Forty two years after the Helen Slater cinematic Supergirl, DC Comics tries it again. After first playing Supergirl in an amusing cameo at the end of 2025’s Superman, Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) plays her again as the lead character in 2026’s Supergirl, which turned out to be one of the really big bombs of the year (so far). And, seeing how it took a big dive financially, that must mean Supergirl ‘26 must be pretty bad, right? No, not at all. Having just seen it, I have to say that, while far from being a cinematic masterpiece, Supergirl was still pretty enjoyable for me. After the unbridled optimism of 2025’s Superman, Supergirl aims for a darker, more intense interpretation of the superhero tale. And it’s very gritty: the film opens with an off screen Krypto the Super Dog pissing on a newspaper in Supergirl’s spaceship/RV, with a still-in-bed Supergirl congratulating Krypto on getting most of it on target.
Maybe this down and dirty tone was what turned off people from seeing Supergirl in the theater, and that's understandable. But Supergirl ‘26—based loosely upon the graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow—features a more forlorn Kara Zor-El who, unlike her cousin Kal-El (Superman), was old enough to witness the total destruction of their home planet of Krypton. While Kal-El was still a baby when he arrived on Earth, with no real knowledge of where he came from, Kara was already in her early twenties when she arrived here, and by then Kara had already seen some major shit in her life. Kara is essentially a refugee of a natural disaster who’s still suffering from the trauma, like any survivor with PTSD. This explains Kara’s more pessimistic, mistrusting attitude towards people. And this winds up being a far more interesting take on the character. Milly Alcock is superb in the role, managing to make her Supergirl still very sympathetic despite her flaws.
Supergirl is celebrating her twenty third birthday by doing an intergalactic bar crawl through planets with red suns. Kryptonians don’t have superpowers on red sun planets, and it’s only there that they can get drunk. Kara is partying hard in a bar when a young woman named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) announces that she needs a champion to help her seek vengeance against Krem of the Yellow Hills (the very good Matthias Schoenaerts), who killed her family right in front of her. What’s really cool here is the film shows that, despite being on a red sun planet that robs her of her powers, Supergirl not only can still put up a fight, but she doesn’t back down from one, either. And removing her powers makes the scenes when Supergirl regains them all the more special, with the fighting and overall action scenes being handled very well.
The entire film is a wild ride through the DC Comics cosmos, where they eventually meet the Main Man himself, Lobo, played by Jason Momoa. When I first heard Momoa was playing the bold, boisterous alien bounty hunter, I thought he was perfect casting. Yet Lobo wound up being one of the disappointing things about Supergirl for me, in that he’s not really given that much to do, and when Lobo is onscreen, he seems oddly subdued. There are some plot holes here and there, and the film’s pacing is uneven in spots. One wonders if this is a result of Supergirl having been re-edited by the studio, creating a different cut than what director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl; I, Tonya) had in mind. Despite the behind the scene shenanigans (the film’s music also went through three composers, which might explain some of the goofy song choices), Supergirl ‘26 is still an enjoyable popcorn movie romp. Instead of being just another epic quest to save the universe, it tries to be more personal film about a young woman’s struggles to find her place in it. --SF
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