Enough with the unnecessary hate.
It’s been nearly two months since Supergirl, the second feature film in the DC Universe, was released. Loosely adapting the 2021 Tom King miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the film follows Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock) from where we left her in 2025’s Superman; she’d been going to planets with red suns in order to drown her feelings in alcohol. She then encounters Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a young alien girl whose entire immediate family was ruthlessly murdered by Brigand leader Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts). They embark on a mission across the cosmos to stop Krem’s reign of terror after he poisoned Kara’s dog Krypto and he and the Brigands go to different planets to abduct women and young girls in order to repopulate their all-male race.
To be honest, I was expecting to hate this movie after hearing a lot of the not-so-positive reviews about the film, but to be honest, I thought this was a solid project, despite my own qualms with it.
First, I have to applaud how much attention is given to even the tiniest details like the designs of the random aliens we see throughout the movie. There are even many alien languages being spoken; compared to other space adventures like Guardians of the Galaxy, the diversity in aliens is quite impressive. Another thing that I have to applaud is the acting and the character designs. Kara’s suit looks much better than Clark’s suit in my opinion, and Krem could have been better; all they needed to do was take out the unnecessary piercings in his face and make him look more like his comic self. The modern space adventure aesthetic fits the tone of the movie, as it reflects Kara’s personality at the time: dull and hopeless; I do feel, however, that the colors should have been a bit brighter due to the usually advanced nature of other planets in space.
Let’s keep in mind for a minute that this film is a somewhat loose adaptation of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, so obviously, it isn’t going to be exactly like the comic. DC Studios CEO James Gunn already stated that it wouldn’t be a full-on adaptation, so that should not be a complaint at all, as the DCU is a separate universe from the comics that is trying to tell its own story that ties into this universe, though there is a bit of direction lacking.
A small but powerful detail that people aren’t talking about enough is that the DCU actually doubled down on Superman’s (David Corenswet) biological parents sending him to Earth with the intent of becoming a conqueror, but it is also revealed that Kara’s parents, Zor-El and Alura In-Ze, told her to always do good and use her powers to stand up for people who cannot stand up for themselves. While I was never really a fan of this decision, it was beneficial towards the story in Superman and I respect Gunn for standing his ground instead of falling to fan pressure. This also establishes how different Kara and Ka-El are, as Kal does not really remember anything from Krypton, but Kara watched her parents and home gradually die due to Kryptonite poisoning, and the trauma is still rampant in her life, even after several years since she moved to Earth. That is why she’d been going to different planets with red suns to get drunk instead of settling on Earth; she missed her home and felt very out of place there.
Superman’s presence in this movie adds to her character development. It shows him doing his best to make Kara feel at home throughout the years as a big cousin should, but she still feels very out of place. When she goes to space, he regularly video-called her, but didn’t try to force the idea of Earth onto her; he instead assured her that he will be there to help her whether or not she accepts Earth anytime soon.
Perhaps the closest thing to the comics in this film is Lobo (Jason Momoa) in his live-action film debut. While he wasn’t in the original Woman of Tomorrow, him being there in a somewhat minor role, just like how he is in the comics. He’s neither a hero nor a villain; he’s a bounty hunter who was sent to kill a Brigand. This has to be the happiest I’ve seen Jason on screen ever.
Ruthye was a good character with whom I instantly empathized. Her entire family was taken out in just the blink of an eye by Krem, and she was looking for anyone who would be willing to help her in exchange for her family sword. At first, Kara is reluctant, but the stakes are raised even higher when Krem poisons Krypto and he was given 3 days to live. I’ll be honest, I was scared when it looked like Krypto was about to die. Throughout their trip, they bond over losing her family and having lost all hope after trauma; as Kara herself said, “Clark sees the good in people, while I see the truth.”
Before we go deeper into this, I have to give a piece of advice: stop setting such unrealistic expectations for a movie/TV show/musical project. What a lot of people do is that when a project is set to be released, they create a version of that movie in their heads and expect the movie to go the exact way we envisioned it. How selfish. We need to stop this because this is a shared universe and it has to fit in the universe perfectly.
While this movie was quite enjoyable, by no means is it perfect. The movie did not feel dragged, but the final battle did. It was quite uninteresting, but to be honest, the song was a nice addition. For me, the song showed the depressing nature of what Kara was fighting: liberating young girls from their captives, a problem that has been going on in the real world for centuries. It also reminded of scenes I’ve seen from other movies where there are explosions all around and some slow, somber song is being played in the background. I also believe that Ruthye should’ve done some fighting in in the grand finale instead of just standing there like a pile of nothing.
Another thing that I wish we would’ve seen is the little moments between Kara and Ruthye. A good example of this is teaching Ruthye how to wash her hands like in the comic.
Contrary to popular belief, there was character development in Kara and Ruthye. For Kara, she felt like she was already messed up enough, so she protects Ruthye’s innocence and kills him herself, as she feels she was too messed up and far gone to still regain some form of innocence. She went from someone who was running away from her trauma and pain to someone who’s ready to embrace the next chapter of her life as she celebrated her 23rd birthday. She also truly became someone who was fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves, inheriting her cousin’s values and becoming the true Woman of Tomorrow, finally settling on Earth and acclimatizing to it with the help of her cousin.
This movie has a lot of problems, but a lot of the hate that it got was rooted in misogyny; most of them said that Milly Alcock isn’t “attractive enough,” along with many other ridiculous comments. Other than that, I believe that people need to tone down comparisons of projects based on comics to their source material and just simply appreciate the movie for what it is. Was the movie bad? No. Was it the best thing since sliced bread? No. Not every new movie coming out has to be the most extraordinary thing to ever exist, so we need to stop setting such unreasonably high expectations for everything.
Good day.