Girl of Steel vs. Man of Iron

By RICHARD CORLISS

Two new movies offer the fantasy figures of tomorrow

A cement-jawed superhero does battle against an evil imperial foe and uses wit, grit and brute force to win the day and make people feel good about their country. This fantasy of an all-righteous America fills movie theaters even as it fuels presidential elections. Who is Indiana Jones if not the movie-serial avatar of White House Reagan, leaping up from near fatal assaults with a wave and a joke? Who is Superman if not the Krypton Gipper, fighting for truth, justice and voluntary school prayer? At the end of a campaign year that played like one long half-time pageant, two entertaining movies arrive with a complementary pair of star figures for the next generation. Supergirl: the girl next door as feminist champion. The Terminator: a killing machine from the year 2029 and rotten to the cybernetic core.

Supergirl is Kara (Helen Slater), Superman's younger cousin and a fellow emigre from Krypton, who grows up in Midvale, U.S.A., as Linda Lee. In her preppie uniform she is an ordinary schoolgirl, but put her in red cape and tights and she is revealed as California Girl, apotheosis of the workout ethic. Kara must save the world from the malefic Selena (Faye Dunaway), high priestess of Endor and part-time palmist. In this task, Supergirl is aided by her Krypton father Zaltar (Peter OToole), who, as in every other Freudian fable from Oedipus Rex to Star Wars, must die before his offspring can reach maturity, self-knowledge and power.

Cynics will call this a B-team Superman. Screenwriter David Odell and Director Jeannot Szwarc concentrate on strong, simple pleasures: Slater's easy grace and uncomplicated beauty; the bravura of (Obi-Wan) O'Toole, shameless and affecting as he just about tears a planet to tatters; and a hilarious wicked-witch turn by the delicious Dunaway. The climactic confrontation, in which man's fate is decided by two women, could elicit thrills of laughter from a Saturday-matinee benefit performance for NOW.

The mood of Supergirl seems almost pastoral compared with that of The Terminator. This picture barrels with swank relentlessness through a giddily complicated premise and into an Armageddon face-off between another New Woman and a Man of Iron. The man (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is really a machine: sturdier than a tall building, able to break supporting players in his bare hands, shooting middle-aged " ladies on sight, speaking 2 whole sentences only when absolutely necessary.

He has taken a trip back through time to try to reverse the history of the 21 st century. Seems a man named John Connor is destined to lead the survivors of a nuclear war to victory over the evil machines--if his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton), a lonely Los Angeles waitress here in 1984, lives long enough to give birth. So the Terminator is out to perform a "retroactive abortion"; and another time traveler, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), has followed him to save John's prospective mother and terminate the Terminator. Thus begins the deadly game of hide-and-seek, search-and-destroy.

On one level, The Terminator is a hip retelling of the D Annunciation: Sarah is a blissed-out Virgin Mary, John is her divine son, and Reese the messenger angel sent to impregnate Sarah with the holy word. But there is plenty of tech-noir savvy to keep infidels and action fans satisfied. The violence is copious, clean and discreet. Director James Cameron (who wrote the script with Producer Gale Anne Kurd) has a superefficient editing style that uses slow motion, pixilation and infra-red opticals to make this the smartest looking L.A. nighttown movie since The Driver.

As for Schwarzenegger, he nicely fleshes out the convention of a soulless gun for hire. With his choppy hair, cryptic shades and state-of-the-'80s leather ensemble, he looks like the Incredible Hulk gone punk. Some day he and Supergirl should get together in a winner-take-all hybrid sequel. These two could make beautiful music together--say, America the Beautiful rendered in teeny-bopper heavy metal.

--By Richard Corliss