Movie Reviews

Milly Alcock acquits herself well as Supergirl, but the movie itself is pretty pedestrian.

By Kevin Slane

June 26, 2026 | 2:49 PM

3 minutes to read

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In 2025’s “Superman,” audiences briefly met Supergirl (Milly Alcock), the hard-partying foil to her virtuous cousin (David Corenswet). That cameo seemed to promise a quippy, off-kilter solo venture for Kara Zor-El, one that could compare favorably to DC architect James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise over at Marvel. 

While Alcock largely holds up her end of the bargain in “Supergirl,” the film DC has assembled around her is bland, derivative, and only occasionally fun. In other words, it’s less than super.

The film’s tone-setting opening scene begins with Kara’s dog, Krypto (a highlight in “Superman”), urinating on a newspaper while our heroine is passed out nearby. Kara is in the midst of celebrating her 23rd birthday while living on a faraway planet whose sun, unlike Earth’s yellow one, allows her to actually feel the mind-numbing effects of a weeklong bender.

Blowing off a video call from a concerned Superman, Kara heads back to the bar, where her self-indulgent karaoke session is interrupted by a strident young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is on a mission for vengeance after leather-clad baddies known as Brigands kill her whole family. Kara isn’t inclined to help, but her inherent goodness – not to mention the same Brigands stealing her ship and poisoning her dog – move her to action.

If you’ve seen either version of “True Grit” — or any of the hundreds of movies inspired by it — you know what happens next. Director Craig Gillespie (“I, Tonya”) and screenwriter Ana Nogueira try to mine comedy from the interplay between the precocious Ruthye and the hungover Kara, with mild success. Kara sees Ruthye as a burden, which, frankly, she kind of is. Whether’s they’re riding an intergalactic bus, seeking info at a bar, or engaging in hand-to-hand combat, Ruthye is an impatient 13-year-old whose laser-like focus on revenge is usually a weakness.

Some of the hero’s journey scenes in “Supergirl” are amusing enough. The aforementioned bus ride is filled with the type of interesting character design for its alien passengers that calls to mind the Mos Eisley cantina in “Star Wars,” including Seth Rogen as a tiny ticket-taker. But so much of the milieu in “Supergirl” feels like it’s been done before.

The various planets the duo visits have the telltale gray and brown sludge tones that suggests hastily assembled CGI. The villainous Brigands looks like rejected character designs from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with even head villain Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) failing to have much of an impact beyond his punk rock aesthetics. And when a cigar-chomping Lobo (Jason Momoa) shows up to ungracefully introduce the next DC spinoff, it elicits shrugs instead of cheers.

“Supergirl” gets more interesting when it introduces a series of flashbacks showing Kara’s upbringing. Meeting her parents and the rest of her Kryptonian counterparts gives the audience a better understanding of why Kara is actively avoiding taking on the responsibilities of Supergirl. But I would argue that if Gillespie/Nogueira had introduced this storyline earlier in the film, it could have been more emotionally impactful. 

To provide an example: When Massachusetts native Andrew Stanton (“Toy Story 5”) wrote an initial script for “Finding Nemo,” the film didn’t begin with Marlin’s (Albert Brooks) wife dying and all of their eggs getting eaten except one. Instead, that info was slowly introduced in flashbacks throughout the film, and audiences who saw early test screenings kept complaining that Marlin was too insufferable of a character. Once Stanton ripped the band-aid off and put the personal tragedy at the very beginning, the complaints disappeared because audiences immediately understood why the clownfish was so neurotic.

Alcock does a perfectly good job playing Supergirl as a hero whose only weakness (beyond green suns and Kryptonite) is her unaddressed trauma. But the film’s largely inert story would have been greatly enhanced by giving the audience a reason to root for her beyond the red and yellow S on her suit.

Rating: ** (out of 4)

“Supergirl” is in theaters now.