Supergirl (2026) Review: Milly Alcock Soars

Milly Alcock’s stellar performance as Kara Zor-El makes Supergirl a good time, even though the film is far from perfect.

Milly Alcock is phenomenal and why you should go see this space adventure. She embodies everything fans have grown to love about Kara Zor-El over the years and will undoubtedly inspire a new generation to pick up anything and everything related to The Girl of Steel. This film’s emotional highs only work because Alcock is such a tremendous performer who brings all of the good and bad of Kara to the screen. We witness this girl go through tragedies most of us wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies and unlike her cousin, Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman (David Corenswet), there wasn’t any way that Kara could’ve avoided them. It’s not easy to believably showcase trauma like Alcock does here, and there were several times where she made me want to wrap her up in a hug. 

With so much tragedy surrounding Kara, it makes sense that this girl has had a hard time figuring out her place in the world, choosing instead to drink under a red sun so that the effects of alcohol work on her despite her Kryptonian heritage. This gives audiences a point of connection with our lead, since we’ve all faced that point in life when we’ve got no clue where we belong, what we want to do, and if finding out either is even worth it. You’ll understand Kara, and then go on this ride with her. It’s clear how different she is from Superman, with Alcock channeling a tough, party girl attitude, but Kara also has a calming presence like him at the same time. Watching her come into her own is so satisfying due to Alcock’s authentic performance.

Unfortunately, she can’t do it all by herself, and that’s what makes Supergirl kind of frustrating. The film is based on “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”, a comic book miniseries written by Tom King and illustrated by Bilquis Evely, and for the most part, screenwriter Ana Nogueira does a decent job of translating this story from page to screen. It was awesome seeing moments and characters that I’m quite familiar with brought to life.

Nogueira nails the heartache, silliness, and triumph of Kara’s journey. Where she runs into problems is with characters around our lead. Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley, of The Witcher), a young girl who watched her family be killed by our main antagonist, space pirate Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts, of The Old Guard), gets a decent arc centered around trauma and revenge that rightly makes her a nice parallel to Kara, but she has some of her best moments taken from her for no reason. Meanwhile, Krem, who wasn’t an iconic villain in the source material, isn’t improved here. He’s now a human trafficker for no other reason than to pad the runtime, because apparently being a murderer wasn’t enough. 

Krem becomes a discount Mad Max villain in Nogueira’s hands, with none of the intrigue, and she’s lucky that this story is more known for being a tale of revenge and finding your place in the world rather than Kara facing off with someone fans are familiar with. She had the chance to make Krem legendary and didn’t even try. 

I’ll give Nogueira some more credit though;, she found a way to make the alien mercenary and bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa, of Chief of War) fit into this narrative without taking too much attention away from Kara, which was a genuine concern I had coming in. Lobo plays his supporting role well, looks cool doing it, and leaves. Jason Momoa is a well documented fan of the character and you can see that in his performance. It doesn’t feel like you’re watching Momoa, unlike when he portrayed Arthur Curry/Aquaman in the previous DC universe. No, this is Lobo, complete with his cigar, and Momoa is having such a blast here which should rub off on you. 

Visually speaking, the colors don’t pop in Supergirl like they did in Evely’s art, but we are taken to a collection of planets that are populated by weird creatures and have their own unique traits. Shifting things away from Earth for the second chapter of the DCU was a great choice and makes this film stand out from Superman. A lot of Kara’s powers and her flight sequences look pretty good as well, especially early on. It’s truly a dream come true watching her beat the daylights out of bad guys and fly around with a smirk on her face.

Unfortunately, when we reach the third act, I’m inclined to believe that those in charge either ran out of time or had no idea how to film such a large scale superhero movie finale. Things just become hard to watch, with Kara and everything around her looking embarrassingly fake and clouded by hazy visuals in an attempt to mask that they’re filming on a soundstage. Even the parts of this sequence that they use in the trailer look like a haphazard, janky sequence from a video game. It’s a shame, since director Craig Gillespie and the rest of this crew did fairly well for portions of this film. However, it gets to a point where it’s obvious that they were out of their depth.

The third act also treats us to one of the worst needle drops in the history of superhero films. Supergirl features a lot of quality music that fits Kara’s energy, which is partly why the third act needle drop during an action sequence came off as so out of place. I won’t spoil the song, other than the fact that the film used a cover version. During a narrative that tugged at my heartstrings through its story and performances, the use of this song felt like a mediocre attempt at a Barbie “What Was I Made For?” moment. They didn’t need to do that, when Milly Alcock and company were doing what needed to be done for audiences to be moved by what they were seeing. 

Supergirl should be better than it is, but Milly Alcock’s magnificent performance as Kara Zor-El/Supergirl makes this a good enough space adventure. Its flaws are clear, but having issues doesn’t make a film one of the worst things ever made. This film is faithful to the source material for the most part, features a special lead performance, and ultimately made me smile as I left the theater.

Supergirl will be released in US theaters, in UK & Irish cinemas, and globally in theatres on June 26, 2026.