Supergirl 2026 Movie Review—Bold, bruised, and full of attitude, but not enough lift to soar

As DC Studios’ first female-led superhero movie, Supergirl had the chance to soar despite the weight of expectations—instead, it mostly struggles to get off the ground.

There's a storytelling adage that in order to build something up, you have to tear it down. You can't rise to new heights without sinking to your lowest. And it's in that pit of despair that we see Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock). With the memory of Krypton's gradual destruction fresh in her mind, Kara celebrates her 23rd birthday drowning in ennui and alcohol, drinking away her days in planets under a red sun and roughing it with the alien scum of the universe, much to her cousin Superman's (David Corenswet) dismay.

Putting the brakes on Kara's party wagon is Ruthye (Eve Ridley), an orphan asking for help seeking revenge on the bloodthirsty brigand known as Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), who killed her family in cold blood. When Krem crosses paths with Kara and poisons her dog Krypto and escapes, Kara needs to sober up and reluctantly team up with Ruthye in a wild chase across the galaxy if she wants the one good thing in her life to survive!

Supergirl makes it very clear that Kara is her own character with her own set of baggage. Expect a goody-two-shoe Kryptonian like Clark/Superman and you're in for a rude awakening. Milly Alcock embodies the world-weary and jaded Kara Zor-El while still managing to be strong and likeable. Together with her unique sense of justice and goodness, Kara manifests fully formed despite this being her first solo movie.

Eve Ridley's Ruthye stands as an alternate track to Kara's personality, and her tunnel-visioned doggedness is endearing despite her being otherwise useless. Speaking of, Jason Momoa basically plays himself as Lobo in a glorified cameo. While comic accurate as they come, Lobo's addition offers nothing new nor changes the plot in any way. 

Meanwhile, Matthias Schoenaerts is positively revolting as Krem of the Yellow Hills (a sobriquet so meaningless that you wonder why it's included at all), with a menacing performance that knows the audience wants a villain you love to hate. But you can't just be hate-able—Krem is dull and boring otherwise, barely a character than a metaphorical hump for Kara and Ruthye to overcome.

Because Supergirl is more concerned with themes of survivor's guilt and trauma while still wanting to be a fun superhero movie, and the incongruence feels iffy. Kara is at her most interesting when she is at her lowest, that when she does fully embrace the Supergirl persona in the last 15 minutes of the film, it feels more like obligation than anything else. It doesn't help that Craig Gillespie's direction is drab and uneven, making fantastical alien locales and enormous action set pieces seem mundane. The result is a movie that makes for cathartic rather than entertaining viewing. 

And I really wanted to like this, too. Supergirl spends so much time proving Kara Zor-El isn’t just her cousin Superman that it forgets to stop you from wishing she were.