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Gassed Action Hero

"Supergirl" is a film that works best when it leans heavily on its visual imagination and the sheer force of Milly Alcock's performance in the title role. Unfortunately, those bright spots are frequently eclipsed. Weighed down by weak writing, jarring tonal instability, and a truly terrible villain, the movie struggles to take flight. Given how much the film itself relies on the signposting of different colored suns to dictate its hero's power levels, evaluating the movie through that exact same lens feels appropriate.

Like Kara under a yellow sun, the film finds its true strength in Milly Alcock. She is the clearest and most vital asset, serving as the undeniable saving grace for an otherwise messy narrative. She gives Kara Zor-El a welcome bite, a simmering frustration, and a trauma-fueled energy that successfully carries the film's emotional intent. When the movie feels energized and alive, it is almost entirely because of her.

She is backed by a confident visual design, carrying the distinct hallmarks of James Gunn's touch in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" films mixed with the grimy, lived-in alien diversity of a Mos Eisley cantina. The supporting cast also offers a few unexpected bright spots, most notably David Krumholtz as Kara's father, Zor-El. The Argo City flashbacks provide essential grounding for Kara's backstory and ensure her deep-seated grief feels well-earned. They also draw contrast to Superman's own origins in this cinematic universe: where he has "found his people" on Earth, she has lost hers and is struggling with whether she wants to find new ones.

However, much of the film operates as if under a red sun - depowered, but still breathing. Craig Gillespie's direction is competent, though it never fully unifies the picture. The film swings big on a planet-hopping journey that has a personality quite distinct from 2025's "Superman." It is generally watchable even when the narrative foundation feels unstable. The action set pieces are engaging enough, though they boil down to the standard-issue Superman-adjacent formula of fists, flying, and heat vision. The visual effects are decent, and the fight choreography remains serviceable, even if the editing occasionally follows the modern tendency to chop the sequences up too aggressively.

More problematic is the central dynamic between Kara and her revenge-quest partner in crime, Ruthye (Eve Ridley). Rather than a compelling emotional bond that drives the story, their relationship lacks depth, feeling too often like a video game escort mission where the hero is saddled with dragging a fragile NPC across the galaxy. You can see what this relationship is supposed to do - help Kara find a path to having people in her life again - but it gets there too thinly.

Ultimately, it is the screenplay that acts as a green sun, the fatal weakness that actively poisons "Supergirl." Ana Nogueira's story manages the frustrating feat of feeling simultaneously underwritten, overstuffed, and structurally shaky. It aims boldly for a more traumatic, heavy space, but ends up creating a bizarre tonal whiplash that is glaringly emphasized every single time David Corenswet's hopeful Man of Steel appears on screen. The film simply never settles on what it wants to be. Is it a somber examination of trauma? Is it supposed to be funny? Or is it aiming for a try-hard blast of '90s irreverence? That final angle becomes painfully obvious with the introduction of Jason Momoa as Lobo. While his casting makes sense on paper, his chaotic, unbridled energy functions as a massive distraction rather than a consistently appealing addition, throwing the film's already fragile tone completely off balance.

Nowhere is this weak writing more apparent than with principle antagonist Krem, played by Matthias Schoenaerts. He is an awful, one-dimensional caricature: a space-pirate Russian mobster slaver who takes pleasure in shooting dogs with poisoned arrows. These details read as needlessly hyper-dark, edgy traits rather than genuine menace or fully drawn motivation. He is less of a fully realized character and more of a glaring signpost that plainly reads: BAD GUY HERE.

Despite these flaws, Milly Alcock remains the film's absolute center of gravity. She suggests a much better version of the movie than the one currently on screen, single-handedly keeping the narrative from collapsing into total incoherence. The screenplay simply does not support her with enough depth or shape, leaving audiences to hope she gets material more worthy of her talents in next year's "Man of Tomorrow." "Supergirl" is strongest when it feels visually confident and driven by its lead, and weakest when its script and tonal control begin to fray. The result is a superhero outing with real flashes of energy, but a severe lack of the dramatic discipline required to fully capitalize on them.