‘Supergirl’ – Review Thread

When an unexpected and ruthless adversary strikes too close to home, Supergirl reluctantly joins forces with an unlikely companion for an interstellar journey of vengeance and justice.

Director: Craig Gillespie

Cast: Milly Alcock, Jason Momoa, David Corenswet, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ferdinand Kingsley, Diarmaid Murtagh

Rotten Tomatoes: 58%

Metacritic: 49 / 100

Some Reviews (updating):

DEADLINE – Pete Hammond

So a year after the reinvigorated DC and Superman was so successfully relaunched under the guidance of Peter Safran and James Gunn, and teased Supergirl right at the end, here we have it, but despite some good moments and sharp dialogue in places (Ana Nogueria is the screenwriter) something feels a bit off. Momoa is a load of fun, he knows exactly what his mission is and delivers whenever he is on screen. The problem is the movie is called Supergirl , not Lobo, so he is relegated here to a splashy, if scattered supporting turn. Ridley seems to play Ruthye with one pained expression on her face and a frequent deadpanned “I am out for revenge” for many of her lines. However she does come alive in her big jailbreak scene, so there’s that. I didn’t buy Schoenaerts and his heavily affected Krem at all, a super villain with no dimension other than being bad which is a shame since the 1984 Supergirl suffered from the same problem. Gotta have a good villain, folks.

USA Today – Brian Truitt – 3 / 4

A lack of focus, not nearly enough Krypto and a one-note baddie in Schoenaerts’ Krem don’t do “Supergirl” any favors, but they also don’t derail the film’s overall vibe of spunky weirdness. With Corenswet's handful of appearances, he continues to cement his place as a darn good Superman (with his own sequel in the works). But here it's Alcock who's making her own cinematic statement: She's not going anywhere, and the new DCU is better with a hell-raising Supergirl in it.

GamesRadar – Molly Edwards – 3.5 / 5

Just like its protagonist, Supergirl is rough around the edges, but holds plenty of promise for the future. With two more DCU appearances confirmed, it seems this is only the beginning for Alcock's Kara. Up, up, and away…

AV Club – Jesse Hassenger – 'B'

The movie’s visual sensibility signals Supergirl’s broader success in threading the needle between a kid-friendly, hope-suffused superhero story and bleaker, grittier stuff—and in doing so, recognizing how those aspects of life are often interwoven, rather than diametrically opposed approaches to IP. That’s always been the push-pull of the Supergirl character, equally able to be portrayed as Superman’s gee-whiz kid-sister equivalent and his more jaded, literally alienated reflection. The joy of Supergirl is how it mixes the two without demoting its main gal to a sideshow.

Empire Magazine – Leila Latif – 3 / 5

The result isn’t disastrous by any means, just blandly safe. You just wish Gillespie would let these freak flags truly fly. There are good ingredients here: a witty, hard-partying, badass antihero, a moving backstory, an odd-couple dynamic between Alcock and Corenswet worth building on — but the fledgling DCU still has yet to prove itself.

Variety – Owen Gleiberman

'Supergirl' is Super Horrendous. Alcock is likable enough (underneath it all, she often seems like Little Orphan Annie with desert-wastrel hair), but the character as written is so one-note that it’s hard to have much investment in what she’s up to. Of course, maybe that’s because the movie has no story! Gunn was right to want to take the comic-book genre back to well-structured screenwriting basics. So what has he done in his second DC outing? He’s given us a comic-book movie with the worst script I can remember. (It’s by Ana Nogueria.)

Vulture – Alison Willmore

Milly Alcock stars in the follow-up to last year’s revamped Superman, but the movie has no idea what to do with her or her character. The problems with Supergirl are simpler to pin down and more or less come down to its not being either written or directed by James Gunn. The reins for this movie have been handed over to the less capable I, Tonya’s Craig Gillespie, with Ana Nogueira contributing the script, and the result highlights just how difficult Gunn’s particular mix of wry self-awareness, unapologetic dorkiness, and sentimentality is for others to pull off.

IndieWire – Kate Erbland – 'B'

We expect that any subsequent standalone “Supergirl” joints will be a bit more poppy and “fun” than this first one (and we sure hope there are more of them), but we hope they also hold on to this one’s hard-won question: What does it mean to be good? It’s not easy.

The Independent – Clarisse Loughrey – 2 / 5

Milly Alcock is the only good thing about this ugly, dispiriting superhero movie. Superman’s moody, punk-rock cousin is let down by a film that tries desperately to emulate the silly playfulness of producer James Gunn, only to fail miserably. If DC wants to secure her future, they need to find her a world where she belongs.

IGN – Clint Gage – 6 / 10

Kara Zor-El’s standout moment in Superman gets a feature-length follow up that almost gets everything right. Unfortunately, that means it gets everything almost wrong as well. Milly Alcock is great as a Supergirl carrying the weight of real trauma and cementing a very cool dynamic with her on-screen cousin, while the alien design and practical make-up effects make the film a joy to look at. Jason Momoa’s Lobo and Matthias Schoenaerts’ Krem are just as cool visually, but unfortunately they also don’t have a lot to offer in this entry in the burgeoning DCU that treads more water than I would’ve liked.

ScreenRant – Molly Freeman – 6 / 10

Even with my own complicated feelings, it strikes me that there are so few female-led superhero movies, there's a need for them all to be perfect. So, when we get a middling film like Supergirl, it looks worse when stacked up against the many better male-led superhero movies. Hopefully, whatever becomes of this film's wider reception, it won't scare off DC Studios from backing more female superheroes, because even though I didn't love Supergirl, there's still plenty of potential in Alcock's character and in the rest of the DC Universe

DiscussingFilm – Tyler Taing – 2.5 / 5

It’s far from the genre’s worst, especially within the standards of what the DC franchise has delivered in the past, but Supergirl deeply suffers from not knowing how to build a film around its iconic heroine.

The Guardian – Peter Bradshaw – 3 / 5

Supergirl isn’t a perfect movie by any means, but there are moments when you’ll believe this franchise can fly.

AwardsWatch – Brandon Lewis – 'B-'

It’s entirely possible that introducing Supergirl so effectively in Superman was both a blessing and a curse for her own outing. While Supergirl isn’t saddled with a momentum-killing first act that recaps her table-stakes history, it also doesn’t fully lean into that freedom, settling for well-worn genre conventions when there were thornier, but more fruitful opportunities to explore. The film is a fine pseudo-first flight for Kara Zor-El, but it does soar enough to escape her famous cousin’s shadow.

Looper – Alistair Ryder – 4 / 10

Milly Alcock is a great Supergirl, and it's a shame her take on the character — and the inspired idea to reimagine her as a Western drifter — isn't served by this underwhelming solo vehicle. It's the first sign that James Gunn's DC Universe will be every bit as ill-conceived as Zack Snyder's.

Next Best Picture – Cody Dericks – 4 / 10

Consequently, Alcock’s work as an actress comes across as similar to how her character must feel: all alone in a world working against her. The film around her is, largely, ugly to look at and unpleasantly, uncomfortably lacking in successfully landed jokes, with many quips simply floating off like debris in the vacuum of space. To anyone looking for an entertaining film about Kara, give the 1984 version a try. Sure, it’s a bad movie, but at least it doesn’t feel like a waste of time, like the latest big-screen appearance of Supergirl does.

The Playlist – Carlos Aguilar – 'C'

Still, for a film introducing a heroine whose story is tied to and derived from the prime superhuman, “Supergirl” is mildly enjoyable, if only because of Alcock and Ridley’s banter, Krypto’s scenes, and the few exchanges between goody-two-shoes Clark and the less uptight Kara. By-the-numbers, as the movie turned out, Alcock does capitalize on it to showcase that she possesses the makings of a promising star capable of portraying a character with sharp edges and complicated feelings. Hopefully, she can now fly elsewhere from here.

The Irish Times – Donald Clarke – 2 / 5

The infuriating thing about this overpriced movie is that the film-makers come close to solving the problem of Supergirl. Subject of a terrible 1984 film and a decent 2015 TV series, the character has had trouble making distinct sense on screen. Alcock’s swaggering layabout – who doesn’t always close the door when going to the loo – reclaims her as an alien with enjoyably human flaws. The bad news is that, as you have almost certainly guessed, she will be required to pull herself together in what used to be the final reel. Not fair. No fun. Give us back the hungover barfly.

The Times – Kevin Maher – 2 / 5

Alcock, who appeared in the TV show House of the Dragon, plays Kara with swaggering charm and goofy energy, but she is very much a character in need of a better film.

Radio Times – Jeremy Aspinall – 2 / 5

Unfortunately, with the villains all looking like escapees from recent Mad Max films, Lobo just doesn’t have that hoped-for impact, especially with Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies setting such a high standard for fun, out-of-this world adventures and bizarre but likeable characters. On the other hand, Alcock does a decent job playing a Supergirl a million miles away from Helen Slater’s 1984 iteration or Melissa Benoist in the long-running TV show. All grunge aesthetic and attitude, she rises above the underwhelming script and direction.

RogerEbert – Tomris Laffly – 1.5 / 4

Sadly, the film that follows consists of one superfluous sequence after another where Alcock gets plenty of opportunities to stretch her muscles in a highly physical role. There are other space pirates that enter the story’s orbit, breaks taken at inter-galactical watering holes, and various scenes of fast-paced butt-kicking and face-punching. In the end, you can’t help but wonder why the emotions of these characters don’t pack as much of a punch.

Little White Lies – Anna Stafford – 2.5 / 5

Supergirl rarely rises above the genre’s limitations, but it has enough character to avoid sinking into mediocrity. Gillespie brings the same swagger that animated Cruella (2021), embracing grunge over superhero slickness. The film may not blow minds, but it is a rough-around-the-edges adventure with heart.

The Prague Reporter – Jason Pirodtsky – 2.5 / 5

Gunn’s Superman wasn’t without its own narrative problems, but it was colorful, energetic, and unafraid to let audiences admire its imaginative world. Supergirl director Craig Gillespie goes in the opposite direction, burying inventive creature designs, impressive practical makeup, and ambitious visual effects beneath clouds of dust, darkness, and washed-out digital photography. There’s still enough here to give Supergirl the mildest of recommendations for comic book fans, largely thanks to Alcock’s committed lead performance and a premise that dares to tell a different kind of superhero story. But for a film about a young hero finally stepping out into the light, it’s surprisingly reluctant to let us see either its world or its title character with any clarity.

Slash Film – Rocco T. Thompson – 2.5 / 4

But Supergirl’s closest spiritual antecedent is Kathy Yan’s Birds of Prey, which won a dedicated cult of fans and critical appreciation for how it managed to spin its more familiar genre elements into anarchic, girly-pop perfection. Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, has all the makings of a character ready to step out from the cultural shadow of the male character she’s derivative of and go her own way. If only the film had the same guts.

The Post – Judy Arias

‘Supergirl’ is lost, messy – and worth watching. Dangling plot threads and a bare bones villain aside, I enjoyed this version of Kara. She is not perfect, and the film never tries to make her. She can be angry, grieving, reckless, funny, and frustrating. At times, she seems more interested in running away from her problems than confronting them. Yet beneath all that is someone who continues to show up.

Manila Bulletin – Philip Cu Unjieng

There is a bit of a lag in the narrative flow in the middle of the film, and we could have given our villain stronger reasons to boo him whenever he appears; but I was entertained by this unconventional "Supergirl." For those who still find Clark Kent too bland and goody two shoes; Supergirl is the compelling riposte.