Supergirl Review
Supergirl adapts Tom King’s beloved comic into a cosmic revenge adventure that explores Kara Zor-El’s trauma beyond what previous versions of the character have shown.
Milly Alcock in Supergirl. Credit: DC Studios / Warner Bros. Pictures
James Gunn’s rebooted DCU gets its second film with Supergirl. Milly Alcock stars as the titular hero, Kara Zor-El, following her brief but memorable uncredited introduction in last year’s excellent Superman. Supergirl adapts Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Hugo-nominated 2022 comic miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.
Kara (Supergirl) is spending her “birthday week” getting drunk in space after turning 23. Unlike Superman, who escaped doomed Krypton as a baby, Kara remembers everything: losing her home and watching her family slowly die. She struggles to ever feel at home on Earth, so she spends as much time as possible off-planet, hiding out in solar systems with red suns where her powers disappear and she can actually drink away her sorrows. Her self-destructive getaway is cut short when she meets Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a young girl seeking revenge against the criminal Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) after he slaughtered her family. Kara wants no part of it until Krem poisons Krypto, leaving him with only days to live and forcing her to hunt down both Krem and the antidote.
The story mirrors True Grit, the classic John Wayne western about a drunken marshal reluctantly helping a teenage girl hunt down the man who killed her father. Of course, this is much lighter fare, with more humor despite some darker material running underneath everything here: death, loss, betrayal, and human trafficking.
Jason Momoa in Supergirl. Credit: DC Studios / Warner Bros. Pictures
What follows is a fun but unremarkable cosmic superhero adventure that lacks the style and visual personality that made the comic book source material so vibrant and memorable. The movie does succeed, however, at capturing some of the psychological depth Tom King’s graphic novel brought to Kara. Powerful flashbacks to Kara’s childhood on the last remaining city of Krypton, her parents sending her away, and her first meeting with her cousin on Earth do a lot to help sell it.
Milly Alcock is fantastic as Supergirl. She completely runs away with the film, which unfortunately never rises to match the quality of her performance or how well she captures the character. Though we see less of him here, Krypto the CG dog steals nearly every scene he appears in, much like he did in Superman. Matthias Schoenaerts’ Krem simply isn’t a very interesting villain, though that isn’t really the actor’s fault. I still enjoyed his swaggering performance. Jason Momoa appears as antihero Lobo in his new DCU debut. He gets more screen time than he probably should. Lobo is absent from the source material and largely unnecessary to this story, though Momoa is undeniably great as the cigar-smoking, motorcycle-riding heavy metal asshole.
Millie Alcock and Eve Ridley in Supergirl. Credit: DC Studios / Warner Bros. Pictures
Director Craig Gillespie is clearly aiming for the same irreverent cosmic energy James Gunn brought to Guardians of the Galaxy, but never hits the same notes. I heard around 20 minutes were cut ahead of release, and I can’t help wondering what parts of Gillespie’s original vision may have been lost in the process.
Supergirl never reaches the hights of Superman, nor does it fully capture what made Woman of Tomorrow such a standout comic. Still, Milly Alcock gives the character exactly the kind of debut performance that leaves me excited to see where this version of Supergirl goes next.
Supergirl
Milly Alcock delivers an excellent debut as Supergirl, but this adaptation loses much of the visual identity and personality that made the comic so memorable.
