Supergirl

Supergirl flew into theaters June 26, 2026: the second film in James Gunn’s rebuilt DC Universe, directed by Craig Gillespie, starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El. Act one sets a countdown fetch quest. Krypto has been shot with a poisoned arrow. Kara has 72 hours to get the antidote from the brigands who shot him, which they conveniently wear around their necks at all times. The movie then spends those 72 hours sending her to bars, shopping, riding the bus, and finally facing those bad guys in one of the muddiest, most boring act-three fights any superhero film has staged. This is slop put on a screen. Supergirl, more like Super Slop.

Kara Zor-El spends her twenty-third birthday on a red-sun planet where Kryptonians lose their powers and she can get drunk. We are led to believe she spends most of her time on red-sun worlds being belligerently drunk: Krypto, bottles, dodging cousin Clark’s calls when he just wants what is best for her. A girl named Ruthye marches into the bar demanding help killing Krem of the Yellow Hills, the brigand who slaughtered her family. Kara waves her off until Krem shows up, shoots Krypto, steals her ship, and starts the three-day clock. From there it is a revenge road trip across the galaxy, with Jason Momoa’s Lobo wandering in as a biker bounty hunter. The film adapts Tom King’s Woman of Tomorrow, a Supergirl comic the internet already widely disliked. People involved name-drop True Grit and John Wick. Nothing on screen feels like it belongs in this adolescent DCU.

The story runs on an “and then” engine. This happened. And then this. And then this. Scenes do not flow by cause and effect; they stack by convenience. The brigands just happen to find Kara’s parked ship, steal it, shoot the dog, and shove her into the plot. Ruthye just happens to find the one bar Kara is drinking in. Lobo just happens to be sitting in the next bar they stumble into. Later he just happens to be captured by the same brigands, yet he is strong enough to break out whenever he wants. In act three their headquarters just happens to sit on a planet with oscillating yellow and green suns, and the green sun just happens to neutralize Kara when the writers need Ruthye to have more to do. In the finale they have kryptonite arrows because they just happen to have kryptonite on hand and just happen to clock that she is Kryptonian, which is nearly improbable given what they know. Lobo himself is pure convenience: Deus Ex Lobo. No character, no arc. He arrives when the heroes are cornered and leaves when they are free. A plot crowbar with a motorcycle.

The writing feels like an early chatbot draft from three years ago, banking on an audience that will not ask questions. High emotion when the score says high. Low when it says low. Empathy demanded whether anything was earned. Tiny conflicts are invented out of nothing. In act one Kara and Ruthye, two people chasing the same man, stop to argue whether Ruthye’s revenge will get in the way of saving the dog. Both want Krem dead. There should be no fight. The film invents one anyway. Why? I do not know.

Across two films now, Gunn’s DC cannot let a Kryptonian feel powerful. Superman spent his movie getting humbled. Kara spends most of hers depowered, beaten through walls and tossed like a crash-test dummy, always unharmed in a way that still feels fake. Writers who say Superman is “too powerful to write” do not understand Superman, or Supergirl. The only story they can see is one where she is nerfed, and when powered she is still not as super as she should be. Combat feels artificial. Reasons to care evaporate. Vulnerability was the intent. What we get is an unlikable hero, and Alcock’s performance does nothing to sell the Supergirl underneath.

Krypto is dying on a clock. This is supposed to be a race. Kara still has time to shop at a space 7-Eleven more than once. Time for a heart-to-heart where she dumps exposition about Krypton. Time for space arm-wrestling with thugs in bar number two instead of pressing the mission. If she is not in a rush to save her dog, if there is time for quips and aura farming, I am not going to care about the plot, because the movie does not.

Supergirl also continues the Krypton bastardization Superman (2025) started: Jor-El and Lara as eugenic conquerors who sent Kal-El to Earth to take it. People wondered how this follow-up would handle Kara, who was on Krypton and would remember. The answer doubles down in the worst way. The film implies Superman’s parents alone believed in conquest; the rest of Krypton did not. Kara’s parents were good, benevolent leaders. So Jor-El stays character-assassinated, and Superman’s parental legacy stays poisoned. That is Gunn’s style here: not honoring the relationship with the parents, just finding it funny. Ha ha, what if Jor-El were a space Hitler, but only him? Comedy gold.

The movie has a problem talking about good and evil, like a lot of modern Hollywood. It chants “be good” without defining the word. Sticky moral greyness is easier when you do not believe in the old poles. The villain gets almost no characterization and a terrible design. Instead of earning investment in him or his fodder, the script assigns the worst TikTok-brained sin on offer: slave-brides. Horrible, yes. Also the cheapest shortcut imaginable. If I had a nickel for every Gunn DC movie with a strange sex plot device, I would have two nickels, which is not strange if you know Gunn, and is strange because there are only two movies.

A ticket costs admission plus two hours wishing you were somewhere else. Don’t Waste Your Time. 1.0 out of 10. Nothing redeemable.