Rating: Summary: Directors Vision is 20/20 Review: I enjoyed this movie at its original release, but I didn't love it. The original U.S. version was kind of shallow in character development and just plain campy. On this Two Disc Set, both the International Version and the Directors Cut are an improvement. Although I am leaning towards the Directors Cut being superior. The character development is more existential and the campiness was curbed slightly. The commentary on the international version is very insightful. The director even reveals the original plans from when Christopher Reeve was going to have a cameo. The Making of Featurette was very thorough. The story board are cool. The only gripe I have is that the superior version (directors cut) is in mono (not 5.1) and there is no commentary. It would have been a nice revealation to here the directors stories and thoughts on his own original cut. The international version has great sound and picture. If you have seen only the the American Version and thought it was OK then you will really like this Two - Disc collection of two superior movies. This is a great DVD to have in your collection.
Rating: Summary: Supergirl is Supercrappy Review: This movie really does give the Superman movies a bad name. This movie contains a horrible plot and terribly unconvincing acting, but don't get me wrong, Helen Slater didn't look to bad in the role, especially in her tight supergirl costume and skirt. The visual effects aren't bad, and the musical score is suprisingly triumphant. I love the music, I really do, and might even buy the soundtrack, but the movie it was written for is really quite pathetic. GREAT SCORE, TERRIBLE MOVIE.
Rating: Summary: What a difference! Review: The 138 minute director's cut was amazing. Things were so much clearer and the story built up stronger than in the truncated original release. For those who saw the movie in theaters and didn't like it, this may change minds.
Rating: Summary: More Is Not More Review: SUPERGIRL is one of those films that one might think would benefit from additional footage. When I heard that there was a version coming out with an additional 24 minutes previously unseen by American audiences, I thought this would explain a lot of things. For instance, how did Argo City survive the destruction of Krypton? How did she get that costume? How could she even have known anything about Superman or his Clark Kent/Daily Planet connection? After all, she wasn't even born when the baby Kal-El was sent to Earth. It is interesting to listen to director Jeannot Szwarc talk about how decisions were made, but it seems like a lot of wasted effort, although it explains a lot to find out how many last minute changes were made to the script. It would have made better sense to have the commentary on the "director's cut" version rather than the "international version". Even the usually reliable Jerry Goldsmith provides an unmemorable score. I have never appreciated Szwarc's talent as a director. Besides the fact that this story is not very good, Szwarc's direction lacks pace, suspense, and scale. The extra footage adds nothing and just makes the film a longer mess. As far as this DVD is concerned, the best parts are the featurette and to see how dissimilar the various trailers are.
Rating: Summary: A super good movie!! Review: Back when superheroes weren't the tortured, emotionally troubled characters they often are today, Ilya and Alexander Salkind brought the Maid of Steel to life in grand fashion. Supergirl was realesed in 1984 with a lot of publicity, but met with public indifference. Most Superman fans are divided on this film-they either love it or hate it. Subsequent versions on home video have done little to foster the fact that technically, Supergirl is superb. Anchor Bay has spared nothing for their newest DVD release of Supergirl. Despite a few flaws in the narrative of Supergirl, the film does contain a certain lyrical quality and a definite sense of innocence. In fact, I have learned that Supergirl was concevied as a fantasy film in the same vein as "The Wizard of Oz". In conclusion, in a time when Hollywood films are often dark and brooding, its refreshing to look back to a time when heroe's hearts were pure. Anchor Bay has done the legend of Supergirl proud.
Rating: Summary: THIS MOVIE ROCKS!!!! Review: I saw this movie when it first came out in theaters and have loved it ever since. The music is wonderful, the special effects are spectacular, and I just love Faye Dunaway's character Selena. (true she can be campy at times) I don't care what other people think of this movie, buy the special edition DVD version, you will be happy you did. This film is definitly worth adding to your movie collection!
Rating: Summary: A flawed classic and guilty pleasure Review: Almost done in by a campy villainess subplot, Supergirl survives thanks to superb pre-cgi special effects (Chris Reeve praised it as the best flying he'd seen in any of the films), a solid Jerry Goldsmith score, and Helen Slater's, well, *goodness*, in the title role.I had the advantage of first seeing the film with my own then-seven-year-old blonde superheroine, and my daughter's expression of sheer delight as Kara skimmed over the lake and flew with the wild horses reminded me of the thrill I felt 30 years before when I watched George Reeves hurl himself out of the stockroom window and into the endlessly repetitive stock footage skies of Metropolis. This is one of those films where you filter out the silly story and watch the pretty pictures. Make certain to get the international widescreen edition. The film was butchered in its original American theatrical release.
Rating: Summary: "Let's Get Out Of This Dump..." Review: This is a classic...Supergirl is a genius. Superman couldn't even tie his own shoelaces, Supergirl runs the show now. The movies features some amazing special effects(like the flight scenes...beautiful) and Faye Dunaway should have won an Oscar. Her "Selena" was hot and sexy and very menacing. Superman fights muscle headed morons, and Supergirl faces....well a devil! Who had more bragging rights? Helen Slater really was terrific and totally rocks my world. My favorite part? Well I would say when Supergirl gets sent to the Phantom Zone and falls into that huge lake of grape jelly, no-when she has to get crazy with those two losers on "Lover's Lane", mama didn't raise no fool!
Rating: Summary: THIS FILM IS REALLY WELL DONE. Review: I wrote a review for this film a couple of weeks ago and gave the film four stars. Well, this time Iam giving it five stars. Why did I change my rating, well it all happened when I was surfing the web. I came across a site about the new DVD editions of Supergirl. The site featured an interview with the director of Supergirl, Jeannot Szwarc. I read the interview and was amazed at how fasinating it was. He was explaining how difficult it was to make the film because of all the special effects. Most of the special effects in the film had never been done before, so he (Jeannot Szwarc)and his team of special effects people had to invent new technologies. The film took almost a year and a half to complete, because of all the technical problems they had to over come. For example there is a scene where you see an overhead view of Supergirl flying over Chigago, well most people think that was done with blue screen and special effects, but it wasent. They wanted the shot to look REALLY real, so they hung a stunt double on wires to the bottom of a helicopter and placed the camara over the stunt doubles body. So that seen looks so real because she really was flying over the city. Here is another thing they did that amazed me. There is a scene where Supergirl fly's out of a lake, naturally in those days that couldn't be done, they didn't have the aid of computers, so they had to do everything live. For two months they debated over how they where going to make Supergirl fly out of the water. Finally they had an idea. They took a picture of the actress who was playing Supergirl standing and then blew up the picture and pasted it on a board of wood and covered it with a water proof paste. Then they put the life sized picture under the water and pulled it up out of the water very quickly. You would never had realized it was a picture if I had not told you. In conclusion I have given this film five stars. I get very mad when people give a film a bad rating, because they don't realize how much HARD work and thinking go into making films like this. If you really watch the movie, and I mean REALLY watch it carefully you will be amazed at how real the special effects look, and how hard they had to work to accomplish those scenes. And don't forget that they didn't even have computers! Today we could make a movie like this easy, it would be very easy because we have computers and CGI to do all those special effects. So, really give this film a chance, it really is good, despite what critics say. I hope this review has helped you.
Rating: Summary: The beauty of the film is in the props.. Review: Okay, the product placement (Popeyes) is blatantly obvious and the acting is not golden, but for the early to mid 1980's, the effects and wardrobe for this movie rocked. They really don't make movies like this anymore, and it is a shame. Even the evil Selena (played convincingly by Faye Dunaway) looked awesome. If we really wanted to get serious about the movie, it does promote a certain enlightened view because both good and bad women appear beautiful. This goes against traditional cinematic representation of women (especially because Hollywood was more conservative towards female casting at the time) I remember seeing this a a little girl and Dunaway's character scared the living daylights out of me. My parents (who thoughit I would be scared by the much more gruesome horror movies) were shocked at my reaction. Neverless, I've always thought her gowns (especially the white one at the end) have a etherial new age quality. It's actually supergirl herself who bugs me. In addition to her name, she changes hair color. She also does not have any visible muscles in that suit. Even if Slater's steely eyed avenger is a big improvement from the valley girl offered by the WB network's various cartoons, it is still disappointing, Again, I blame hollywood, the actors only tried to make the best with what they were given.
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