Pour one out for Supergirl, the latest installment in the DCU’s Gods and Monsters chapter, which has been beset by online troll attacks, mixed reviews, and a very disappointing opening weekend box office—not the outcome Warner Bros. was hoping for with this follow-up to last year’s Superman. It’s actually a pretty good movie, as such films go, but it’s not a great movie. And in today’s over-saturated superhero market, that’s just not sufficient to get people out of their homes and into theaters, rather than waiting for the film to come to streaming platforms.
(Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)
The studio tapped Ana Nogueira to write the script, a holdover from the former DCEU plans for a standalone Supergirl film. (The character appeared in the finale of 2022’s The Flash, played by Sasha Calle.) The project was reimagined when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over and launched the “soft reboot” DCU. Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, I Tonya) signed on to direct.
The story is adapted from the comic book miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which was partially inspired by the 1968 classic Western, True Grit. Gillespie envisioned his film as a kind of interplanetary road movie, with Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock) teaming up with Jason Momoa’s wild bounty hunter, Lobo, in a dynamic reminiscent of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn. Lobo ended up being more of a cameo appearance; he is not featured at all in the comic miniseries, which focuses on Kara’s budding friendship with a vengeance-seeking alien child. That’s the arc the film settled on, one that harkens back to the DC Comics Silver Age.
The film opens with a montage showcasing a rebellious Kara celebrating her 23rd birthday by bar-hopping around red star planets with her space dog, Krypto—because she can actually get drunk there, as opposed to healing/empowering yellow star worlds. (Green star worlds will kill her, which predictably becomes relevant later on.) She mostly ignores the concerned calls from her cousin Kal-El/Superman/Clark Kent (David Corenswet). She’s breezily cynical, while he embraces a naive optimism and keeps encouraging her to return to Earth and try to make it her home. But for Kara, home is wherever Krypto is.
Kara also isn’t inclined to be a superhero, although she does help young Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) when some bar lowlifes try to steal Ruthye’s father’s sword. But she declines Ruthye’s plea to help her find the man who slaughtered her family: a Brigand leader named Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts). Kara changes her tune when Krem hijacks Kara’s ship and shoots Krypto with a poison dart. Poor Krypto will die in three days if she can’t retrieve the antidote from Krem. The two team up, one seeking a cure, the other revenge. There’s also some sex trafficking thrown in, just to drive home the villainy of the Brigands.
A super antihero?
As with last year’s Superman, I was initially skeptical and then pleasantly surprised by how entertaining Supergirl proved to be. The plot is refreshingly straightforward without overpacking itself with super-character cameos like its predecessor. Like Kal-El, Kara must make peace with her past, but it’s a darker past, and hence so is the overall tone of the film. There are some humorous beats but Supergirl works best when it’s not trying too hard to be funny.
The strongest segments were the flashbacks to Kara’s childhood on Argo City. In this telling, while Kal-El was evacuated to Earth as a baby right before Krypton was destroyed, Kara’s father, Zor-El (David Krumholtz), figured out how to dome off the city in a separate chunk so it survived; Kara was born under the dome. But the surviving Kryptons eventually start dying of radiation sickness from kryptonite under the city, including Kara’s mother, Alura (Emily Beecham). After her mother’s death—Krypto adopts Kara during the funeral procession—Zor-El sends them both off to join Kal-El on Earth. She’s more of a super antihero than her clean-cut cousin.
Alcock, best known as the young Rhaenyra Targaryen on House of the Dragon, is terrific as Kara, combining manic pixie/burnout energy with hidden depths and vulnerability, plus she has a solid onscreen rapport with Ridley’s Ruthye. And Krypto naturally dominates his brief scenes. While Momoa’s appearances are welcome comic relief, he’s really just here to sow a bit of colorful chaos; he’s not a fleshed-out character. And Krem of the Yellow Hills is a rather dull one-note villain, despite Schoenaerts’ valiant efforts to make him something more.
Those are pretty minor dings. So why isn’t the film measuring up financially? Everyone seems to have an opinion, but there are likely several contributing factors, ongoing superhero fatigue chief among them. Fans weren’t exactly clamoring for a standalone Supergirl movie; the character barely appeared in Superman last year. Plus the trailers pretty much gave away the entire plot, which is completely predictable anyway. And the Hollywood Reporter cites competing versions and the proverbial “creative differences” between Gillespie and Gunn as contributing factors. But I think we can safely say the low box office is not because of “anti-woke” sentiments, misogyny, or Milly Alcock’s teeth.
While it’s received the lion’s share of hand-wringing commentary in the media (and invective from online trolls), Supergirl isn’t the only big-budget film to underperform at the box office this year. Masters of the Universe, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and Disclosure Day all fell short of expectations, although the latter at least recouped its production budget. Backrooms and Obsession are the big breakout hits thus far. Audiences are clearly hungering for something different, and while enjoyable, Supergirl just didn’t deliver on that. It’s that simple.
Supergirl is currently playing in theaters. It might not be an instant DCU classic—although I think retrospective assessments will be kinder—but on a scorching hot Fourth of July across a large swathe of the country, it’s a great way to beat the heat for a couple of hours. And we’ll see Alcock’s Supergirl again in next year’s Man of Tomorrow.
