‘Supergirl’ Review: Superman’s Sardonic Kid Cousin Blazes Her Own Way in a Grimy, Small-Scale Adventure

Milly Alcock is a delight in a film that’s not at all beholden to fitting the Superman mold (or tone). That's mostly a compliment.

Dark and gritty? It’s been done. Dour and grimy? That’s new-ish. Such is the tonal surprise of Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl,” an entry into the growing — and reworked — DC Studios canon that feels refreshingly not beholden to the adventures (and movies) that chronicle her goody-two-shoes cousin Superman (David Corenswet, who appears throughout this entry as a truly supporting character).

Fans of James Gunn’s “Superman” already have a hint of what’s up with Supes’ sardonic kid cousin Kara (Milly Alcock), who turned up at the end of his movie drunk as a skunk and twice as mad. Her first standalone feature finds her letting the good times (kinda) roll on planets far and wide. If it’s got a red sun? That’s where she wants to go, because that’s where her Kryptonian powers don’t work, and she can actually get good and wasted. And Kara, while ostensibly “celebrating” her birthday, is really just looking for a little bit of oblivion.

You don’t need to know the exact perimeters of her life — though Ana Nogueira’s script will serve it up via an intensely moving flashback halfway through the film — to get a hint as to why Kara’s so sad. She and Clark are, after all, the last survivors of a dead (bombed, destroyed, annihilated) planet, and while Kara’s childhood and adolescence played out differently than Clark’s, they both carry the same deep sense of loss. Kara, though, also brings with her plenty of anger to boot, and if she’s trying to drown it, that’s a good hint as to what else is going on inside her. She’s a good person, and being a good person can be very hard.

It doesn’t help that Kara’s dying mother’s wish was just that: be good. Not polite or easy or soft. Good. That’s proven to be a tall order, but when a plucky orphan (like, a very newly-minted orphan, as we see in a heart-stopping sequence that makes clear there’s going to be some real bloodshed here) stomps into the far-flung bar where Kara and her trusty pup Krypto are getting sloshed, announcing her plan to off the intergalactic raider who killed her entire family (Matthias Schoenaerts, obviously), Kara can’t quite help herself. Ruthye’s (Eve Ridley) quest doesn’t immediately light something in Kara, but it does kindle a spark.

And when Schoenaerts’ Krem of the Yellow Hills shoots up Krypto with a deadly poison (the antidote literally hangs around the baddie’s neck) and makes off with Kara’s spaceship (and thus pretty much everything she owns, including her Supergirl suit), that spark is fully ignited. As Kara and Ruthye alight on a whiz-bang trip through a really just kinda gross universe, the film’s “Mad Max” DNA kicks in (and, no, not just because Gillespie is Australian, though we’d be willing to hear more about that connection). From the studded, metal-loving Brigand baddies to their affection for tricked-out vehicles and their terrified coterie of stolen “Brides,” “Supergirl” is way more “Beyond Thunder Dome” than it is “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Still, some things are familiar, like the film’s action sequences, which love to lean on Kara’s ability to go very fast while everyone else seems very slow. Gillespie is, like Gunn, a needle-drop guy, and the off-kilter song picks that stud the film can read as alternately fussy (an acoustic version of “The Middle”) to genuinely inspired (Rilo Kiley’s “Silver Lining”). The settings, however, do feel different, particularly the grimy dying city Kara and Ruthye chase Krem to (like a blasted-out “Blade Runner”) and the barren expanse that the wild Brigands then drag them to (the planet’s green sun, ahem, adds to the joint’s otherworldly feeling).

Despite the relatively small-scale nature of the girls’ quest — deeply personal revenge and dog poison antidote-fetching — “Supergirl” can’t escape other trappings of the superhero genre. As in, can we interest you in a little other beloved comic book character introduction? Fortunately, the one (just one!) other DC star who pops up in this one is Lobo, he’s played by fan favorite Jason Momoa, and he’s entirely insane. Sure, he helps the gals out at opportune moments and always seems to be around the corner when they need more firepower, but he’s also totally nuts and prone to literally driving off into the sunset on his super-charged space-hog. If this is how we’re teaming DC heroes up these days, let’s go.

But what makes “Supergirl” stand out — and what might, unfortunately, alienate fans looking for more of the same — is its interest in staying small while asking some very big questions indeed. Kara and Ruthye’s adventure is rarely fun, often taking them to the darkest edges of the universe and its many inhabitants. The universe, for once, is not at stake here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t real stakes. Alcock, tasked with playing a character that might strike some as “unlikable,” instead finds both the very human dimension and the out-of-this-world charisma necessary to make Kara worth rooting for.

As Kara grapples with her baseline desire to save Krypto (the only piece of home she feels she has left, a heartbreaking statement), she inevitably has to deal with saving something far more nebulous: Ruthye’s soul and, eventually, Kara’s own. Those sorts of concerns are always vaguely on offer with superhero stories — they tend to slot in neatly under the banner of “what does it mean to be a superhero?” — but Gillespie’s film is more brazenly, obviously compelled by them. We expect that any subsequent standalone “Supergirl” joints will be a bit more poppy and “fun” than this first one (and we sure hope there are more of them), but we hope they also hold on to this one’s hard-won question: What does it mean to be good? It’s not easy.

Grade: B

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Supergirl” in theaters on Friday, June 26.

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