Supergirl arrives as the bruised hero DC needs
Milly Alcock stars as the lost Kryptonian in Craig Gillespie's space-western that ditches Superman's optimism for trauma and rage.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
James Gunn set up Supergirl in Superman last summer with an arresting image: the Kryptonian girl, drunk and unmoored. Craig Gillespie picks up that thread and runs with it, turning the character into something genuinely new.
Realized by screenwriter Ana Nogueira from Tom King and Bilquis Evely's comic Woman of Tomorrow, Supergirl plays as a space-western. Kara Zor-El drifts from one devastated civilization to another—the film leans hard into Mad Max rather than Star Wars—on a mission that echoes John Wick: her dog, Krypto, will die unless she finds an antidote to poison injected by Krem, a villain who also murdered the family of Ruthye, a teenager now hunting vengeance alongside her.
Milly Alcock, the revelation of House of the Dragon, is staggering in the role. Her Supergirl—who doesn't even don the suit until halfway through—is raw: lost, shattered by her past, stripped of the safety net that defines her famous cousin. She's nothing like Helen Slater's 1984 version, Sasha Calle's turn in The Flash, or the small-screen iterations from Smallville and the Supergirl series. This Kara has no home, no family, barely knows Kal-El. She's in pieces and has no idea how to reassemble herself.
Action erupts after a slow opening, peppered with generally successful visual effects and pertinent humour that lands more than it misses. The emotional peak arrives visually: Kara's scream in the silent vacuum of space, a girl who has lost everything. Eve Ridley, in her first film role, holds her own opposite Alcock. Matthias Schoenaerts plays Krem as broad caricature—undercutting the menace the role should carry. Jason Momoa steals scenes as Lobo, the mercenary who looks ready to join Kiss, bringing muscular fun and a testosterone boost that perhaps forestalls criticism of the film's female-heavy cast.
Gunn's fingerprints are everywhere: Claudia Sarne's percussion-heavy score, the soundtrack's jarring song choices (Françoise Hardy's "Temps de l'amour" alongside Eagles of Death Metal's "Don't Speak"). It all threads together into something darker and meaner than superhero convention demands—and the better for it.