When a furtive alien force threatens to take over the world, only one person can save it from eternal destruction. You guessed it, the frail but death-defying Girl of Steel. The problem is, she’s just not into the assignment.
Vincent Tran’s newest interpretation of DC Comics Universe’s Supergirl comes in the form of a six-minute short called Girl of Steel. The tale begins in an interrogation room where Kara, aka Girl of Steel (Sarah McCreanor), is meeting with ever-austere Agent Jill (Jill Penfold). Before Agent Jill relays the dire dilemma facing Earth and its inhabitants, she proceeds to focus on what Kara has done wrong of late.
Not surprisingly, Kara has a bad attitude, but it is the future of the world at stake here. As the conversation stagnates, progresses and stagnates some more, only one positive emerges: the entrance of Jay Garrick, aka Flash. Finally, Kara is happy to take on whatever comes her way, and the world will survive another day.
Despite decent acting by Sarah McCreanor and Jill Penfold, they can’t save Girl of Steel from itself. I’m not even speaking about the cinematic concept or the writing, but something entirely different. I think what bothers me most of all is the fact that Girl of Steel does not feel like a short film at all, but rather a heavy-handed trailer. It’s as if the beginnings of a feature film— complete with an overly long introductory scene— got packed into a tiny space that struggles to contain its footage. And, oddly, this makes six minutes crawl like a slug meandering through eternity.
I know that I’m always writing about the extreme difficulties filmmakers face when successfully attempting to execute a short film, but it can be done. The problem with Girl of Steel, in my very singular opinion, is that it should be refurbished into a feature length movie. Vincent Tran is working with a boatload of substance without the space, and in this instance, the less-is-more formula just doesn’t work. I do look forward to seeing Tran’s Girl of Steel the feature, should it ever happen, because that’s how his project should be viewed.
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