Editor’s note: This review contains plot spoilers.
The first Supergirl film in 42 years bears the heavy burden of being the second film in James Gunn’s new DC comics movie universe, led by Milly Alcock as the titular superheroine. The movie, directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, is based on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a 2021-2022 miniseries by writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely. Tom King, it should be noted, was a counterterrorism officer for the CIA, and besides an ongoing thriving comic career (which was “once” his “cover”), is currently also involved with HBO’s dull-looking Green Lantern adaptation. The long and the short of this film is that it handles surprisingly mature subject matter wedged into a rather clichéd film that doesn’t maximize the storytelling potential of the capable actress at its center.
Supergirl follows a predictable arc where Superman’s younger cousin must conquer the grief she feels from the trauma of losing her family and home, which she has been dealing with in the self-destructive manner of hanging out on planets where she won’t have her full powers and can get drunk, to take up her superheroic responsibility. Kara Zor-El is motivated to rescue her injured dog Krypto, who is poisoned by Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), the day after Krem kills Ruthye Marye Knoll’s (Eve Ridley) family (Ferdinand Kingsley and Emily Piggford as her parents Elias and Delilah, Bruce Lennox as her brother Emond) and burns down their house. Ruthye plans to use the family sword (which Krem was originally offered peacefully) to avenge her family, offering it as a price for someone to help her find him; Supergirl gets involved, so Ruthye won’t get hurt.
Krem leads the “Brigands,” a band of space pirates we later learn also kidnap girls from across space to reproduce their “all-male race.” It’s a pretty dark note, but the film might be commended for bringing something so heavy to bear on the modern superhero genre if it were engaged with a bit more thoroughly. Instead, it sort of just lays a pall over the film, almost ironically subverting the idea that Gunn’s DC universe would be so many shades emotionally brighter than Snyder’s. 
Rather, the film’s conflicts center on Kara’s character development and her attempts to protect Ruthye’s innocence by preventing Ruthye from killing Krem. Jason Momoa appears as Lobo, an iconic character created in the 90s to satirize the Punishers and Wolverines of the comics universe. Lobo is an immortal bounty hunter who looks like an oversized vampire biker, with a performance not entirely unlike Momoa’s Aquaman (in the last DC comics movie universe). Lobo is decent enough comic relief at points; unfortunately, as all of these movies are now afraid to just let the titular hero be the star, he steals some thunder in the climax in a way that feels totally undermining of the focus on a femme hero (we still have too few such solo movies—besides this, there’s Black Widow, two Captain Marvel films, and two Wonder-Woman films). Honestly, from his appearance in the Justice League cartoons of my childhood, it is hard to imagine people were clamoring for him to steal screen time in a Supergirl movie.
One enticing, if unoriginal note in the film is the use of flashbacks to deliver Supergirl’s backstory, emerging from conversations with Ruthye and dreams. In the past, David Krumholtz appears as Zor-El, Supergirl’s father and a scientist who protects their home city after the planet’s core implodes, and who later creates an escape pod for Kara. Emily Beecham plays Kara’s mother, Alura In-Ze, who instills in Kara a responsibility to always be “good,” which she says doesn’t mean Kara can’t be tough or that she has to be nice.
In slightly later flashbacks, as well as in the movie’s present day, David Corenswet reprises his role as Superman, still likable but considerably less compelling than in his standalone film. He eventually becomes a sort of prompt for Kara to see the Earth as her home and for that to be part of her arc’s resolution. Unfortunately, this is a poor payoff for a film that isn’t so much about her finding her home, much less caring about Earth, and is more about her finding herself. This contradiction creates an awkward disjunction in the conclusion; her return is certainly set up by her older cousin calling to ask when she’s returning (which is actually a sweet note they could have done more with), but her experience seems like it might lead her on a crusade against people-trafficking space pirates (a worthy calling, all things considered) rather than returning to Earth. It makes one wonder what exactly she learned, especially as her own anger is not so much dissipated as temporarily resolved with the violent catharsis she chooses to claim rather than let a child’s soul be ruined by exacting such vengeance.
Considerable work was clearly done by both practical and digital visual effects artists. There is a wealth of interesting-looking, real-seeming alien costumes, models, and puppets, as well as decent set design. Unfortunately, much of this is used in combat, where the cinematography and editing make it hard to follow the action. This film also replicates the bystander viewpoint used in last year’s Superman (there with Lois while Mr. Terrific fought villains; here with Ruthye while Supergirl does) to mixed results.
The biggest drawback of where the writing and the unremarkable action choreography meet is that it becomes uncertain exactly how strong Supergirl is for much of the film (at least once she’s exposed to a superpower-granting yellow sun). This isn’t for power scaling arguments or for nerd wikis—sometimes she can handle dozens of enemies in the blink of an eye, sometimes she has to take one guy at a time. Eventually, this can be read as a matter of willpower, but she never seemed to lack the motivation to survive. In any case, Alcock is sufficient in the role; I just wish she really got to indulge her acting abilities a bit more.
It’s a basic child-helps-protagonist-become-a-hero plot, with the cherry on top of having it clearly set up at the outset that Kara will don her costume at the climax of her emotional growth. Unsurprisingly, I find myself drawn to wondering what the connotations are of a superhero film where the plot becomes about fighting sex traffickers, adapted from an ex-CIA officer’s work. What does it mean to market a film as Supergirl, an icon for little girls, irrespective of whether the character is written by a feminist, to have her lesson be that she can resolve her quest for self-actualization after a week of drinking to go help out her older cousin? What are the implications of an all-girl gang (the Sklarian Raiders, played by Clara Rosager, Heather Agyepong, and Alice Hewkin) willing to give Kara information about the Brigands while accepting the notion that Krem will make short work of Kara? What are the implications of making the villains speak a language that sounds somewhere between Arabic and Central Eurasian?
The implications are of a truly dark galaxy, where the only thing standing between the innocent and the depraved are those truly special people willing to fight and occasionally kill to protect peace and virtue. It’s odd that their singers know “The Girl from Ipanema,” and that their world is so like our own.
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