Supergirl Review: Milly Alcock Makes It Worth the Ride
Despite a predictable story and uneven action, Milly Alcock proves she's the right Supergirl for DC's new era.
Supergirl, a.k.a. Kara Zor-El of Krypton, crashed into James Gunn’s new-new 2025 Superman for just a brief bit near the film’s end. Brimming with attitude, she called her cousin Clark a bitch in his Antarctic home, grabbed her rambunctious super-dog Krypto, and flew outta there.
Mileage may vary, but the characterization didn’t leave the best impression — though it served its purpose of differentiating this Supergirl from previous onscreen iterations. And it sharply distinguished her brand of super-heroism from straight-arrow Superman (David Corenswet), who sheepishly explained, “She likes to go and party on other planets.”
The party’s still raging for Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) in her own sci-fi action-adventure, Supergirl, as she’s off on a bender, celebrating her 23rd birthday on a planet with a red sun. Light years away from yellow sunlight, which gives Kryptonians their god-like abilities, she’s just a traveling spitfire, planet-hopping in her spaceship, getting wasted, with her loyal (CGI) dog by her side.
In an R-rated version of this, she’d probably get laid more, but she seems content to just get drunk, ignore Clark’s persistent catch-up video calls, and not be flying off to save the day somewhere. But then, one of her true friends is put in mortal danger, and Kara will have to come to the rescue.
It so happens that her rescue mission will coincide with another young spitfire’s quest for revenge. Pre-teen Ruthye (Eve Ridley) walks into a bar seeking someone brave, or ruthless, to help her avenge her murdered family, in exchange for a coveted sword in her possession.
She plans to first plunge that sword into the killer, a pin-headed rogue called Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts, convincingly menacing), the same villain Kara winds up pursuing.
So we have a reluctant team-up, a genre formula that director Craig Gillespie (Cruella) and screenwriter Ana Nogueira do little to invigorate. This is not a movie abundant with twists and surprises.
Rather, it’s driven by Kara coming to terms with her survivor’s guilt — since her whole planet and everybody on it perished — and stepping up as a superhero. Alcock, who portrayed a young Rhaenyra Targaryen on HBO’s House of Dragons, grounds her persuasive performance in grief and anger that Kara quells with booze. She’s a disillusioned heroine raging down her own fury road.
Oddly enough, the movie, based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s 2021 comic series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, recalls Mad Max: Fury Road in one of its darker turns, as Krem’s army of Brigands are revealed to be sex slavers capturing “brides.”
The further plot point that like-minded kidnappers and traffickers all frequent a particular planet definitely has real-world implications, as do the effectively creepy scenes underscoring how unsafe it is for a girl like Ruthye around this ilk.
The stakes aren’t intergalactic, but extremely personal and deadly serious. Characters die violently, if not bloodily, onscreen, and Krem and his band are murderous, monstrous thugs. The world in this movie really needs a hero, yet it takes a while for Kara to assume the mantle.
There’s plenty of action, of the hard-kicking, hand-to-hand variety you might see on a nicely budgeted episode of a TV series, but Kara doesn’t show up fully super-powered until the movie’s second act. We don’t see Supergirl in her iconic super-suit that much at all.
The movie also isn’t strictly consistent about the magnitude of her Kryptonian might. Krem is said to have the strength of a thousand men, but still, Kara is Supergirl — as long as she’s soaking in the yellow sun.
Luckily, she has another super-powered loner riding in to assist, immortal alien bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa), on his own mission that also happens to coincide with hers and Ruthye’s. Momoa plays the guy as so aloof that he makes genuinely no connection with either of them, though.
Lobo doesn’t add much to the bonhomie of the buddy comedy, despite being full of quips. He does bring some badass-ness to the major set-piece battle, which, true to the film’s producer James Gunn, climaxes with a slo-mo fight sequence choreographed to a pop song. Genre touches like that, along with the plot, and the Star Wars cantina vibe of the various space bars and hangouts, read a little too basic.
Alcock’s take on the hard-living superhero, however, feels fresh and rife with potential, whether Kara continues on her lone wolf odyssey across the universe, or she finally parks her space van, and finds a place to call home.
Supergirl (★★½ out of 5) is playing in theaters nationwide. Visit fandango.com.
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