Supergirl is annoying.
Not "Kara Zor-El", the character created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino in 1959. After nearly seven decades of constant reboots, reinvention, redundancy, resurrection, and reinterpretation across various entertainment mediums, Supergirl has earned her place in the DC pantheon.
What’s annoying is sitting through a film containing so much squandered potential. There are disappointing movies, and then there are frustrating movies. Supergirl is both.
Directed by Craig Gillespie (Cruella, I, Tonya), the story follows Kara Zor-El as she wanders the galaxy carrying the guilt of being the last survivor of Argo City of Krypton. She travels to galaxies containing red suns to lose her Kryptonian powers so as to numb herself with alcohol and fisticuffs. When she crosses paths with Ruthye (Eve Ridley; The Witcher; Isadora Moon), a young woman bent on revenge against the mercenary Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts; Rust and Bone), she is forced to aid her in her quest when the mission becomes suddenly and immediately personal.
On paper, it’s a compelling premise.
On screen, it’s egregiously detached.
Ana Nogueira’s screenplay (based on the controversial Tom King-penned maxiseries "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow") should have been a haunting meditation on survivor’s guilt. However, the screenplay repeatedly informs us of Kara’s emotional wounds but rarely allows us to experience them organically via performance. Instead of discovering her pain through action and choice, the audience is frequently asked to accept it axiomatically because the dialogue insists upon it. "Implication" replaces "development" and "exposition" replaces "trauma". It violates a major rule of visual fiction: "Show; don't tell".
Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) does her best with the material given her. She fills in many (but not all) of those emotional gaps through performance alone. She conveys exhaustion, regret, guarded compassion, biting cynicism and, most importantly, PTSD even when the dialogue doesn’t fully support it. Her chemistry with Eve Ridley, who in many ways acts as her foil, is extremely effective. Together, they provide the film’s strongest emotional current. That dynamic is the film's strongest point.
The cinematography is a CGI-laden visual wonder. Gillespie and his creative team construct a galaxy that wears it's Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Mad Max influences on it's proverbial sleeve. The dusty, amber-hued dystopian set design reflects Kara’s emotional isolation, creating imagery that often communicates Kara's state of being more effectively than the screenplay itself.
A hero is only as good as their nemesis. Unfortunately, Matthias Schoenaerts’ "Krem" never becomes the monster the story desperately needs. Or rather, not in the way the film requires. He’s neither terrifying, engaging, charismatic, nor tragic. He’s merely irritating; gratingly so. A great villain elevates the hero. A mediocre villain simply occupies screen time. It's like "Mr. Ditkovitch" from the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films undergoes a villain arc wherein he suffers a mental break due to Peter Parker's chronic lateness with the rent and bedazzles his flesh and dons BDSM leather. That performance, if it can be called such, succeeds only in taking the viewer completely out of the film.
But the film's biggest problem is that it suffers from an identity crisis. It's not directed by DC Studios' head honcho James Gunn, but Gillespie tries to direct it as though it were. The film is replete with, shall we say, missapplied "Gunn-isms". Gunn has cultivated a recognizable cinematic identity over the past two decades. His films juxtapose absurd comedy with genuine pathos, "needle drops" with emotional sincerity, grotesque violence with childlike optimism. and manages to deftly juggle irreverence with solmentiy and gravitas. Gunn knows how to take those ingredients and turn them into a satisfying recipe of entertainment. That's Gunn's vision. While Gillespie shares some of those sensibilities, films like Cruella (2021) show he has his own unique voice which is unfortunately muted here. That’s the difference between an aesthetic and an authorial voice. Aesthetic can be copied. A specific voice cannot.
Supergirl repeatedly borrows the external trappings of a James Gunn film—its irreverent humor, eccentric supporting characters, sudden tonal pivots, and self-aware dialogue—but without the underlying narrative architecture that makes those choices feel organic. The result isn’t homage. It’s imitation. Given the success of last year's Superman (directed by Gunn), it's not surprising that that route was taken. The rub is that imitation, no matter how technically proficient, almost always evokes the original and robs the imitator of it's own identity.
For example, the aformentioned "needle drops" made sense in Gunn's Guardians of The Galaxy trilogy because they were organic to the character of Starlord/Peter Jason Quill. The use of familiar "Earth" music in Guardians wasn’t simply a stylistic flourish. Peter Quill literally carried those songs into space. They were his last tangible connection to home, to his mother, and to the life stolen from him as a child. Every song had narrative justification. In Supergirl, similar musical choices often feel decorative rather than motivated. At one point, alien characters are effectively performing Earth songs despite having no meaningful connection to Earth itself. Damnation by misapplication. It’s a small detail, but it illustrates a much larger issue. The film remembers what Gunn did but forgets why he did it.
Jason Momoa’s "Lobo" is another example. Jason Momoa clearly has the time of his life playing the character he has said in interviews he was born to play. You can’t fake that kind of enthusiasm. Every scene crackles with energy because Momoa completely understands the assignment (even though he's playing an "R" character in a "PG-13"-rated film). He revels in it. Unfortunately, in this film the character is practically unnecessary. His presence serving only to signal that this is still the same interconnected DC Universe established by Gunn. The irony is that Supergirl shouldn't need that reassurance. If anything, it needs the confidence to stand on its own. Instead, Lobo occasionally feels like a guest star wandering in from a different movie—one whose tonal identity is already fully formed. Take him out of the procedings, and it wouldn't affect the story one bit.
David Corenswet’s brief appearances as "Clark/Superman" provide some of the film’s clearest emotional moments. Rather than overshadowing Kara, they quietly reinforce who she is—and more importantly, who she isn’t. In many ways, those scenes reveal the movie that Supergirl might have been.
This isn’t a bad film. It’s a fragmented one. Its performances are stronger than its screenplay. Its imagery is stronger than its storytelling, and its ambitions exceed its execution.
Ultimately, Supergirl is enjoyable enough as it unfolds, but leaves surprisingly little emotional residue once it’s over. Like so many popcorn summer blockbusters, it’s easy to consume. It’s simply harder to remember. By the time the credits roll, Supergirl has left remarkably little behind besides attractive imagery and unrealized potential.
And that is the greatest disappointment of all.
