DCU Movie Review: Supergirl (Gillespie, 2026)
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
I saw Supergirl last Friday and I honestly thought it was good, but definitely not great.
Pros first:
All the alien designs in this movie are weird and awesome and I love it. I haven't seen this much diverse weirdness in aliens since... I wanna say the original Star Wars trilogy, they are all so creative and real-looking to me with a lot of cultures going with them. Love it when sci-fi stories do that with alien cultures to expand the universe the story is in. Following that, I also like the civilizations with their food and languages on the planets Kara and Ruthye go to. Also, props to one of the planets named Bilquis as a reference to the artist of Woman of Tomorrow, Bilquis Evely. I love that easter egg, and it reminded me of the street names in Metropolis named after Superman comic writers and artists in Superman.
I also enjoy the Krypton and Argo City flashback scenes in how we get our first proper look at Krypton; big white skyscrapers, with gold decor on them to have a sort of 20s/30s Art Deco architecture to them with. I'm always a mark for Art Deco stuff.
On that note, the scenes with kara showing how her life was back when she was born on Argo City years after it floated away from Krypton are pretty good. It adds in to Kara's character and how she sort have always felt like an outsider to everyone. She and Krypto are pretty much what is left of Krypton by all accounts. I mean Clark was born on Krypton but was flown away when he was just a baby as the planet exploded, but Kara was born way after Argo City flew off, essentially making her a part of a post-Krypton generation. As such, she was there to see the last remnants of a culture that's about to die soon. And seeing that argument between her and her dad about having fly away in a ship reminiscent of the same ship Clark flew from but bigger to carry Kara really hits, especially with her dad, Zor-El, telling her that she's not just her soul, but also her mother's soul, his own soul, and every single Kryptonian's soul. In a way, this makes her the Last Daughter of Krypton then. Add that with the fact that the only living piece of that part of her life is Krypto, who she first met during her mom's funeral and also went with her in the ship flying to Earth just gives how alone she is and why Krypto is so important to her. Also, that scene of Kara in her small apartment in Metropolis looking out the window to see buildings that reminds her of home, but with cut through by the sounds of cars honking and planes flying to give her the feeling of the place being so different and makes her not fit in initially is just so good to me in showing and not telling the audience on Kara's isolation from Earth. Hell, Milly Alcock did good with Kara and her emotional journey throughout the movie.
But enough about the mushy stuff, now let's go to the MAIN part of the movie I want to talk about: Lobo! He's, by all definitions here, perfect. He looks great, he fights great with his hooked chain (although I wouldn't mind seeing him with some guns), he has his cigar, his Space Hog can transform to a land form with wheels on the ground and a space form for a jet for flight, he even says "Bastitch" one time. Jason Momoa FINALLY got his dream role and he nailed it here! And the funny part is, this movie nails Lobo as a character in this movie due to the fact that, for the most part, he doesn't fit into the story. Oh, don't get me wrong, he does have sort of a role here, primarily in the climax where he fights the Brigands alongside Kara, but the reason he's fighting the Brigands is because of a job, not to kill Krem, but the second-in-command guy. Lobo doesn't really care about Ruthye's revenge mission at all, he just wants to finish his job and go home, which has always been Lobo's motive in mostly everything as a galactic bounty hunter: wake up, take a job, go do said job, chaos ensues, kill the target, get paid, go home. That's it. And the main part of all of it, is Lobo's methods are so over-the-top, it's just straight-up hilarious to see it all unfolds. And the movie got that excellently.
Other than Lobo, the flight scenes are nice, the fight scenes are great, and Krypto is Krypto so of course he's always great. We even have puppy Krypto. Do I have to say more than that?
Corenswet also did great as Clark again and I just love his role in this story of not being an overbearing figure for Kara, but as someone that Kara can talk to when she has the time. Clark does check in through the video call on her ship in the beginning, but it's clear that Clark still sees her as her own person that just needs time to find her place in the world. It's clear that he did provide Kara with an apartment on Metropolis and it's nice to see him give Kara her own suit. It's just great to see Clark just be a great cousin for Kara.
As for cons, I have some issues with the story. Now I understand that most of these issues comes from how Gillespie's movie adapts from King's original comic story and how different they are and that, to me at least, feels a bit unfair because most film adaptations aren't 1:1 adaptations that copy everything from the original source and, for the most part, the film versions can be arguably better than said source (i.e. Marvel Comics Civil War and the MCU Civil War, and the It film adaptations). And there are differences here: Krem is the leader of the Brigands compared to the original comic where he joins them in issue #3, Krem kills Ruthye's entire family in the movie compared to just her dad in the comic, the planet Barenton having a green sun AND a yellow sun as a way to homage issue #5 and Kara slowly getting poisoned by the green sunlight, and Comet doesn't show up, sorry Comet fans. There are bigger deviations her though come from how shortened the journey Kara and Ruthye go on to find Krem. In the comics, the journey spans for months, probably even a year given how Ruthye grew a bit taller over the course of the story. In the movie, the journey is just three days because now the poison inside Krypto plays a role here instead of being a lie Kara told to Ruthye in the original story. Other than that, the movie is just a more condensed version of Woman of Tomorrow... until the ending.
Now in the comic ending, Ruthye finally has Krem where she wants him and just as she's about to kill him, she misses and every time she tries again, she still keeps missing. Kara then shows up to tell her the reason for this whole journey is to teach her that following this path to revenge fueled by loss should not be the answer to this, that there are better ways to go through this by helping those who need it in these horrific times. However, as Ruthye drops her sword and turns away, Kara picks it up and is ready to kill Krem for all the horrible stuff he commited with the Brigands. It only took Ruthye to convince Kara to not kill him, showing that she did learn about not being driven by revenge, to not continue this endless cycle of violence and how killing Krem won't fix anything. And so, Kara doesn't kill him and instead sent Krem to the Phantom Zone where he became a prisoner for his crimes there for 300 years.
In the movie though, the finale started the same way; Ruthye about to kill Krem, Kara telling her that killing him won't solve everything and that she should just walk, and Ruthye doing so. The difference is that when Kara picked up the sword, she kills Krem. Ruthye doesn't even stop her, Kara kills Krem after she picks up the cure from him. Ok, I know that villains dying in Superhero movies is a common trope even though some of those times are on the villain's own hands, but there are definitely going to be issues when a hero does it, and especially here. Having the movie's theme be "revenge and killing is never the answer to those who commit horrific acts" and end when the hero of the story kills the villain is... contradictory to say the least and pretty much defeats the purpose of said message. Now, given how Krem and the Brigands do straight-up traffic young women and some of them are definitely pedophiles, I can see why killing him is the best choice really instead of just putting him in space prison. Although if the idea to bring him to a space prison is made, then the movie would probably have to introduce the Green Lantern Corp. to promote Lanterns coming out next month, and the DCU doesn't really promote future projects in their films that much.
There's also that needle drop scene of Kara attacking Brigands in a dust storm surrounding Ruthye that sets to a cover of The Middle which I just find to be weird and Gillespie just trying to copy the Five Years Time scene in Gunn's Superman. And I also would like to see more scenes with Ruthye and Kara, like a recreation of Kara teaching Ruthye how to wash her hands in that space stop restroom like in issue #2 of the comic, just to show them growing closer.
Even without the comparison to King's original story, Supergirl is still good, although it doesn't wow me as much as Gunn's Superman did. But knowing the fact that there are those that resonates more to this movie than I did is great! I'm honestly happy to see people love this movie more than I do and it shows just how great it is to see characters not as well-known in DC get their time to shine on the big screen! Unfortunately, the movie isn't doing well financially which is a shame, but Peter Safran did say that this just a road bump in the grand scheme of the DCU. Which yeah, the MCU didn't do well financially with 2008's Incredible Hulk, but it still kept going and look where it is now after the millions and millions of dollars it got. So, I hope its the same with the DCU despite the hiccup, but I wouldn't mind if Supergirl made back it's money for the studio.
Sorry for the late post, holiday stuff came up, but now here it is. Check out Supergirl if you can, its still good despite my complaints, and I can't wait to see what's next for Kara in the future, as well as a potential Lobo series!














