Supergirl, 2026.
Directed by Craig Gillespie.
Starring Milly Alcock, Eve Ridley, Matthias Schoenaerts, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, Jason Momoa, Alice Hewkin, Ferdinand Kingsley, Diarmaid Murtagh, David Corenswet, Emily Piggford, Bruce Lennox, Thalissa Teixeira, Kadiff Kirwan, Imogen Turner, Asha Soetan, and Leo Bill.
SYNOPSIS:
Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, joins forces with an unlikely companion on an interstellar journey of vengeance and justice when an unexpected adversary strikes too close to home.
During a flashback to life on a post-destroyed Krypton and before being sent off to Earth, Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock) is told by her mother, Alura In-Ze (Emily Beecham), to always be “good”, which doesn’t necessarily correlate with always being kind or polite. This is, of course, a noteworthy shift in personality and attitude from her ultra-nice, possibly naive cousin Superman (David Corenswet), as he is known by civilians on Earth, making her and Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl more of an antihero interpretation of that character.
Carrying hurt from a series of tragedies, Kara has yet to embrace her superpowers or noble responsibilities, preferring to let go of those abilities entirely and hang out on red sun planets, diminishing her invulnerability traits, meaning that she can become inebriated from alcohol and recklessly party without a care in the world alongside her loyal, rambunctious dog Krypto (they even crowd surf at concerts together). She also seemingly can’t stand how optimistic and goody two-shoes her cousin is, routinely blowing him off and expressing disinterest in flying over to Metropolis to hang out for her birthday. It’s a film about numbing grief through a life of excess, refusing to use one’s powers for good, and gradually discovering purpose and inner peace.
Kickstarting that journey is the reluctant decision to join young Ruthye Marye Knoll (newcomer Eve Ridley, solid and capable of handling a good portion of the emotional core here) on a personal quest to avenge the death of her family at the hands of Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts, menacing and with a face covered in metal piercings), something that becomes similarly personal when he fires a poisoned arrow into an excited Krypto one step ahead of the chase. With only 72 hours to live, now Kara has no choice but to work together with Rutheye to continuously pursue Krem, unearth what he is up to, and steal the antidote.
Along the way, there are push-and-pull dynamics around revenge, that it’s more likely to be ruinous than lead to peace and salvation. Naturally, Rutheye isn’t willing to listen to that, and oftentimes Kara doesn’t practice what she is preaching (she is impatient and hostile, ready to get her dog back by any means necessary). Once immortal biker bounty hunter with a god complex, Lobo (Jason Momoa) enters the story also searching for Brigants (members of Krem’s crew), it is perhaps a cautionary window into the future of who Rutheye could become if she allows vengeance to fully take hold and travels down a road of killing.
This is mostly standard cycle-of-violence material without much emotional drive or momentum, made even more frustrating by structural issues that place flashbacks in the middle of the story rather than at the beginning to set up those character arcs and lend a reason to invest. Considering that Krem is a forgettable villain with generic motivations of trafficking girls for building numbers on his all-men dying planet, and that sense of detachment throughout much of the first half, those flashbacks bring some much-needed emotional connection that also goes a long way into engaging with the rest of the story.
There is no denying how formulaic origin stories have become, but it could be argued that where they are inserted here is malpractice. Yes, Kara is relaying them to another character, but that doesn’t change the fact that they depict the kinds of events that should serve as a springboard for understanding where she is in her life and getting on board with the character. 15 minutes in, when Krypto is poisoned, it almost comes across as a desperate plea to care about what’s happening. There is also a case to be made for the events in those flashbacks and the hard-partying Kara would have made for a better movie, or at the very least, a fascinating character study. Do I have reservations about hypothetically spending an entire film’s length of Kara stumbling around drunk? Yes. However, I’m not sure dropping it entirely for a much more familiar story is the right decision.
Better late than never for those flashbacks, though, as with some of that context and an impressively strong turn from Milly Alcock, full of bottled-up pain and another push-and-pull dynamic, this one of destiny coming to accept her true calling, come to give the CGI-heavy action (which is often far too weightless and explosion-heavy despite some nifty oners that seem inserted at the request of James Gunn more than anything resembling Craig Gillespie’s style) the emotional gravitas missing from the first half. At one point, she lets out a primal scream into the cosmos, unmistakably reminiscent of Charlize Theron as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. There is an especially moving, more tonally and melodically appropriate cover of a popular 2000s rock song during the action-packed climax, further elevating that while also feeling entirely within Craig Gillespie’s wheelhouse as a filmmaker who has always been skilled at weaving in jukebox musical aspects (which is likely one reason he got the call from James Gunn).
Milly Alcock’s performance is complemented by Eve Ridley, single-minded and laser-focused, hell-bent on finding and killing Krem. The closer she comes to fulfilling her mission, especially after repeated failures, Rutheye becomes more intense and dismissive of Kara’s warnings. Jason Momoa is the odd one out, pretty much playing himself by way of Lobo; there are traces of something less comedic and more of a straight-faced bloodthirsty antihero, although it doesn’t come out nearly enough in a character who often looks ridiculous underneath the ashy makeup. Still, too much of it feels like the performance he always gives.
Not unlike the loose definition of “good” given to Kara, Supergirl is a solid outing not without flaws, mostly winning out thanks to its sincerity in caring about its damaged characters, with Craig Gillespie following in the James Gunn way.
Flickering Myth Rating– Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
