Supergirl (2026 | USA | 112 minutes | Craig Gillespie)

Oh brother. Supergirl is a letdown.

The best thing it has going for it is Supergirl herself. Milly Alcock stars as Kara Zor-El, and she’s fantastic. It’s no small feat to make a hero this likable when she’s hungover for most of the movie.

It’s a shame to waste a burgeoning star on such a subpar film, but Supergirl was probably doomed from the start. The script feels like a buffet of superhero clichés masquerading as pop-culture feminism. The trajectory from Wonder Woman to Wonder Woman 1984 to Supergirl is a textbook case of diminishing returns.

Kara would rather spend her evenings at the bar drinking cheap whiskey, but she’s reluctantly pulled into young Ruthye’s quest for revenge against Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who murdered her family after backing out of a business deal he never intended to honor. Eve Ridley is a fine actress with a promising future, but I found Ruthye every bit as grating as she was precocious and brave. Supergirl has a vested interest in pursuing Krem when he poisons her dog. As a supervillain, though, Krem is no Thanos or Lex Luthor.

Jason Momoa appears as Aquaman Lobo, an intergalactic one-man motorcycle gang who shows up whenever it’s convenient for the plot. His performance is somehow both too over-the-top and strangely flat, and he never really establishes any chemistry with Milly Alcock or Eve Ridley.

Craig Gillespie has directed excellent films, particularly Lars and the Real Girl and I, Tonya, but Supergirl suggests he’s at his best when working with smaller, more character-driven stories.

There are a few enjoyable moments, like the way Wet Leg provides the perfect soundtrack to a fight scene, but they’re few and far between. Bizarrely, the film also features the most atrocious cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” imaginable.

This may count as a spoiler, but one of the film’s most baffling choices is having Supergirl drained of all her power beneath a green sun (whose radiation includes kryptonite), only to have her strength return almost instantly when the green sun sets and the yellow sun rises. The turnaround is so abrupt that it reminded me of Yoda telling Luke Skywalker to use the Force and then immediately cutting to the Death Star exploding.

Not every superhero has to save the world. Unfortunately, Supergirl can’t even save her own movie.

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Supergirl is now playing in theaters everywhere.