Reviews Are In For Supergirl, And It's Not Off To A Flying Start

Supergirl, a DC Comics-based superhero movie, hit cinemas on Thursday, 26 June. 

The film, which stars Sirens actor Milly Alcock and Superman’s David Corenswet, follows Kara Zor-El (Supergirl)‘s journey across various planets’ rubble and dive bars. 

She pairs up with an unexpected companion in her search for justice.

It’s been decades since 1984′s Supergirl, which has a miserable 19% score on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, came out.

So what do critics think? 

What do critics think of Supergirl (2026)?

So far, the movie’s earned a pretty unimpressive 58% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes so far.

1) Variety

“Here’s the key thing to know about Supergirl, the second outing from James Gunn’s DC Studios: The entire movie thinks it’s ‘punk rock’... Maybe Gillespie, who’s Australian, convinced himself that the Mad Max Lite trappings of Supergirl make it a subversion of the genre.

″[Gunn has] given us a comic-book movie with the worst script I can remember.” 

2) Hollywood Reporter

“The vast Hollywood expansion of global comic-book popularity in the four decades since [1984′s] sweet and innocent Supergirl took flight means the new film will easily outperform its predecessor, which topped out at a dismal $14.3 million. But anyone invested in the DCU would be best to hold out for Gunn’s return to the director’s chair on next year’s Superman continuation, Man of Tomorrow.”

3) Empire (3/5)

“There are genuine glimmers of hope. Outside the main action, flashbacks to Supergirl’s origin story and the fate of the Kryptonians are artfully composed and heartbreaking, with perfectly pitched performances from David Krumholtz and Emily Beecham as her parents... Alcock and David Corenswet, as cousin Superman, have an easy chemistry. Those bright sparks illuminate the thin central thread, even if our hero’s moral code and PTSD don’t totally cohere.”

4) IGN

“While I’ll happily take ‘True Grit meets Mad Max by way of Guardians and Star Wars,’ there’s still a dulled edge to the whole movie. Instead of taking the post-apocalyptic vibes of Mad Max, they lift a whole plot point straight from Fury Road and handle it, frankly, a little clumsily. And instead of the emotionally relevant needle drops of Guardians, Kara gets slow-paced montages set to a Jimmy Eat World cover that I found… well, it was baffling.”

5) The Guardian (3/5)

“It’s a relief to see a DC superhero film that tells a clear story, without getting bafflingly bogged down... in tangled subsidiary material and boring backstory, including the unbearably dull issue of superheroes’ relationship with the media.

“Supergirl isn’t a perfect movie by any means, but there are moments when you’ll believe this franchise can fly.”

6) (Tomris Laffly for) Roger Ebert (1.5/4)

“This noisy and unimaginative picture, powered by little else than merely passable action sequences, flat humor, and a collection of slimy intergalactic characters with fangs, fins, and numerous eyes around their oddly-shaped noggins, is... headache-inducing.”

7) Vulture

“A better version of this movie would spend more time showing us how Kara ended up the way she is, but the one we get mires us in a main story that’s cobbled together from elements that are either shamelessly derivative (Mad Max: Fury Road) or clichéd (every other movie that pairs a resistant tough type with a precocious kid).”

8) IndieWire

“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.”