Supergirl Movie Review: A Bold New Dawn for Krypton

The setup is refreshingly simple. An earth-shattering adversary - the scarred, hulking Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) - commits an atrocity that hits Kara Zor-El not in Metropolis, but in her own backyard of Midvale. Rather than waiting for Superman’s cosmic diplomacy, Kara reluctantly teams with Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a fiery young alien woman whose own family was destroyed by the same monster. Their journey: track Krem across a lawless stretch of space. Along the way, they cross paths with a bounty hunter named Lobo (Jason Momoa, chewing scenery like a prize cigar), who offers a devil’s bargain. The plot is essentially a revenge road movie: motel stops become asteroid dives, bar fights become zero-gravity brawls, and every truce feels temporary. The script, adapted from Tom King’s Woman of Tomorrow comic arc, respects the source material’s tragic undertone while allowing for surprising humor.

The film’s greatest strength is its willingness to make Supergirl unfamiliar. Alcock plays Kara not as a polished hero but as a traumatized young woman whose super-strength feels less like a gift and more like a curse she can’t shake. Her performance aches with a fatigue that makes the action sequences land harder: when she punches, it’s less about showing off and more about survival. Eve Ridley’s Ruthye serves as the heart - a cynical, grieving sidekick who refuses to let Kara wallow. Their chemistry is prickly and real, like two broken people learning to trust on the run.

Director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella) knows how to frame chaos. The action scenes are visceral, favoring tight close-ups and sudden, jarring cuts that mimic the unpredictability of a bar brawl. The space sequences, meanwhile, are bathed in a cold, copper-toned palette that feels equal parts Blade Runner and Cormac McCarthy. But the film isn’t flawless. Jason Momoa’s Lobo is a glorified cameo, a scene-stealing role that should have been a major third-act presence. Instead, he appears, delivers a few gravelly one-liners, and exits piecemeal. It’s a missed opportunity. Similarly, David Corenswet’s Superman appears only in a fleeting hologram message - a tease that feels less like restraint and more like a budgetary compromise. The tone also wobbles: one moment we’re watching a child witness a massacre, the next we’re seeing Lobo make a joke about spaceship insurance. The whiplash is jarring.

Pros

• Milly Alcock delivers a career-defining performance, imbuing Kara with raw vulnerability and volatile rage.
• The interstellar revenge-road-movie structure is a welcome departure from typical superhero formulas.
• Eve Ridley and Alcock share a magnetic, emotionally grounded chemistry that anchors the chaos.
• Craig Gillespie’s direction turns every fight into a tight, messy brawl that feels dangerous.
• The 108-minute runtime ensures no scene overstays its welcome - tight, efficient storytelling.

Cons

• Jason Momoa’s Lobo is criminally underused; his charisma feels wasted in a handful of scenes.
• The tonal shifts between grim violence and broad humor occasionally feel disorienting.
• Superman’s cameo is a narrative dead end that adds nothing except fan service.
• Matthias Schoenaerts’ Krem is a one-note villain: menacing but lacking depth or motivation.
• The copper-and-gray color grading, while striking, becomes monotonous by the third act.

Supergirl is not the definitive take on the character, but it is the most interesting one we’ve seen in years. It’s a film that dares to let its hero be angry, sad, and reckless - features often sanded down in the house of DC. Milly Alcock proves she can carry a franchise on her shoulders, and Craig Gillespie proves that even a superhero movie can be a character piece if you strip away the spectacle. The 6.148 rating feels like a hasty consensus from a crowd expecting a cape flick, not a grimy space western. Ignore the number. Watch it for Alcock. Watch it for the audacity. This is the kind of middle-finger storytelling that the genre desperately needs.