Supergirl is a good movie. If you’re looking for a fun, action-y romp with a good soundtrack and well acted cast, then this is probably a good bet. The frustrating part was this could have been great.
The film lands you right in with an opener reminiscent of Back to The Future, scanning the detritus of her getaway ship and filling us in on previous plots with well-placed articles, till we meet our heroine, and her little dog too; Krypto. Keeping this fast pace, Kara rolls through a rince-repeat cycle of partying and drinking, having a quiet moment in bed with Krypto watching Casablanca, specifically Rick in Casablanca. So our hero is a reluctant one, at least for the moment. As someone unfamiliar with the franchise, personally I enjoyed being thrown in. The script, written by Ana Nogueira, trusts the audience is smart enough to keep up. Snappy dialogue pokes at the character’s long comic book history; “Why is he Superman, and you’re Supergirl?”
The film is directed by Craig Gillespie (I,Tonya) but truth be told it’s producer James Gunn who directed the first installment in this iteration of the DC universe, Superman (2025) whose fingerprints are more easily identifiable. Kara feels very akin to Chris Pratt’s Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy; she’s disaffected, she’s lonely, she has a badass jacket that I did google after the film was over. The set design and lighting harken back to sci-films of the '80s and '90s, with lighting reminiscent of The Fifth Element or now apparently compulsory jazz numbers in space bars (I did spend too much time wondering how “The Girl from Ipanema" or Ella Fitzgerald’s “Cheek to Cheek” are apparently known intergalactically). The soundtrack from the film also feels like a character in itself, again much like previous Gunn ventures. There’s one truly hilarious use of a cover of “The Middle” by Jimmy Eats World, that would have hit so much harder had the film not deviated from Gunn’s previous work in one major way; the lack of a single organising theme.
The film hinges on two main themes, that of “Home” and “Goodness”. Kara, when we meet her is lost, without a purpose. Through flashback we learn that she is by all intents and purposes a refugee from her home planet of Krypton. She leaves knowing she may never return home, never see her family, and is thrust into a position where she is fragile, but with immense physical power. Unable to process, she runs away from Earth in her little gremlin ship, still feeling that home-shaped-hole. Krypto is her only physical link to her past.
Ruthye (Eve Ridley) as Kara’s begrudgingly accepted side-kick (and Ilsa if we’re to link back to Casablanca), has also lost her home. In a somewhat exposition-heavy but still moving scene, her family is slaughtered before her eyes by the evil brigand Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts). It’s Ruthye’s quest to avenge her family that both brings the two together, but is also the main source of tension between them. When Krem poisons Krypto, Kara has three days in which to get the antidote, leading the two women on their quest.
Kara is at first seemingly dismissive of the pursuit, “Revenge won’t get in the way of me saving my dog”. But soon, she opens up about her experience of loss, how the two share a deeper bond than they may realise. But Kara blames no one it seems for the death of her planet. Hers is an aimless hurt, whereas Ruthye is hellbent on avenging her family. Kara’s advice then that killing Krem won’t bring Ruthye the peace she needs is born more out of a sense of morality than a shared life experience. There are discussions of what it means to be “good”, but Kara’s goodness doesn’t seem to be her issue. Her lack of defined belonging does. It’s details like this that, if tightened, could have made for a strong cohesive narrative. As it stands, it’s frustrating to see so many well woven threads of ideas left dangling, not quite landing the punch.
Speaking of punches, the action sequences are just pure. Each one is always playing with tension in the scene. The villains aren’t just generically bad, they’re ostensibly sex traffickers. Much like the Roman story of the Sabine women, the brigands are an all-male race who must capture young “brides” in order to breed. The action scenes, including the recapturing of the brides, take on a whole other emotional weight that has some heft to it for a film with a 12A rating. Jason Momoa as Lobo delights in the chaos, with Alcock and indeed Ridley very much holding their own where stunts are concerned.
All in all, as the second installment in the franchise, the film does a good job of adapting the character to the big screen with poignancy and humour. Alcock has already shown with House of The Dragon that she can carry a series. But in trying to include too many (albeit worthy) themes, the film’s climax just doesn’t hit as hard as it could. And from what I understand, Supergirl can hit pretty hard if she wants to.
In cinemas from 25th June 2026
