I didn’t intend to see Supergirl. I knew it would be infantile, dark, and woke — three of my biggest kryptonite rocks — and I had a book to finish, already late due to a medical trauma. But a critic buddy called me with an extra screening pass, and I wanted to see him. Now, the reason he had a ticket for me tells you all you need to know about the box-office prospects for Supergirl, and the mentality of Hollywoke, what’s left of it. My liberal friend has a like-minded 12-year-old daughter who loved the Sam Raimi Spider-Man pictures. She took one look at the Supergirl trailer depicting a depressed, drunk, nihilistic heroine and told her dad she had no interest in it. If the moviemakers can’t lure an impressionable pre-girlboss into the theater, just imagine all the boys and young men the film will attract. (RELATED: Declawing Feminism) So, I sat there in a soon-to-be-empty seat, hoping to at least enjoy some mindless superhero action worthy of a $170-million production, based on a comic-book universe I’d loved as a kid. And I didn’t even get that. The film is dark, all right, but not just in thematic mood. It’s so underlit, it makes Night of the Living Dead look like The Wizard of Oz by comparison. When we can finally make out the first scene, we get introduced to the main character, Kara, yes, drunk and disorderly as in the trailer, partly depressed by the media celebration of her cousin, Superman. We’re supposed to understand her melancholy as a semi-pretty young white girl with (ridiculously) unrealized potential in a cruel masculine world, or worlds, since Kara is on a self-imposed exile from Earth. Thankfully, her cute super dog, Krypto, provides some badly needed energy for the audience. In no historic or believable universe would a little girl seek help to find the powerful leader of a murderous savage band in order to execute him herself, except in feminist fairyland. The unbearable darkness of being in the theater only got worse from there. Enter brutish villain, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who could be a refugee from the Mad Max franchise, only less original. In fact, most of the alien characters in Supergirl would have fit in the Star Wars cantina scene, which was clever half a century ago, and is now tiresome. Krem and his colorless Brigands kill a master swordsmith — Asian because white men aren’t craftsmen — and his wife, leaving alive the young adult daughter, Ruthye, played by plain Filipina-English actress Eve Ridley. Predictably, Ruthye shows up at Kara’s bar, bearing a sword she plans to kill Krem with, never mind his hundred brigands. And that’s where and when the movie abandoned all hope of reason and tolerability. In no historic or believable universe would a little girl seek help to find the powerful leader of a murderous savage band in order to execute him herself, except in feminist fairyland. In fact, most boys wouldn’t do it, knowing their limitations against the odds. Even the brave Mexican farmers in the classic The Magnificent Seven understood they needed the titular Seven to get rid of the preying bandits, which inspired Charles Bronson’s wonderful speech to the hero-worshipping village boys: “You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility — for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers…” DC Studios mogul James Gunn, director Craig Gillespie, and starlet-turned-novice screenwriter Ana Nogueira try to imitate the Western trappings of the Seven and the Sergio Leone films, but with no idea of what makes them work. For one thing, and most unacceptable to them, real men. If the vengeance seeker was a boy — afraid of his task but bound by family and warrior honor — the dimension and his relationship to Supergirl would have been fascinating. But that’s the difference between the talented white male writers who helped build Hollywood, and the feminist hacks destroying it. (RELATED: The Wreck of Feminist Hollywood) Kara takes on a ruffian who seized Ruthye’s sword, revealing her prowess to the girl. And demonstrating to us that all the action scenes would be quick-cut, confusing, and undistinguishable messes, with every punch, strike, or fall a CGI nightmare, depriving us of even the satisfaction of a good fight. Kara refuses to aid Ruthye until Krem shoots Krypto with a slow-acting poison dart. That’s right. The villain who decapitates people without blinking gives a dog three days to die. And he just happens to have the antidote, conveniently allowing Kara to go after him and help Ruthye in the bargain. The movie goes to hell from there, or rather, the viewer does, with no idea of pacing, storytelling, or logic. The barbaric Lobo shows up, well played by Jason Momoa, injecting a bit of welcome testosterone into the girl-power screed. In the most cringeworthy scene, Ruthye — in a jail cell with Lobo — pretends to be a frightened little girl to a monstrous Brigand guard. When he opens the cell door, she literally jumps on his back and somehow knocks him out after a long fight sequence. How? We can’t tell, since the fight beats are visually unclear and confusing. This leads to a major indecipherable CGI battle, Kara and Lobo versus the Brigands, which the comic-book “heroes” appear to be winning. Krem couldn’t care less that his men are getting routed, being more interested in chasing down and killing a little black captive girl and her parents. To our horror, Krem escapes, signifying that we must endure a lot more of the movie, including additional angst from Kara. And something we thought we’d escaped — her origin story and odyssey from Krypton to Argo to Earth, guest starring David Corenswet as Gunn’s Tom Hanks-like Superman. Finally, Kara dons the Supergirl costume and enters the last battle as a bona fide superheroine, alongside Lobo. The best thing I can say for the film is that I didn’t mock actress Milly Alcock the way many of us did Rachel Ziegler, who deserved it. But I did feel sorry for her. She’s not pretty or formidable enough to play an iconic action lead, even if better written. Gunn didn’t want to indulge the Male Gaze with a Sidney Sweeney, even though it basically popularized comic books (see Wonder Woman, Catwoman). But Alcock’s likable and sincere, and she’d grace a good, realistic female role. Hollywoke may not know how to make those anymore, but some of us do. 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