Movie Review – ‘Supergirl’ struggles to take flight

In 2025, James Gunn, co-creator of James Gunn’s DCU (DC Universe) alongside Peter Safran, released a reboot of Superman, the first film of their tenure. Premiering to $220M globally and strong reviews, the film looked like a promising start to the new universe, but Superman didn’t ultimately live up to its name, eventually stalling out and finishing with just $619M worldwide. Now before you ask, “How can over a half a billion dollars be considered a failure?” you have to recognize that 11 Marvel films and four DC films crossed that threshold between 2008 and 2021. Now the creators are back, with Kal-El’s cousin Kara taking center stage in Supergirl.

DCU’s Supergirl serves as Kara’s origin story, finding the Kryptonian (Milly Alcock) still struggling with the loss of her parents and planet years later. Spending much of her time on red sun planets — where she bleeds and can actually feel the effects of alcohol — the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty spends her evenings getting drunk with Krypto (aka America’s favorite CGI pet) before waking up hungover the next morning, all in an effort to forget her past. As Alcock told Variety, “she’s been through some s–t.” Unlike Superman (David Corenswet), that history has turned her into nothing short of a hot mess. Labeled rude and grumpy by those around her, Kara has a tilted view of the world, telling another character, “Superman sees the good in everyone. I see the truth.” All of that adds up to a Supergirl who resists wearing the suit despite her mother’s dying wish to be good and her father giving his “with great power comes great responsibility” speech.

One evening while trying to quietly get her drink on, she steps into a confrontation with an otherworldly being who steals a family keepsake from Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a 13-year-old who witnessed the villainous Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) murder her brother and parents. Ruthye is on a mission and will stop at nothing to exact revenge in the name of her family. Kara and Ruthye’s chance encounter leads to Kara reluctantly helping the young girl, but only after Krem inserts himself into her life when he paralyzes Krypto. With just 72 hours to save her precious pup, the skeptical superhero sets out to obtain the antidote that will restore Krypto back to good health. Along the way, they cross paths with Lobo (Jason Momoa), an immortal alien mercenary with a God complex who inserts himself into the duo’s attempt to bring down Krem and the Briggins, a group of space pirates he leads.

This isn’t the first time Supergirl has hit the big screen — that honor belongs to Helen Slater, who starred as the titular hero in 1984’s Supergirl. Despite a mediocre theatrical run, Supergirl eventually found its way into living rooms around the world when Melissa Benoist took on the role in 2015’s Supergirl. For six years, Benoist proudly wore the cape, but like many of the superhero series on The CW, it eventually faded to black as audiences grew tired of these otherworldly saviors.

Relative newcomer Milly Alcock perhaps fares best in the middling film. Hailing from Australia, Alcock reportedly was the Gunn’s original pick and, based on her performance, he chose well. Known to Game of Thrones fans for her role as a young Rhaenyra Targaryen in the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, Supergirl thrusts the 26-year-old into the spotlight with her first major feature film. Nothing says welcome to Hollywood quite like leading a blockbuster comic book movie. Based on comments she made during the press tour regarding online criticism of both her and the character, along with more recent discussions surrounding Supergirl’s sexuality, she may be in for a bumpy ride.

A mashup of Guardians of the Galaxy, Mad Max, and a little Star Wars thrown in for good measure, Supergirl is barely one-third as good as any of them. So much of it simply never lands, much of that due to a weak script from Ana Nogueira, a writer known for… well, not much. While Gunn and Safran deserve credit for hiring a woman to pen a woman-led film, it’s a baffling choice to hand the keys to someone whose biggest credit before this was a short film. More concerning is that the duo has already tasked Nogueira with rebooting Wonder Woman.

Krem of the Yellow Hills may be a popular villain in the comics, but on screen the character comes off as surprisingly underwhelming. From his odd obsession with eating other people’s food to rarely feeling like a legitimate threat to Kara, the big bad never lands. Everything about Lobo feels destined to become DC’s answer to Deadpool, but Momoa never quite gets him there — whether that’s on the actor or Nogueira’s script is anyone’s guess. Add in humor that rarely hits and action sequences that seldom pack a punch, and it looks like DC may not be much better off under Gunn and Safran than it was under Zack Snyder. For a film centered around saving Krypto within 72 hours, the 110-minute runtime felt considerably longer. Here’s hoping friendly neighborhood Peter Parker can help save the genre with next month’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day.