'Supergirl' review: Milly Alcock's high-flying hero has her charms

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

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Trying to channel the defiant streak of Iggy Pop’s “Punk Rocker” that helped close out last summer’s “Superman,” the DC Studios revamp continues with “Supergirl,” a film I walked into fully prepared to dislike. Instead, I came away mildly won over, thanks largely to Milly Alcock, who injects real personality and irreverence into a genre that has recently felt more mechanical than inspired. Her presence doesn’t fix everything, but it gives the film a pulse, and that alone goes a long way.

That’s not to say Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl” avoids the genre’s most persistent pitfalls. The film is weighed down by murky, discolored CGI sludge, culminating in a final battle that’s less a climax than an exhausting visual blur. The villain, Krem, is equally underwhelming, a smarmy presence saddled with wafer-thin motivations and a design that feels distractingly artificial rather than threatening. Yet for all its aesthetic clutter, the film finds unexpected footing by scaling its story down. In an era where superhero narratives are obsessed with universe-ending stakes, “Supergirl” benefits from focusing on something more personal and contained, even if it occasionally struggles to balance its ambitions.

Adapted from the “Woman of Tomorrow” comic and following Kara Zoe-El’s brief introduction at the tail end of James Gunn’s “Superman,” the story opens with Kara (Alcock) on the verge of her 23rd birthday. She’s drifting through space in a Blondie shirt, numbing herself with alcohol on red-sun planets where her Kryptonian physiology allows her to actually feel its effects. It’s a clever bit of world-building that also doubles as character insight, framing Kara not as a polished hero but as a restless, self-destructive wanderer.

Her aimlessness is interrupted by Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who recruits Kara for a revenge mission against the Brigands, the gang responsible for murdering her parents. Chief among them is Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), a villain whose voice-box distortion and dotted-up face can’t compensate for his lack of genuine menace. Their conflict escalates quickly, especially after Kara’s beloved dog, Krypto, is poisoned, setting a three-day clock on his survival. With Krem being the only one who possesses the antidote, the film morphs into something resembling a stripped-down, sci-fi “John Wick.” It mostly works, if only because the emotional throughline remains simple and clear.

Along the way, Gillespie stages several action sequences that, while uneven, occasionally spark to life. A standout involves Kara taking on a scrappy band of space pirates, while utilizing a cleverly deployed teleportation device hidden within a space bus, a sequence that leans into the film’s more playful instincts. Elsewhere, Kara and Ruthye stumble onto an incel-dominated planet run entirely by men who commodify women for reproduction, a concept that feels both pointed and just underexplored. It gives the film a chance to inject some bite and lets its leads cut loose against a gallery of grotesque antagonists.

Then there’s Lobo, a vampiric, cigar-chomping bounty hunter played with obvious relish by Jason Momoa, who seems more energized here than he ever did as Aquaman. His presence is spattered throughout but memorable, hinting at a more chaotic corner of the DC Universe that the film only begins to tap into.

Still, “Supergirl” never quite finds a consistent rhythm. It juggles multiple arcs, wedges in a belated origin story midway through, and sidelines Krypto for long stretches, which feels like a miscalculation given how effectively the film uses him as an emotional anchor early on. Krem never evolves into the formidable adversary the story needs, and by the time the film reaches its bloated finale, it’s clear that spectacle has once again overtaken substance.

And yet, the film remains watchable, even intermittently engaging, because Alcock keeps grounding it. Her performance carries a scrappy authenticity that sells both the humor and the weariness baked into Kara’s journey. The “rah-rah” empowerment angle mostly lands, not because it’s novel, but because it’s anchored in a character who feels bracingly imperfect. Add in a soundtrack that pulls from Halsey, Eagles of Death Metal, Modest Mouse, and Sleigh Bells, and there’s a consistent effort to give the film texture, even when the visuals, especially during the climax, fall short.

David Corenswet’s “Superman” drops in just enough to tether the film to the broader DC framework, though his appearances mostly serve as reminders that this universe is still under construction. Ironically, it’s Kara, not Clark, who gets the more compelling showcase here. Someone might want to break it to him that his so-called counterpart just walked away with the better movie.

Grade: B 

SUPERGIRL is now playing in theaters.