(courtesy IMP Awards)
One of the modern unsettling aspects of modern moviegoing is being caught in the often violently opinionated of dissenting opinions online.
Run of the mill reviews aren’t the problem there; they’re often on the mark and they give you a reasonably cohesive consensus of whether a film is worth your time in the cinema, or later via a streaming platform, or honestly not at all.
Sometimes, though, and this happens more often than an optimistic summation of humanity is comfortable with, the reviewing process goes toxic, driven by vested interests who, more often than not, have a particularly distasteful axe to grind.
In the case of Supergirl, let’s not give the review bombers any more publicity than has already been afforded them, but suffice to say, the film is a perfect example of how a great film can be driven to the online opinionatory depths by a group prosecuting their argument based purely on ideological bases alone.
The sad fact of the highly aggressive reviewing bombing that Supergirl has attracted, and to be fair it has its detractors in the more established and hopefully objective reviewers camp too (see Rotten Tomatoes for example), is that it doesn’t even remotely take into account that while the film isn’t perfect, it still has a huge amount of very entertaining things going for it.
This reviewer went in to see Supergirl partly as a “f**k you” to the foul-minded and darkly intentioned review bombers, but also to see if the redeeming features many social media users were happily sounding off about (all tinged with disbelief at how much negativity a film they loved had attracted) were actually in evidence and not the product of negativity-opposing wishfulness.
The good news is that Supergirl is a LOT OF FUN.
It may not have the fully-formed mix of expertly executed seriousness and playfulness that 2025’s Superman near effortlessly managed, but one thing Supergirl definitely does have is a knack for manifesting a sense of steampunk mischief, much of it courtesy of the bravura performance by lead, Milly Alcock.
Portraying Kara Zor-El as she’s officially known – “supergirl” is just an easy to latch onto marketing term of sorts for the people of Metropolis and one steeped in more than a little misogyny as another character hints at in the film – from a dissolute, angry 23-year-old who spends her birthday roving the galaxy getting smashed at every Star Wars cantina-like bar she can find to a someone at ease with their painful heritage of galactically catastrophic grief and loss, Alcock absolutely excels.
She is appealingly adept at finding the vulnerability and raw broken humanity hiding behind the drunken, brawling, hangover-prone partygirl, investing her with a likability that more than hints at the fact that though she acts like a ne’er-do-well with no hopes and few prospects, she is actually a solidly decent person underneath.
That comes to the fore one night in yet another buoyantly-realised bar on the planet of Bilquis where a tragedy-trampeled young woman, Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) enters seeking people to help avenge her family who were ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- murdered by a Brigand known as Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts).
Kara is not inclined to help the clearly out of her depth teenager her any more than the rest of the bar’s denizens, but when a nasty piece of work steals her father’s one remaining sword (he was a master sword craftsman), Kara, who is deep down both good and kind, a product of a loved upbringing on Krypton and its forcefield-protected remnant Argo City, swings into action, and whether she likes it or not, she and Ruthye end up on a quest to track down Krem.
It needs to be noted here that Kara joins not to aid and abet Ruthye’s clearly misguided and ill-judged revenge quest but because Krem, face-studded, orange-eyes arsehole that he is ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- has speared Kara’s beloved pet dog Krypto with poison and her only hope of stopping her one remaining tangible link to her old life (Superman doesn’t count; they don’t know each other until Kara gets to Earth) dying and deepening her already soul-crushing grief, is to track the young woman-trafficker down.
Her decision to accompany Ruthye is heavily pragmatic, but as Supergirl gathers playfully executed pace, the bond between the two grows to be far more than one of mutually beneficial need and utilitarian quid-pro-quo.
It’s the deep sisterly bond that develops between Kara and Ruthye that gives Supergirl such a buoyantly uplifting heart.
While the film sports the usual kinetically intense, balletically muscular fight scenes, which are given added grunt and zest by a devil-may-care mercenary known as Lobo (Jason Mamoa eats this part ALIVE and it’s a joy to watch), and journeys from planet to planet with Guardians of the Galaxy meets James Bond narrative wanderlust (the world-building is imaginative, fulsome and culturally rich), it has an unexpected emotional heft to it that elevates the perilous moments and the many seemingly quest-ending setbacks that pepper the film with furiously fast-paced intent.
You get to the end of the film thrilled by the rollercoaster twists and turns of the storyline, buoyed by the endorphin-releasing sense of fun and devil-may-careness and alive with the adventure and furious fun of it all, but you are anchored by Alcock’s Kara who is tough, yes, and sometimes isn’t nice, true but who is, deep down, a good and kind person who selflessly helps another person who has suffered great pain, Ruthye, to avoid the tragic pitfalls and soul-blackening mess of her own life.
It’s inspiring and joyful to watch and though it sits among violence, heart-rending flashbacks and grief that will not, well, until the transformative events of film, die, it’s this rawly beautiful humanity that sticks and stays with you and gives the film such an involvingly relatable watchability.
Contrary to what the viciously nasty naysayers have said, Supergirl, at its core, is a clever, witty, heartfelt, fun-filled but emotionally meaningful superhero sci-fi film which sports brilliantly expansive, lushly immersive world-building, punchy, fully-formed characters, a kickass steampunk rock n roll vibe and an incisive thoughtfulness about grief, loss and the road beyond which grabs your heart tight and which endures far after all the thoroughly entertaining chutzpah of a film, which while it may not be perfect, is a thrill and a joy to watch and one of those films that you go to the movies for.