Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely is generally considered one of, if not the best, Supergirl comic book story of all time. And now it’s on screen in a generally faithful adaptation of the eight-issue miniseries, directed by Craig Gillespie with a script by Ana Nogueira, and simply titled Supergirl. Unfortunately, something has gotten lost in translation, as despite an excellent central performance by Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El and some fab alien creature designs, the new DCU movie leaps, but doesn’t soar anywhere close to the heights of the source material.
The plot follows the tipsy Kara celebrating her 23rd birthday in space, after picking up her dog Krypto at the end of last year’s Superman. Her main conflict, which spools out over the course of the movie, is finding a new home after the destruction of Argo City, a section of the doomed planet Krypton she happily lived on until age 16. Unlike Superman who only knew the kindness of his adoptive parents on Earth, Supergirl – she doesn’t like using that name, initially – is traumatized by having and losing her own happiness, and is seeking to drown her sorrows in the power-limiting light of a red sun.
Enter Ruthye Marie Knoll (Eve Ridley), a young girl who has watched her entire family be slaughtered by a ruthless brigand and human trafficker* named Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts). She enters a bar to hire someone to help her track down Krem and get revenge, with Supergirl somewhat unwillingly getting recruited in the process. And what follows is a 72 hour chase across the universe as the duo bond about their shared trauma while debating whether to kill – or not – Krem once they catch up with him.
(*Technically “alien trafficker,” but he only seems to traffic in human looking girls, so you get the gist.)
Alcock, it should be noted, makes an excellent Kara Zor-El, vacillating between strength and moments or emotional turmoil in equal measure. It’s rare that female characters get to be as messy as male characters, and Alcock perfectly channels her struggle between the movie’s central thesis of the differences between “nice and good” or “perfect and kind.” She’s a hero, but purposefully not a hero in the same mode as Superman, a guy who always knows the right thing to do and then is put in impossible situations that test that resolve. Instead, Supergirl almost deliberately sticks herself in impossible situations, challenging herself to break bad. It’s a complicated character that isn’t quite served by the relatively simple script, something that was helped in the comic book series by Ruthye’s omnipresent narration interrogating Supergirl’s emotional state throughout, both mythologizing and humanizing the character. Without that, we’re left to intuit through Alcock’s performance, which does most of the heavy lifting.
Ridley, who was a stand-out in a tiny role on Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, proves herself a solid screen presence here as Ruthye, as well as potentially a viable action star. It’s a role that is not dissimilar to Dafne Keen’s stand-out role as X-23 in Logan, and the whole “gruff superhero who is over it finding themselves again on a journey with a young girl” plotline is a strong parallel – though Supergirl doesn’t quite hit the sense of overwhelming sadness and loss the X-Men spinoff managed to nail. While Ruthye’s arc is more of a line (it’s Supergirl who goes through real changes), Ridley acquits herself well in the part.
The third member of the main trio is Jason Momoa, transferring from Aquaman to Lobo, a part that he seems born to play. And he is, strutting confidently into the role, though is a surprisingly muted presence given the usual over-the-top nature of the character in the books (note: he did not appear in the Woman of Tomorrow series). There are moments where Momoa’s natural charisma shines through, but mostly he’s there to support the main story which, while laudable, doesn’t necessarily let Lobo break out the way viewers (and Momoa’s multi-decade push to play the character) might have expected.
Other characters get less to do, and Schoenaerts is perfectly serviceable as the cackling villain. His design, which leans into aging metal-head, eschews the swashbuckler drawn in the comic, a much more intriguing choice (the villain looking like a hero plays directly against Supergirl’s unwillingness to engage in heroics). And David Corenswet gets a surprisingly large role as Superman, though other than one fun sequence where he welcomes Kara to Earth like an absolute dork, it feels like the actor shot everything in one day, under duress, in between takes on the upcoming Man of Tomorrow.
As I mentioned earlier, the best part of the movie beyond Alcock is the alien designs which are unique, clear, and fun, from goopy faced fish people and weird long-necked screaming things, to a tiny alien bus driver celebrity cameo that is more distracting than it should be. Part of that is because this isn’t the usual comic book based Easter egg hunt… There are no Dominators or Thangarians or any of the usual alien races from DC Comics; this is actually cosmic and alien, which makes the movie very much feel like its own thing.
Less successful are the flashback sequences set in Argo City, which will likely please DCU fans who crave continuity, but are filmed bright and flat, include stilted acting and dialogue, and an intense amount of exposition. They’re also somewhat awkwardly jammed into the movie at random intervals, pointing to a generally choppy way the hour and 48 minute movie gets to the action, but often loses the emotional texture and coherence that may have come with a longer cut.
This, in essence, is the biggest issue here: Supergirl doesn’t seem to have a strong point of view, either plotwise, emotionally, or visually. The plot skips and jumps off the book by King and Evely, injecting its own sequences in the middle of some of the mostly done-in-one adventures from the comic series. And that’s fine, but the new sections don’t really add much, while the recognizable, episodic bits only seem rest stops on an otherwise straightforward narrative.
Moreover, Supergirl wears its influences on its sleeves, particularly how much it owes to James Gunn movies. From the first trailers it garnered comparisons to Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, and it won’t escape those allegations. Kara has an iPod and listens to old music, for a reason revealed late in the movie, but watching scenes set in space as they zip to modern Earth songs makes one yearn for the colorful, poppy, and laugh-out-loud funny Guardians trilogy. That versus Supergirl, which amps up the muddy browns, possibly to attempt to smooth over some very janky special effects flying shots, and is mostly pretty serious
Other shots try to ape those Gunn relies on a lot, as the action swirls around one point-of-view character and the “hero” fights near them. Think Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) fighting while Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) cowers in wonder in Superman, and you’ll see directly where at least two scenes in Supergirl get their DNA from. And curiously, the plot also picks liberally from Mad Max: Fury Road, which does this visually indistinct film no favors by comparison.
But even beyond looking like a mockbuster version of Guardians or Mad Max, it’s unfortunate the movie looks so bland because Bilquis Evely’s pencils and Matheus Lopes’ colors on Woman of Tomorrow are stunning. It’s nice that folks will see the movie and pick up the book to find out where it was adapted from, but like with the frequent direct to streaming DC animated movies that adapt the story while eschewing the art, comics is a collaborative medium. It’s not that Supergirl should have animated in the style of Evely, though that would have been great. But not taking inspiration from the book as a mood board does the whole throwback adventure comics vibe of the story a disservice. Space should feel like a wonder; here, it feels like yet another grim slog.
Despite all that, Supergirl is not a disaster. It’s a perfectly serviceable movie that moves along at a relatively brisk pace, anchored by a strong central performance. We’ll be seeing Alcock again in next year’s Man of Tomorrow, and as a platform to introduce her and the differences between Kara Zor-El and Kal-El, aka Superman, it gets the job done. But Supergirl, as the title says, is the Woman of Tomorrow… With a movie so generally “fine,” you might forget the details of what you watched later on today.
Supergirl hits theaters on June 26, 2026.
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