Kara is a young woman with a tragic past, a rebellious streak and two good friends – her dog Krypto and her latest bottle of booze.
She’s been drowning her pain ever since she lost her parents, her home and nearly everyone she loved on the doomed planet Krypton – the same world that also gave birth to her more famous cousin, Superman. On her best days, Kara is Supergirl, a fearless champion of justice.
But she hasn’t had many of those days lately.
When we meet her, she’s waking up on a couch after another night of drinking, surrounded by empty bottles and trash. Her dog has even been forced to relieve himself indoors because she’s been too intoxicated to take him outside.
Kara is cynical, jaded and burdened by grief. So when a young woman named Ruthye enters a bar asking for help tracking down the ruthless Krem – the man who murdered her parents – Kara leans over to Krypto and mutters, “Not our problem.”
Everything changes, though, when Krem strikes Krypto with a poisoned dart before escaping with the antidote. Kara now has only three days to catch Krem before Krypto dies, forcing her to team up with Ruthye for a dangerous mission.
Will Kara and Ruthye find him before it’s too late?
The new film Supergirl (PG-13) follows the story of Kara (Milly Alcock), who made a drunken, profanity-filled cameo at the end of 2025’s Superman. Little has changed since then. DC Studios’ co-CEO James Gunn based her character on the comic book series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which portrayed Kara as a hard-drinking party girl who stands in stark contrast to the Man of Steel. (“He sees the good in everyone and I see the truth,” Kara claims in the new film, explaining that Superman escaped Krypton as a baby, while she experienced the death and destruction that he escaped.)
Supergirl does have a redemptive arc, but, unfortunately for families with young children, it takes a long time to get there.
Adding to those concerns is the movie’s relentlessly dark tone – both visually and thematically – and its frequent violence. It feels like a cross between a DC superhero film and Mad Max, with nearly every character appearing battered, dirty and worn down as they fight – and often kill – simply to survive. The film includes multiple stabbings. We watch Ruthye’s parents murdered. In one graphic scene, a man has a sword driven through his throat.
The hope and optimism that made 2025’s Superman so refreshing are absent. Instead, Supergirl spends most of its runtime in a bleak, cynical world, offering optimism only in its closing minutes, when Kara finally embraces the Supergirl mantle and tells Ruthye that her drinking days are behind her.
Of course, many origin stories begin in darkness before the sunshine breaks through. But this film spends so much time in the darkness that the light doesn’t arrive until the closing minutes. Kara’s redemption is satisfying. I only wish the journey there were quicker.
Entertainment rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Supergirl is rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, action, language, and smoking.
Language details: s–t (10), a– (2), b—-rd (1), OMG (1), single misuse of “God” (1), “whore” (1).
