Supergirl: Milly Alcock carries this movie on her cape
Director Craig Gillespie’s addition to the DC Universe remains faithful to its comic book roots, but the cosmic adventure lacks colour and conviction.
Kara Zor-El, Superman’s cousin, who would eventually become Supergirl, was added to the comics in 1959, and has – to put mildly – had a checkered history, which includes being killed off as part of DC Comics’ first great continuity reset in 1985 and brought back in multiple variants ever since. Kara has had a previous film vehicle (Supergirl, 1984) and TV series (Supergirl, 2015-21). An elseworlds version (‘elseworlds’ are what DC call the multiverse) also showed up in The Flash (2023) but was killed off to make way for James Gunn’s reset of DC’s film universe. This traumatised party girl iteration of Kara (played by Milly Alcock) first appeared in a coda of Gunn’s Superman (2025) and now gets her own showcase – though it takes a while to get her out of a grumpy hangover (and a Blondie t-shirt) and into her bold S-insignia outfit.
Craig Gillespie (whose previous works include Lars and the Real Girl (2007) and Cruella (2021)) is the latest in a line of non-auteur directors of solid B+ movies to be given the big canvas of a superhero saga. His Supergirl does something almost unprecedented in the field of comic book adaptations. It’s a relatively faithful adaptation of a comics miniseries (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King and Bilquis Evely) with only minor tippings-in to explain the heroine’s origins and allow for a Jason Momoa guest shot as ‘fan favourite’ alien bounty hunter Lobo, who is basically DC’s Deadpool take on Wolverine. Tom King fairly obviously built his story on Charles Portis’ novel True Grit, and the film seesaws between the viewpoint of bereaved child Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and Kara. Ruthye is on quest for vengeance against the outlaw who murdered her family, the fairly generic space barbarian baddie Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), and enlists Kara as her semi-reluctant heroine.
The comic offers a different take on Supergirl, whereas the film must skew back to an origin story. Gunn is still a presiding influence, and this space opera universe has some of the crowded, comic-sleazy feel of his Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel, though it could use a bit more of their colour and eccentricity. Literally no Earthlings appear, even in a few scenes set on earth. Alcock is good enough to carry Supergirl through its ropier stretches, though the ending is a fudge compared with the Woman of Tomorrow comic and the film can’t get out of its key plot bind – the bad guys must die, but the heroes need to be better people than their murderous counterparts.
► Supergirl is in UK cinemas now.