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Supergirl is not so super after all. Entertaining and fast-paced enough but lacking the care and attentiveness given to 2025’s Superman, this Craig Gillespie-directed superhero pic has the right elements but smashes them together in unfulfilling ways.
Milly Alcock is thrust front and center as Krypton’s other surviving humanoid, but unlike Clark Kent, who was raised on Earth and never knew his biological parents, Kara Zor-El grew up watching her parents and the last of her society wither and die. A traumatized 23-year-old, she spends her days traveling to Red Sun planets where she loses her powers but gains the ability to get absolutely hammered.
In this vein, Alcock flexes the same talent that had fans loving her in HBO’s House of the Dragon, bringing to life a smart, saucy, powerful, and incredibly flawed and messy protagonist in exciting ways. She’s just hampered by a screenplay that isn’t nearly as clever as writer Ana Nogueira intended and a story that keeps trying to sideline its title character.
Supergirl is based on a well-regarded limited comic series that I haven’t read titled Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. I did read up on the basic plot details, however, and while Supergirl is very similar, it feels like a neutered version of a badass story, one that loses some of its edge and gets confused as to who the core protagonist is. Apparently in the series, 13-year-old orphan Ruthye, who witnesses her family get murdered by the evil Krem, is the main character, with Supergirl joining her on her quest for vengeance. In the movie, Ruthye has a prominent role, but Supergirl is, understandably, the main character.
Unfortunately, Movie Version Ruthye just f**king sucks.
Young Eve Ridley struggles to portray Ruthye as anything more than a one-dimensional, awkward girl who provides little to no value other than to make Supergirl’s job a lot harder. I don’t blame Ridley. Gillespie and Nogueira don’t really know what to do with her, other than to give her the magical powers of repeatedly stowing away on various spaceships to tag along with Supergirl like an annoying fungus that just won’t die. She has a sword but she doesn’t know how to use it, and never does learn how to use it. She literally just gets in the way over and over again.
Revolving around this dynamic is a story that awkwardly starts and stops, failing to build momentum in a satisfying way. There are plenty of fun moments, even a few funny ones, and enough action to satiate those just looking for a mindless good time. But the whole is less than its parts, the story reduced to a “race against time” to save a dying dog plotline that oddly lacks the sensation of urgency or importance.
The editing is choppy, with Gillespie speeding up the storytelling when he should slow it down and stretching things out when he should have leaped forward. The action is okay but generally uninspired, with less-than-impressive CGI. A space bus action sequence is pretty fun, though nothing comes close to that Mr. Terrific fight we saw in Superman.
The screenplay is also just a little flatter than you’d expect from a movie that is essentially supposed to be like Superman, only angrier and edgier. Alcock is good but seems hamstrung by dialogue that doesn’t land nearly as well as intended; you can almost see the actress straining to make her jokes funny. A generic villain is played earnestly by Matthias Schoenaerts but like so many comic book villains is one dimensionally evil. And though Jason Momoa is a natural to play alien bounty hunter Lobo, his portrayal leaves something to be desired, primarily because he is awkwardly inserted into the story for no apparent reason (Lobo is not in the comic series).
For just the second film of his DC Universe, it’s surprising that producer (and Superman director) James Gunn’s influence or attention to detail isn’t more on display. It’s not that I hated the movie–I didn’t–but you can tell that with just a slightly improved script, another editing pass, and perhaps a few reshoots, Supergirl could have been something that shoots for the stars.
Instead, it barely makes it above the clouds, and there’s nothing so super about that.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.
