---
title: 'Supergirl Review'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=3aSMDb1jRaY'
video_id: '3aSMDb1jRaY'
date: 2026-06-24
duration_sec: 0
---

# Supergirl Review

> Source: [Supergirl Review](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3aSMDb1jRaY)

## Summary



## Transcript

After crashing through the fortress of
solitude to pick up her dog, Kara Zor-El
is back in Supergirl. It's a
hard-drinking, isolated version of the
character in a movie that brings a lot
to like, from western tropes to needle
drops. But, for every dog that needs
saving and young child that needs
role-modeling, can this rough-and-tumble
Supergirl be a new enough take on these
tropes to really soar? Or is it more red
sun than yellow? I'm Clint Gage, and
this is my review of Supergirl.
>> Two tickets from that dive bar.
>> Funny.
That's what I've been calling you.
>> Touché.
>> Going into this movie, I was excited. I
had real expectations. Before we even
get to the DCU of it all, I'm officially
a fan of Craig Gillespie. He's a guy who
makes movies that are all better than
you'd think they'd be. In Cruella and I,
Tonya, and Lars and the Real Girl, and
even Finest Hours, that boat broken half
rescue movie was surprisingly really
good. And these are movies that could
have easily become forgettable entries
in their particular genres, like just
another biopic, or another live-action
remake, or another movie about who's in
love with the sex doll. So, the prospect
of tackling a superhero movie with that
particular ability to elevate a film in
an otherwise tired category was
intriguing. And where the DCU is
concerned, I'm here for James Gunn's
universe. I've liked what's gone into it
so far, and I loved Milly Alcock's first
appearance as Kara in her cameo in
Superman. I think this version of
Supergirl is a blast, and her solo
outing didn't do anything to change my
mind on that front. But, this is also
where Supergirl starts to become a tale
of two movies. And for everything that
the movie does right, that thing's got
an alter ego that's doing it a little
wrong. As a result, the movie is this
shuffling few steps forward, few steps
back kind of slog that never really
finds a rhythm. For example, the
reluctant hero thing is actually very
difficult to pull off. It's hard to play
I don't care in in engaging way, because
if the character on screen doesn't care,
then I certainly don't care either.
Alcock manages it here about as well as
you could hope for.
>> Let's be honest, babe. [music] It's not
a very
high bar to clear.
>> Kara is a mess and there's [music] no
real concern with her ever not being a
mess as part of her journey. It's very
fun. And the other side of that coin,
however, is that she doesn't have much
of a journey. She's not a markedly
different person [music] at the end of
the movie than she is at the beginning.
And not because of anything she did or
didn't do as a character or an actor,
but because the story she's been put in
doesn't give her much to do at all. And
the result is a movie that sort of
flattens out and drags. And when she
first meets Eve Ridley's Ruthie, the
young girl out for revenge against the
man who murdered [music] her entire
family, Kara is protective, sticking her
neck out to do the right thing for a kid
who's in over her head. And by the end
of the film, Kara does exactly the same
thing. And part of the point there is
that it highlights the impact she has on
Ruthie. Ridley ultimately gets the
lion's share of the character work in
the film and her character's journey
winds up feeling far more complete than
Kara's.
>> He has 3 days. You cannot give up on me.
>> So, while Milly Alcock's performance is
a real strength of the movie and she
does pull off the reluctant hero trope,
it is a very familiar trope and the
shorthand that's used in portraying it
is a real [music] weakness. Familiarity
in general is another villainous plot
Supergirl tries to thwart. [music]
On one hand, the movie wears its
influences proudly. The comparisons to
James Gunn's work on Guardians of the
Galaxy have been obvious since the
trailers first dropped and we knew the
True Grit archetypal Western structure
would be a big part of the film because
of the source material, Tom King's Woman
of Tomorrow run.
>> [music]
>> A Mad Max influence is just as obvious
in the grimy, lifeless terrains and
dying worlds on which most of the movie
takes place. Planets where people
scratch for survival, but the old
reliable Mos Eisley Cantina should get a
shout-out as well. The alien design and
practical makeup effects and costuming
throughout the movie are genuinely
top-shelf. And clearly the customers in
Star Wars' most wretched hive were on
the filmmakers' minds. [music] And yet,
while I'll happily take True Grit meets
Mad Max by way of Guardians and Star
Wars, there still manages to be a dulled
edge to the whole movie. Instead of
taking the post-apocalyptic vibes of Mad
Max, [music] they lift a whole plot
point straight from Fury Road and handle
it, frankly, a little clumsily. And
instead of the emotionally relevant
needle drops of Guardians of the Galaxy,
Kara gets slow-paced montages set to a
Jimmy Eat World cover that I found
baffling.
>> Your eyes are beautiful, you proud
>> [music]
>> Luthor
>> The film's two other headliners fall
into these buckets as well. Matthias
Schoenaerts as the film's villain, Crim
of the Yellow Hills, looks incredible.
His whole appearance would make the
creature design team from A New Hope
proud. The beads studded into his face,
the machinery grafted into his body, the
weird little red button he needs to
activate to speak, all of it adds up to
a striking and genuinely pretty cool
image that would have felt at home in
the Thunderdome. But, they don't ever do
anything with it. Crim, for all the
post-apocalyptic biker gang aura he
generates, gets nothing else to go on.
He has some affectations that
Schoenaerts is clearly having a good
time with, like how he's eating
something in almost every scene, but
that's really all they are,
affectations. There's nothing that makes
him scary or formidable other than a few
throwaway lines about his relative
strength and the way other people on
screen are afraid of him. Meanwhile,
Jason Momoa's Lobo finds his way into
the movie as well. And the mostly
impervious anti-hero bounty hunter is
just as much fun as fans have been
anticipating. Now, cigar chomping gets
thrown around a little excessively
anytime a J. Jonah Jameson or a Hellboy
or a Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum from
Independence Day show up on screen, but
Momoa more than earns that descriptor in
all the best possible ways in Supergirl.
He looks the part as well with face
paint and prosthetics [music] that cut
the kind of imposing figure the fan
favorite deserves. But, Lobo doesn't
need to be there. [music] Characters
come and go in movies. Sometimes with
very little fanfare, sometimes playing
crucial roles in the story, and they
don't always have to be the latter. The
issue with Lobo is that he feels like
extra tacked on. [music] The one major
scene he has with Kara has real reshoot
energy. It's added on to a scene that
didn't need any extra motivation to get
to the next scene. Nor is he a
particularly unique foil for Kara that
propels her character in any meaningful
way. He just happens to be looking for
the same group of guys that Kara and
Ruthie are after. [music] The only real
added value he gives the movie is a few
admittedly fun one-liners, and [music]
maybe that's all Lobo needs to be.
Ultimately, he only shows up to put his
immortal stamp of approval on Kara's
actions, but that feels both unnecessary
and frankly more than a little
pandering, and it leaves me not entirely
sure what to do with it.
>> Stop.
You're hurting my head.
>> So, the story of this movie continues to
be they did it right on one hand, but on
the other hand, not so much. And as just
the second entry into Gunn's DCU, that
issue spills over into all the stuff
that comes with being part of a
currently expanding expanded universe.
On one hand, Supergirl needs to continue
building outwards to some extent,
[music] and this is another of the
film's strengths. Her scenes with David
Corenswet's Superman are wonderful.
That's not to say that Superman saved
the day here, or that Supergirl needs
Superman to be interesting. It's the
dynamic between the two of them that is
great. One positively [music] looking
towards the future, while the other
still nurses old wounds. I'm definitely
looking forward to more of this duo on
screen. But, on the other [music] hand,
where her solo film is concerned,
Supergirl needs to flesh out Kara's
backstory. And the structure of how and
when flashbacks are deployed in
Supergirl aside, because my personal
preference would have been a [music]
straight chronological telling of this
story as opposed to stopping in the
middle to tell [music] us her backstory,
I did find myself way more interested in
her time growing up on a floating
lifeboat of a city after the destruction
of Krypton. Now, there's work being done
there on both fronts as the film [music]
continues to build on the changes made
to Kal-El's origin story from Superman,
while also introducing another side to
that story via Kara. The present day of
the film, with all the cribbing from
True Grit and Mad Max and Guardians,
feels far [music] less fresh and
interesting than Kara's shielded
childhood on Argo. Again though, this is
Supergirl's biggest challenge. There are
a lot of things [music] that work
throughout this movie,
but there are just as many reasons why
they don't quite add up.
>> He sees the good in everyone.
And I see the truth.
>> And so, I'm giving Supergirl a six. Kara
Zor-El's standout moment in Superman
gets a feature-length follow-up that
almost gets everything right.
Unfortunately, that means it gets
everything almost wrong as well. Milly
Alcock is great as Supergirl, carrying
the weight of real trauma and cementing
a very cool dynamic with her on-screen
cousin. While the alien design and
practical makeup effects make the film a
joy to look at. Jason Momoa's Lobo and
Matthias Shonarts Krim [music] are just
as cool visually, but unfortunately,
they also don't have a lot to offer in
this entry in the burgeoning DCU that
treads more water than I would have
liked.
>> Now, let's party.
>> Oh, that might be a problem.
>> That is what I think of Supergirl. Let
me know what you think in the comments
below. And for more movie reviews,
you're already in the right place. Be
sure to subscribe to IGN wherever you
like to watch.