So here's the question everyone is really asking about Supergirl: does it actually deserve all the hate it's been generating online?
I walked into my Thursday-night IMAX showing with SEVERELY low expectations. The wall of online negativity had done its job on me, and I figured I was in for two hours of wincing. I wasn't.
I've got no interest in piling on, and even less interest in cheerleading. But I noticed something: as I write this, I still haven't seen a single review of Supergirl go up here on CBM. So I figured I'd be the one to step up with the honest version.
Where I'm Coming From (Nobody's Buttering Any Biscuits Here)
First, a little transparency, because for a review like this one it matters. Nobody comped my seat. I bought early IMAX tickets for a Thursday-night screening with my own hard-earned money, same as a lot of you did.
So why hasn't a review hit CBM yet? Maybe everybody here has just been slammed. Or maybe, and this is only my hunch, nobody wants to be the first to poke the bear over at Warner Bros. Allow me.
Here's the part that matters even more. I've been lucky enough to walk pretty much every Marvel red carpet from Iron Man 2 through Avengers: Endgame. COVID ended that run for me (I had no interest in flying to California mid-pandemic), and the invites haven't exactly come flooding back since. Maybe they're lost in the mail.
Warner Bros., though? I've never been invited to a single thing. Not once. So understand that I owe them absolutely nothing. There's no relationship to protect here and no biscuit to butter.
And I say all of that as someone who genuinely LOVES these characters. I've lost count of how many Superman issues are sitting in my long boxes. If this movie were a disaster, you'd be reading a very different article.
About All That Online Hate
Here's where it gets interesting. The critics absolutely torched this thing. As I write this, Supergirl is sitting at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the first DC Studios movie of the James Gunn era to land a Rotten score. The audience number? A much warmer 76%.
That gap tells you almost everything. And some of the negativity got genuinely ugly - one major outlet's review spent a chunk of its word count on Milly Alcock's looks, which is a gross place to take a film review, and the backlash to it was immediate and deserved. She's a genuinely pretty girl after all. She may not be your cup of tea, but you're lying to yourself if you're calling her ugly.
I'll be honest about something I've noticed lately. A whole lot of this hate feels like people piling on to pile on, hopping on the bandwagon to be part of the in-crowd, with no personal experience to actually draw from. You don't have to look any further than our own comment section to watch folks troll purely to troll.
So I went in braced for the worst. Take what comes next with a grain of salt, because I'll be the first to admit I'm an easy mark at the movies.
Milly Alcock IS Supergirl
Let's start with the best thing on screen, and honestly it isn't close. Milly Alcock is phenomenal as Kara.
She nails the hardest part of this version: a Kara who's damaged, jaded, and carrying real anger, but still hopeful somewhere underneath all of it. That's a tough needle to thread, and she threads it without breaking a sweat. She's easily one of the highlights of the whole film.
I'm legitimately excited to see where she goes next. Her Supergirl is confirmed for Man of Tomorrow in 2027, and if this is the launch pad, I think she's going to be just fine.
Now, did she handle her early red-carpet and press interviews well? Absolutely not. She managed to insult and anger one group of fans while bending over backward for another, all without ever actually sharing her own opinion. But that's the press tour, not the performance, and in the end she's an actor who gets paid to act. On screen, she delivers.
Jason Momoa's Lobo Deserved More
Jason Momoa was BORN to play Lobo. Full stop.
Every second he's on screen the movie gets louder, funnier, and more alive. He's an absolute blast, and the casting is so right it's almost unfair.
My one real gripe? There simply isn't enough of him. You introduce a character this fun and then leave him parked on the bench for most of the runtime, and it feels like a flat-out waste. They have to bring him back for Man of Tomorrow, or somewhere down the road, because this is too good to use exactly once.
I'll flag one other thing while I'm on Lobo, even if it didn't bother me much in the moment. How he ends up where he does in the third act doesn't entirely add up. It works out great for the story, but it doesn't really make sense, especially once you see how he handles the brigands later on.
Krypto Is The Heart, And The Action Hits Like John Wick
There are some genuinely touching beats here between Kara and her parents, especially her mother. But the real heart and soul of this entire film is a dog. Krypto walks away with the whole thing.
You've probably heard the John Wick comparisons floating around, and they're earned. The entire revenge engine of the plot fires up because of what's done to Krypto, and if you know John Wick, you know exactly why that hits the way it does. It's my favorite action franchise ever, so consider me sold.
And I LOVED Kara's total lack of restraint. Watching her actually cut loose on the bad guys, with none of the kid gloves we're used to seeing from her cousin, is the way I've wanted to watch a Kryptonian throw down my entire life. Seeing her pound on Krem's brigands was the highlight of my night.
Give the filmmakers real credit for the small stuff, too. I loved how carefully they showed the different suns affecting her powers. There's one moment where she head-butts a guy, pulls back, and has cuts scattered all across her forehead from the hit, the kind of consequence a lazier movie wouldn't bother with. Those little touches run all through the film and the way her abilities work.
One more thing I have to give them: I liked Kara's costume more than I liked David Corenswet's Superman suit. They're clearly cut from the same cloth, but they kept her red skirt, and I'm so glad they did. Supergirl will ALWAYS have a skirt in my book.
I won't spoil how she finally deals with Krem of the Yellow Hills, the leader of the pack, but I'll admit I may have cheered just a little.
The soundtrack is solid. Nothing I'm rushing to add to a playlist, but it does its job. The action does occasionally move so fast that it's hard to track what's happening, and a couple of sequences lost me for a beat, but on the whole, seeing Supergirl truly let loose was worth the price of the ticket.
Where It Falls Short
Now for the criticisms that actually stick, because plenty of them are fair. The villain doesn't work. Krem doesn't look the part, he doesn't sound the part, he's just bad in every direction. For a revenge story to really sing, the person on the other end of that revenge has to feel like a genuine threat, and he never does.
Then there's Ruthye. I wanted to like her, and instead I got Jar Jar Binks levels of annoying. Maybe worse. How many times can one character be told 'stay here' and 'don't move' and then immediately do the exact opposite? I lost count. Seriously.
And here's the one that actually nagged at me as a lifelong reader. The movie doubles down on the idea from last year's Superman that Kal-El was sent to Earth by his father to rule over it like a god. Kara's parents go the other way entirely, telling her flat out that they can't send their daughter to be 'some sort of god,' and to instead help the people who can't help themselves.
I really hope the Kal-El version turns out to be a misreading of 'he'll have god-like powers,' which is closer to what Kara's parents tell her. I can't picture one brother telling his son to conquer a planet while the other tells his daughter to go do good and help those in need. That's not the Superman I've been reading for decades.
The Verdict
Seven of us went opening night, and the spread says it all. Two of us loved it. Two liked it. One landed on 'it was OK.' One didn't care for it. And one absolutely hated it.
That's not a film for everybody. It's also nowhere near the dumpster fire the internet desperately wants you to believe it is. There will be plenty of people who walk out grinning.
My honest prediction? This one finds its real audience on digital, once the critic noise dies down and folks can finally judge it for themselves without the bandwagon screaming in their ear. I think those reviews scared a lot of you off from the theater, and that's a shame.
For me, it's a 7 out of 10. Call it a 6 if you want me to be stricter, and fair warning, I'm an easy grade. The only superhero movie I've ever genuinely wanted to walk out of was Thor: Love and Thunder, and Supergirl isn't remotely in that conversation. It's a fun comic-book movie, and some nights that's exactly enough.
So that's my take, no agenda attached to it. If you've actually seen it, I want to know where you landed, especially if you're one of the people the trailers and the reviews scared away. Give me your real, firsthand verdict in the comments.