Supergirl Review: Milly Alcock Soars in a Lifeless Adaptation

SALT LAKE CITY, UT (See It or Skip It)– There is a fantastic Supergirl movie buried somewhere inside this one. Every time Milly Alcock takes center stage, you catch a glimpse of it.

It’s just a shame the rest of the movie never catches up.

Warning: This review discusses minor plot details from the first half of the film but does not reveal major twists or the ending.

The Story

Supergirl, directed by I, Tanya and Lars and the Real Girl’s Craig Gillespie, is the second feature film in James Gunn’s DC Universe and stars Milly Alcock as Kara Zoe-El, younger cousin of Kal-El AKA Clark AKA Superman. Audiences were given a brief introduction to Kara at the end of Superman, explaining that she prefers to frequent planets orbiting Red suns to dilute her powers and increase her ability to get hammered.

We start with Kara celebrating her 23rd birthday with Krypto, the adorably misbehaved superdog that she brought with her when evacuating her homeworld. As she delves deeper into the bottle at some dive bar on another planet, a young girl, Ruthye, carrying a killer sword and a taste for revenge against an evil human trafficker, Krem of the Yellow Hills, enlists an unwilling Kara to help her bring justice to her family. Things become personal for Kara when Krem poisons Krypto, leaving her only 3 days to get the antidote from Krem and save the last connection to her past.

What Supergirl Is Based On

The story is based on the comic run written by Tom King with vibrant artwork by Bilquis Evely, and is touted as one of the best Supergirl stories ever made. Having read the series myself, it seems Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira skimmed the surface, took the same names and overarching narrative, and left the cosmic beauty, depth of characters, and connection that the comic brought in exchange for a Mad Max, Guardians of the Galaxy tone that ruined any originality that could have been in this dull, poorly written adventure.

Milly Alcock Delivers

The best part of Supergirl is by far and away Milly Alcock’s performance as a woman with unlimited power, trapped in a grief spiral and mourning the loss of her family and her culture. She can be cruel and mean, but soft and funny. When the story shifts to showing her backstory is where I think we get the best from Alcock, as well as a short but meaningful performance by David Krumholtz, playing her father Zor-El. Alcock elevates everything in this story, but makes glaringly apparent that she is having to carry most of the story on her own. I hope to see much more from her in future projects, with the hope that they serve her character better than what was done here.

Lobo & Supporting Characters

One of the big marketing pushes for Supergirl is promoting the silver screen debut of Lobo, an immortal hitman with a Motorcycle of death and a chip on his shoulder. This character has been a dream for Jason Momoa to play, and he absolutely embodies “the main man”. He gives a playful wild card in the story, showing up at just the right time, multiple times. A lot of his moments felt like they were added in, and while I think he understands the character and did as much as he could, this just wasn’t the right story for him to be involved with. Plus, one incredibly out-of-pocket line at the end sealed for me just how lazy the writing was.

Krem of the Yellow Hills is a very generic villain of the week. From his looks to his mannerisms, Krem feels like he was ripped out of an underwritten Guardians of the Galaxy script that ended up being scrapped. The tonal imbalance of him being literally a human trafficker to punk rock jokes makes for a tough watch. There could have been more done with him and Ruthye, but it seems that time was given to Lobo instead.

As for Krypto, I understand in this story he needs to be fridged for Supergirl to agree to help Ruthye, but for them to do the exact same thing in Superman significantly diminished the impact here. At this point, one has to wonder if James Gunn is unable to write a story without putting an animal in danger to service the main characters’ motivations, or if he just really loves his dog this much.

The Colorless World of Supergirl

One of the things that made me excited for Supergirl was the hope that they would adapt the visual feast that the source material had to offer. Cosmic swirls of vibrant colors that would have been jaw-dropping to behold on an IMAX screen. But sadly, Gillespie and cinematographer Rob Hardy went the complete opposite, giving us an ugly, dusty, mud-colored adventure with distractingly bright background lighting and Netflix-style hues that make the soundstages look noticeably smaller and less realistic. I did appreciate the attention to detail in the production design, and the practical costumes for the aliens did give a nice nostalgic vibe. But it feels like such an enormous miss to not lean into what made this comic run so astounding to fans of the character.

Conclusion

Supergirl proves Milly Alcock is exactly the right choice to carry Kara Zor-El into the future of the DC Universe. Unfortunately, nearly everything surrounding her, from the screenplay to the visuals to the underdeveloped supporting cast, keeps her from reaching full praise.

If Superman made me excited for what comes next, Supergirl made me nostalgic for the comic it could have been.

See It or Skip It? Skip It