Craig Gillespie knows how to handle a protagonist the world has decided to root against. I, Tonya proved that. Cruella proved it again. So when DC Studios handed him a Supergirl movie built around a Kara Zor-El who is jaded, impulsive, and would rather drink on a red-sun planet than save anyone, it made sense on paper. The execution is more complicated.
Supergirl is a film with genuine strengths and genuine frustrations, sometimes in the same scene. It is better than the box office suggests and not quite as good as its best moments imply. A 6 feels right, and that is not a dismissal.
The Story
Kara Zor-El did not have the same upbringing as her cousin. While Kal-El landed in Kansas and was raised by people who believed in him, Kara grew up on Argo City, a chunk of Krypton that survived under a force field, watching everyone around her die slowly. By the time the film picks up she is 23, celebrating her birthday alone on planets where red suns drain her powers enough to let her feel drunk, and she has no particular interest in being anyone’s hero.
When a young warrior named Ruthye Marye Knoll, played by Eve Ridley, tracks her down and asks her to help hunt the space pirate who murdered her father, Kara agrees for reasons that are only partly noble. What follows is a galaxy-spanning road trip with a villain in Matthias Schoenaerts’s Krem of the Yellow Hills who is genuinely menacing, and a partnership between Kara and Ruthye that gives the film its warmest material.
What Works
Milly Alcock carries this film. Every scene she is in has a live-wire quality that the screenplay does not always provide on its own. Her Kara is sarcastic and damaged and occasionally reckless, and Alcock makes all of that feel like characterization rather than attitude. The moment where she and David Corenswet’s Superman briefly share the screen is one of the most quietly effective things in the movie, mostly because the contrast between his easy optimism and her guarded exhaustion says more than either character’s dialogue does.
Jason Momoa as Lobo is exactly what the role needs to be. He gets limited screen time but uses every second of it, and the suggestion of what his expanded DCU presence might look like is genuinely exciting. Schoenaerts makes Krem threatening in a way that grounds the action stakes in something physical rather than just cosmically vague.
What Does Not Work
The pacing is the film’s most persistent problem. The middle section loses momentum in ways that feel structural rather than incidental, like scenes that were necessary for the story but not quite earned by the screenplay around them. The world-building is ambitious and spread thin, with locations and supporting characters that needed more breathing room than the runtime allowed.
The script from Ana Nogueira is most interesting when it lets Kara be morally complicated, and least interesting when it pulls back from that complexity toward more familiar superhero rhythms. There is a version of this story that commits more fully to its darker instincts and comes out the other side as something genuinely distinctive. What we got is a partial commitment, which is not quite the same thing.
The Verdict
Supergirl is worth seeing for Alcock alone, and she is good enough here that following her Kara into the next DCU chapter feels like a genuine proposition rather than an obligation. The Tom King and Bilquis Evely source material was always going to be a challenging adaptation, and Gillespie gets more right than wrong. But the film hedges where it should commit, and that gap between what it is and what it could have been is the most frustrating thing about it.
Worth seeing. Just know what you are walking into.
Supergirl is in theaters and IMAX now. Rated PG-13. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Written by Ana Nogueira. Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes. A Warner Bros. Pictures release.
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A darker, more morally complex take on one of DC’s most iconic characters. A cosmic road trip structure borrowed from Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s acclaimed Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic series. A director in Craig Gillespie who has proven he can handle unconventional protagonists. And at the center of it all, Milly Alcock, who delivers one of the more interesting superhero performances in recent memory. The problem is that the film surrounding all of those things never fully commits to what it is trying to be.
The result is a movie that is better than its troubled box office tracking suggested and not quite as good as its best moments promise. A 6 out of 10 feels exactly right.
The Story
Unlike her cousin Kal-El, Kara Zor-El was not raised on Earth. She grew up on Argo City, a surviving fragment of Krypton kept alive under a force field, and she watched everyone she knew die there. By the time the film picks up she is jaded, sarcastic, impulsive, and spending her 23rd birthday drinking alone on planets with red suns where her Kryptonian powers are weakened enough for her to actually feel something. She is not Superman. She does not want to be.
When a young alien girl named Ruthye Marye Knoll, played by Eve Ridley, enlists Kara to hunt down Krem of the Yellow Hills, the ruthless space pirate who murdered her father, an unlikely partnership forms. What follows is an interstellar journey of vengeance and reluctant heroism that gives the film its best material. The dynamic between Alcock and Ridley is genuine and occasionally touching, with Ruthye’s honor-bound determination providing a useful counterweight to Kara’s prickly detachment.
What Works
Alcock is the film. Every scene she is in has an energy and an edge that the script does not always earn on its own. She plays Kara’s trauma and her sarcasm as two sides of the same coin, and the moments where those two things collide are consistently the most interesting the film has to offer. This is a superhero who does not feel like she belongs anywhere, and Alcock makes you feel that without ever making Kara unlikable.
Matthias Schoenaerts is a strong villain as Krem of the Yellow Hills, cunning and physically imposing in a way that gives the action sequences actual weight. And Jason Momoa, finally playing the role he has wanted for years, is clearly having the time of his life as Lobo. He does not have enough screen time to fully land, but what is there is fun and suggests his expanded role in the DCU going forward will be worth watching.
David Corenswet’s Superman cameo is brief but well handled, and the contrast between his optimistic Kal-El and Alcock’s battered Kara is one of the film’s more quietly effective moments.
What Does Not Work
The film’s biggest problem is pacing. At 1 hour and 48 minutes it is not an especially long superhero movie, but it takes too long to find its rhythm and too many of the middle sections feel like they are marking time between the moments that matter. The cosmic world-building is ambitious but spread thin, introducing settings and supporting characters that never quite get the space they need to breathe.
The script from Ana Nogueira has real ideas in it but does not always trust them. The darker, more morally complex tone of the source material is present in flashes and then pulled back just when it starts to get genuinely interesting. There is a version of this film that goes further into what it means to be a traumatized Kryptonian who does not share her cousin’s faith in humanity, and that film is more compelling than the one we got.
The Verdict
Supergirl is a solid but uneven second entry in the new DC Universe. Milly Alcock is a star and her Kara Zor-El is worth following into whatever comes next, including her confirmed return in Man of Tomorrow. The cosmic road trip premise gives the film a distinctive feel that separates it from the usual superhero template. But the pacing drags, the script pulls its punches at key moments, and the film never quite becomes the sum of its considerable parts.
Worth seeing for Alcock alone. Just do not go in expecting Superman.
Supergirl is in theaters and IMAX now. Rated PG-13. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Written by Ana Nogueira. Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes. A Warner Bros. Pictures release.
For more movie reviews and entertainment coverage, visit PressPlayReview.com.