Supergirl has made the move from cinema screens to home viewing, following a run in theaters since late June. This time Kara's story trades Metropolis for deep space, and the DC Universe's second big screen chapter is ready to watch whenever you like.
Craig Gillespie directs from a script by Ana Nogueira, sending Kara after the adversary responsible for hurting her dog, Krypto, alongside an unlikely companion for the ride. It's adapted from Tom King and Bilquis Evely's celebrated comic Woman of Tomorrow, and the film leans into that book's mood: less a rescue mission, more a revenge story that stretches across the galaxy. Milly Alcock plays Kara, Jason Momoa turns up as the bounty hunter Lobo, and David Corenswet's Superman gets a supporting turn in his sister's film for once.
The film's strongest scenes are the flashbacks to Kara's childhood on Krypton, which give her grief real weight before the story turns to revenge. Momoa's Lobo, played with heavy metal swagger, is the most purely entertaining part of the movie, and Alcock earns the most credit of all: her scrappy, hard edged performance is the reason to stay with the film even when the plotting around her turns generic.
That split verdict shows up in the numbers too. Supergirl is sitting at 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a 49 on Metacritic, and a 6.1 on IMDb, a solidly mixed reception for a film that clearly wanted to do something rougher with this corner of the DC Universe.
It suits anyone who wants their superhero story with some grit on it: a revenge plot instead of a rescue, a grief stricken hero instead of an untouchable one, and a dog at the center of the stakes instead of a city. Go in for Alcock and Momoa, and treat the rest as a mixed bag worth seeing for yourself.
