SUPERGIRL (2026)

It’s Kara/Supergirl’s birthday. Naturally, she is spending it doing what she does every birthday, or on most days really: going to a planet with a red sun where her powers don’t work, getting drunk and just generally not being much of a “Supergirl”. This all changes however when a young girl, Ruthye, pursues Supergirl’s help in seeking revenge for her slain family. Kara is uninterested, until Ruthye’s insistence leads to disaster for Kara’s beloved pet dog Krypto. Thus begins a journey of justice, realization and discovering what being a hero truly is.

Ruthye is a young girl who has just witnessed her entire family be ruthlessly murdered at the hands of Krem, leader of a group of galactic pirates and sex traffickers known as the Brigands. Naturally, she wants revenge. Taking her father’s prized sword, she journeys searching for someone who can get her to Krem. Problem is, she is a bad pairing of being unskilled and clueless and soon finds herself in some trouble at a bar. Enter Kara/Supergirl, who is celebrating her birthday at said bar with a good amount of alcohol, being able to get drunk due to her not having her powers under the planet’s red sun. A heavily inebriated, powerless Kara still manages to dispatch Ruthye’s attackers, however. This suggests to Ruthye that Kara is exactly the hero she needs.

There’s one problem, however. Kara has no interest in helping Ruthye. She just wants to continue drinking and hanging with her beloved dog Krypto, in an effort to escape her troubled, traumatic past, where she had to watch her parents and planet die then is forced to leave them behind. Ruthye doesn’t accept this answer and tracks down Kara on her spaceship. Kara still isn’t interested. However, as it turns out, Ruthye is being followed by Krem and the Brigands, who are still looking for her father’s sword.

In the ensuing confrontation, Krypto is shot with a poison arrow by Krem that will kill him in just a few days. Kara is now forced to go after Krem as he’s the only one who holds the antidote. She finally agrees to Ruthye’s request but refuses Ruthye’s desire to come with her. Ruthye proceeds to immediately sneak onto the transport ship with Kara, much to Kara’s annoyance. Let the journey begin!

Or rather, let the journey be quickly stalled by more bad guys, some additional incompetence from Ruthye and a slew of traumatic flashbacks as Kara gets sober for what feels like the first time in a while. After being ejected into deep space during an ambush of their transport and nearly dying due to not having her powers back, Kara receives a stroke of luck, a yellow sun. Supergirl is finally Supergirl again. The duo discovers from one of the bad guys that the Brigand do more than kill innocents. They also capture and traffic young girls to use as their “brides.” This of course gives the two of them a bit more incentive to find Krem, and a new, righteous objective to the mission.

Eventually, Kara and Ruthye wind up at another bar (big surprise). There, they encounter Lobo, a crazed immortal bounty hunter searching for another member of the Brigands, but who has no interest in helping them (nobody wants to help anyone in this movie). The couple who owns the bar, however, does want to help, but they actually may have some bad intentions of their own. Maybe Ruthye’s unbridled loyalty isn’t so bad after all.

On the surface, there are things to like in SUPERGIRL. The visuals are great, the soundtrack is fun, and the fight sequences are typical superhero movie-fare but overall enjoyable. Immortal bounty hunter “Lobo” (Jason Mamoa) is as crazy as advertised and has some of the best, most reckless moments in the entire movie. Also, though Supergirl is a reluctant heroine, she eventually relents, deciding to help people in need, protect the weak and take a stand against tyranny and injustice. There’s a flashback where she promises her mother to be “good,” a flashback that seems meant to inspire the viewer. SUPERGIRL also has a scene where Supergirl advises against revenge, saying that vengeance won’t satisfy you.

However, what SUPERGIRL the movie does well is sadly too often overshadowed by everything it doesn’t. The problems start with an uninspiring, morally conflicting script. As Supergirl, Milly Alcock does a great job balancing the Kryptonian hero with some serious moral flaws, but her character is never really given much weight to work with aside from a few traumatic flashbacks. It all feels very surface level, so a discerning viewer should expect the story to dig a little deeper.

The movie’s redemptive, moral content are also marred by some Romantic, pagan elements. For example, SUPERGIRL features a negative “every person for themselves” attitude worldview and an eye for an eye perspective. These elements include instances of drinking and being drunk, and strong violence that includes killing for sport and/or money

In addition, co-lead Ruthye (played by Eve Ridley) routinely puts herself into needless danger on her hunt for revenge despite being pretty much useless in combat. Meanwhile, Kara’s cousin, Kal-El aka Superman, couldn’t be any more vanilla, though he’s sometimes funny. Perhaps the most glaring issue, though, is that, in his limited appearances as Superman, David Corenswet still manages to steal the show, clunky dialogue and all. It’s not a great look for a movie that’s supposed to establish Kara as Superman’s super-cousin counterpart with an enticing backstory of her own to explore. It really can’t be overstated enough how little this movie seems to care about establishing their title character as a persona worth watching on her own, without needing an already established DC icon to swoop in and save the day.

Finally, SUPERGIRL has about 16 obscenities and a few crude jokes. This, coupled with the drunkenness and the movie’s strong action violence, leads MOVIEGUIDE® to give a warning of extreme caution for SUPERGIRL. We advise parents against letting their pre-teenage children see this movie. If Hollywood truly wants their superhero movies to be more financially successful, they should look to the first two SUPERMAN movies starring Christopher Reeve released in 1978 and 1980, or the first two SPIDER-MAN movies starring Tobey Maguire released in 2002 and 2004.