Two and a half stars feels about right for this patchy DCU follow-up to ‘Superman’. Milly Alcock brings some swagger to Kara Zor-El, a drunken, wisecracking Kryptonian drifting between grim, red-sun planets rather than the classic caped defender of Earth. When her dog Krypto is poisoned and a vengeful teenager named Ruthye turns up demanding help, Kara reluctantly sets off on an interstellar mission that never quite finds its footing.
Director Craig Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira clearly wanted something punkish and irreverent, closer to ‘Mad Max’ than traditional superhero fare. The problem is the film cannot decide whether it wants to be dark and mournful or scrappy and comic, and it ends up feeling neither convincingly.
Jason Momoa’s Lobo, all cigar smoke and biker bravado, injects welcome chaos whenever he appears, and David Corenswet’s brief cameo as Superman only highlights how little warmth exists elsewhere.
Visually, the film leans hard into grubby, junkyard planets that soon blur together, and the villain Krem, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, feels like a discount ‘Mad Max’ reject rather than a genuinely menacing threat. Eve Ridley’s Ruthye is earnest but one note, forever declaring her thirst for revenge.
There is a good film buried somewhere in Kara’s grief, but ‘Supergirl’ settles for surface level angst dressed up as edge. Fans of DC’s expanding universe will find just enough here to stay curious about what comes next.
Movie rating: ★★½
