Supergirl (2026) Review: Damn Near Perfect Character Study in Comic Book Movie Form

8.5/10.

THE MOVIE:

Supergirl is phenomenal. Not because it has an awe inspiring larger than life epicness to it, it is phenomenal because it is centered around its characters full stop. This is not a traditionally plotted movie; the plot is not the point. As in yes Krypto gets shot with poison, yes, they go and track down the bad guys, and yes, they win. That’s not the point that’s not just the fuel in the engine. It is a portrait of a young woman in trauma who is inherently good, but who is so hurt that she can’t stand to do good. She refuses calls for revenge not because she doesn’t care about justice, but because she feels insignificant to change things, because she doesn’t want to look at it, looking at it makes her care. This idea of not looking to avoid feeling is incredibly human, in a time of genocides, of government overreach. It’s overwhelming, its crippling to look at it. So as humans a lot of us choose not to look, to not acknowledge. Not because we are bad people, because some of us care so much and feel helpless to do anything to fix it.

That is Kara at the start of the movie. She has been through grief and trauma, and the world doesn’t make sense, she sees the “truth” of the world (or universes) unfairness and takes solace that that is just how it is. There is nothing more human than that. However, there are cracks to her not looking. She can resist the call to seek revenge for Ruthye’s family because she did not see it, but she can’t resist the call to stop a bully she does see steal from Ruthye. Caring for that little bit of bullying sets up Ruthye to pester Kara and for Kara to finally break. In a sense Ruthye forces her to look, not just at her situation but for Kara to look inward. To see that there are actions to take, that you can change things, that the world doesn’t have to be cold even if people in it can be.

So, we follow these characters casually moving towards revenge, which Kara denies because she’s still trying to focus on her own goals. She just wants the life she had back, a life she can’t have back, and so what she’ll go back to is being unfeeling, of not looking, which is no place to go back to. Kara knows she has the power to help but doesn’t think it’ll change anything, but it will of course.

Then she opens her eyes, her heart, she speaks her pain out loud and then she is Supergirl.

I think it is this basic thematic premise and throughline which makes the movie stand out so beautifully. And the fact that the two leads are phenomenal actors who both earn their arcs and action really creates a strong foundation for the movie to hang on. They are the heart and soul of the film, not the action, which is great, not the jokes, which are funny, but because these two characters care an awful lot about the world, about justice, but have a lot of pain to get through.

The villain is bad. People always bemoan the poorly written villain, or the villain that’s not interesting. But villains don’t have to be interesting. They can be, but a bad guy is sometimes just a generic bad guy who traffics young women. I don’t need to know his motivations, if he has a heart. I know he doesn’t or he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing. This movie serves up a villain who is cocky and assured and overestimates his own abilities like a lot of the manosphere cry-babies who bemoan the movie. What a perfect villain for Kara to beat the shit out of.

I would say the weakest point of this movie is Lobo. Jason Mamoa is having a ton of fun with the role, no doubt, but you could loose Lobo and still have a great film. He serves as a way to make the world feel lived in and bigger but his intricacies to the plot are spared from overwhelming it. The two leads get to drive the story forward.

I loved the music personally. The final needle drop at the end that people seemed to be mixed about is perfect for Ruthye’s character arc. It is the perfect send off to how she has felt in that moment, to what she fundamentally believes and what Kara wants to show her. That there are good people in the world, who will do something to stop the “that’s just how it is” apathy that exists everywhere. You can change things.

Supergirl is a top tier comic movie that seems to be trashed because it’s not what people wanted it to be, not on its own merits. I hope on rewatches people approach it with a different angle than what they wanted or expected. Because when you meet it on its level, this is one of the deepest superhero films that we’ve had in a while, and I want to see more of this hero.

SPOILER FOR THE ENDING

I’ve seen people be dismissive about the ending. That Kara is a hypocrite for killing Krem. I disagree. In comic book land apparently Krem is sent to the phantom zone, which I feel is a comic book invention to keep villains alive to recycled and reused. There’s so permanent death in the comic book world as characters are always resurrected or reimagined. I think in movie world, it’s okay to be rid of evil. We only are getting to many of these movies; we aren’t returning to Krem of the Yellow Hills ever again. It also sets up a clear difference between Supergirl and Superman. Both are good, but both approach that goodness in different ways. Supergirl chooses to end Krem to protect Ruthye, because Krem will not stop being Krem, he has no use but to harm people and delight in it. He needs to be put down.

NON-MOVIE INTERNET GARBAGE:

The way the internet took off before the movie was ever released to denigrate and talk down to this movie was always dooming it box office hell. Whether people claiming to fight wokeness, or manosphere cry babies who are too triggered by a woman led film to give it a shot, the movie was piled on hard. To the point that I was told that people heard it was bad weeks before it even came out, when no one would have had the opportunity to have truly seen it. And leading up to its release a cornucopia of negative reviews from trolls started popping up all over with generic grievances that didn’t zero in on any particular point that they were being negative about. That is what I will put down as the reason for the poor box office.

But then, the poor reception upon release, that’s what baffles me. I feel like there is another bad version of Supergirl out there that I did not see because the version I saw, even if you thought it was just okay, wouldn’t come close to bad or trash. That is what so many reviews are shouting from the rooftops, “the failure of Supergirl,” “why can’t female led superhero films be good,” blah blah blah. There were genuine concerns, like why didn’t a woman direct this movie, but then that was used as a bludgeon to call the movie terrible. Which is insane because the finished product I watched was great on almost all fronts.