing through this movie.
  • YosemiteSamFan
    July 14, 2007
    YosemiteSamFan
    I liked her!
    There were some slow depressing scenes on Krypton and in the Phantom Zone, but the superfeats on Earth were spectacular. It's all very nice. Helen Slater makes a great Supergirl. Faye Dunaway and Brenda Vaccaro are great super chick baddies. The castle in the sky wa...( read more)s genius. There's enough variety of action scenes to keep this movie very interesting and enjoyable for me. A hell of a lot better than Superman IV.
  • jonnycrumley
    September 30, 2009
    jonnycrumley
    The big cast and budget weren't enough to save this train wreck. What a disaster.
  • twraiderfan
    September 4, 2009
    twraiderfan
    awful but have to watch at least once
  • 7michaelangelo
    August 22, 2009
    7michaelangelo
    a super girl hero I love so much!
  • SirGenius
    August 2, 2009
    SirGenius
    Liked it just about as much as liked Superman.
  • itbegins2005
    July 6, 2009
    itbegins2005
    Oh, the folly of spin-offs. Get ready for a rant, dear reader, because not only is this a poor excuse for a movie- even a crappy mid-eighties fantasy flick, which Supergirl resembles much more than a superhero movie- but it is, at times, completely incomprehensible and utterly de...( read more)void of even the most rudimentary sense of logic. The ironic thing about this whole mess is that the title character is actually quite charming and very well portrayed, but it's as if, having come up with a unique spin on Kara Zor-El that made her more than just a female Superman, the filmmakers had no idea what to actually DO with her... so they crammed her into a weird cross between a tame teen movie and a sword-and-sorcery (minus the swords) flick. The plot, such as it is, starts in Argo City, a tiny chunk of Krypton that inexplicably survived the f*@%ing PLANET exploding and now resides in "inner space" for some reason; it seems the city crackpot inventor Zaltar decided to have his jollies one day by stealing one of the city's primary power sources, the Omegahedron, and using it to make shiny pieces of modern art (and yes, it gets weirder). He then hands it off to a wide-eyed teenage girl, our heroine Kara, who promptly blows a hole in the city wall (nearly killing herself and everyone else in Argo City) and lets the Omegahedron slip through the gap and into outer space, where it inevitably lands on Earth. Without it, Argo City only has days to live. Kara, in lieu of saying "I'm sorry," jumps ship, hopping into a floating metal bubble and blasting off to Earth, where she arrives, underwater and in full costume no less, as Supergirl! Now, instead of heading off immediately to track down the Omegahedron and save her home from a slow and painful death, Supergirl decides to adopt a human identity (using her unaccounted-for ability to shapeshift her clothes and turn into a brunette at will), infiltrating an all-girls boarding school as Linda Lee, Clark Kent's cousin (which, while Kara really is supposed to be Superman's cousin, it's never explained how she's supposed to know about him at all- let alone being aware of his secret identity); meanwhile, the Omegahedron is found by a megalomaniacal witch, and since it is now also a source of unfathomable black magic for some reason, she plots to use it to take over the world (after she forces some thick-skulled gardener to fall in love with her- a character and situation so contrived it's hardly worth mentioning, though it takes up a great deal of the movie). SEE! Supergirl fighting a giant monster that isn't there! SEE! Zaltar getting drunk in the Phantom Zone before convincing Kara to climb a mountain that's next to a technicolor tornado through the magic of reverse psychology! SEE! Jimmy Olsen stand around and try to figure out why he's in this movie! Supergirl is just a hodge-podge of bizarreness, ranging from the unintentionally funny to (more often) the mind-numbingly stupid. For all the failures going on in this movie, only a few things actually work, and foremost among them is Helen Slater as Supergirl. Capturing a sense of childlike innocence and wonderment at the world around her, Slater brings sincerity to a film sorely needing it- even when things get downright nuts, Slater delivers every line like she really believes it. Her youthful energy really sells what's ultimately the best scene in the movie: Kara discovering her powers on Earth, gracefully floating through the air like a dancer before setting off across the country (by means of the greatly improved flying effects, the second thing in this movie that works well). Unfortunately, the villainess of the story is just the opposite of Slater: an overdone, hammy performance of a poorly-conceived character. Faye Dunaway plays Selena, an amature witch who lives in in an abandoned amusement park with her wisecracking best friend (a set-up that reeks of sitcom, not cinema) and who nurses ambitions of ruling the world. Dunaway, indisputably a good actress, apparently took a page from the '60s Batman's playbook, vamping it up for the camera and killing any respect that the Oscar may have garnered for her (kinda like Halle Berry in Catwoman). Not helping matters is Peter O'Toole as Zaltar, Kara's obligatory mentor and the only sweater-wearing Kryptonian I have ever seen (I don't know why, but in Argo City all the Kryptonians dress like futuristic hippies). O'Toole's greatest asset in this part is his aristocratic British accent, which lends some authority to the psuedo-psuedo scientific drivel he's forced to spout whenever he's on-screen; the funniest moment in the movie, for me, is when we meet the cynical, broken Zaltar of the Phantom Zone, whom I couldn't help but see as O'Toole's personal reaction to the very movie he was in. The script (assuming there actually was one) is inconsistent and directionless, stringing together random set pieces with god-awful romantic comedy bits that play like a twisted episode of Three's Company. The filmmakers never deign to establish any logical rules for the magic or science fiction stuff, making Supergirl's inevitable triumph over them seem as flatly contrived as the magic itself; the characters' marked stupidity grows increasingly glaring as the villains actually WATCH Linda Lee transform into Supergirl and somehow still fail to deduce her identity in scene after scene; and the final act of the film is about as devoid of reason as a pair of three-legged pants. The special effects are pretty good for the time, save the occasional slip-up (let's play Spot the Wires! Or how 'bout Travelling Mattes?), but the fact that their use services a story that makes no bloody sense (Supergirl beats the Invisible Demon with a lightning-shooting lamp post?) takes away a lot of the luster, especially since most of the experimental stuff would only be excusable if you were really into the movie (lens distortion is not a storytelling device, dammit!). Saying that Supergirl is the worst movie ever made would be a slight to a lot of crappy movies out there more deserving of the title, but you wouldn't be far off to put it in the top twenty. It's a brainless, formless, and, worst of all, boring attempt to cash in on two distinctly seperate genres, the superhero and the epic fantasy, the result of which does justice to neither. The first total superhero flop- but sadly, not the last.

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Comments

  • JonnyMac78
    December 13, 2008
    JonnyMac78
    If hollywood was to remake supergirl, I think that taylor swift would be perfect for the role. Now I know she is not an actress but with some acting lessons she would be perfect. Plus, she will look awesome with the supergirl outfit.
  • scottymullen
    April 27, 2008
    scottymullen
    Did you know Margot Kidder was supposed to be in this movie? They wrote a role for her to star as Lois who came to help Supergirl out.

    Unfortunately, Faye and Margot got into it. You can check out all the details here...it's crazy!!!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkrRUBBdI2E
  • ajsmith10091
    January 18, 2008
    ajsmith10091
    well im sorry for all u lot that dont like it its a top film for when it was made no fancy pancy graphics like films nowadays honest actors and writing and any film with a girl kickin the bad guys butts get top bill from me
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Supergirl Trivia

  • Name the actress who played Supergirl in the 1984 film.  Answer »
  • Which legendary actress starred as the evil witch Selena in Supergirl?  Answer »
  • Which actress played Supergirl in the live action film?  Answer »
  • Just a quick correction to this one: Actress Helen Slater played this marvel superhero. Name this 1984 movie. You Chose: Supergirl (Correct - 10 pts) Correct Answer: Supergirl (1984) Supergirl is not a Marvel character.  Answer »
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