A Tale of a Daughter and Three Suns
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters. (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.) This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this exploratory site.
10/1/2026—One other opening announcement: There will be no Two Guys review posting next week because Nina and I will be indulging in our annual (sometimes semi-annual) immersion in the Godfather trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola 1972, 1974, 1990) while washing down spaghetti (about the limit of my culinary skills) with plenty of red wine so we’ll see you again on roughly October 14, 2026.
Here’s the trailer:
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activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
You may not have realized it yet, but there have been decades of presentations about Kara Zor-El/Supergirl since she first appeared in DC comics in 1959, with many iterations since then including her death in the 1985 comic book series Crisis on Infinite Earths—with DC never beholden to their created timelines so periodically (so to speak) they just terminate whatever universe/multiverse they’ve last created to be able to once again start anew, so Kara’s been back in print action since early 21st century, along with the first Supergirl movie (Jeannot Szwarc, 1984 [critically reviled despite its all-star Hollywood cast]) and her presence in the TV series Smallville (The WB, 2007-2011) and Supergirl (CBS/The CW, 2015-2021); extensive details are found here. Throughout all of that, her origin story is generally stable as she’s (Milly Alcock) the daughter of Zor-El (David Krumholtz), with him the brother of Jor-El (who sent his son, Kal-El [David Corenswet]/Clark Kent/Superman to Earth to escape Krypton’s explosion). Zor-El saved a chunk of Krypton as he activated a force-shield around Argo City. However, a few years later the foundational rock remains of the lost planet turned to kryptonite, killing the remaining survivors of the initial explosion so Kara was also rocketed to Earth to save her life, join her cousin. However, unlike him she has memories of her home planet and her parents so the loss has weighed on her, keeping her from fully establishing a sense of her now-adopted home as she's considerably more cynical than Superman.
In this movie she’s taken her trailer-like spaceship to a planet with a red sun where she has no superpowers (she’s still tough in hand-to-hand combat, though), unlike on yellow-sunned Earth where she’s the equivalent of Superman, just younger. In this location she can drown her sorrows in drink, celebrating her 23rd birthday, until she meets Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), a young woman seeking revenge against Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), leader of the Brigands—a ruthless all-male group capturing young “brides”—who killed Ruthye’s parents when they wouldn’t hand her over. Kara joins up with her to get a needed antidote to save her dog, Krypto, shot with a poison dart by Krem with the dog only having 72 hours to live. There’s lots more plot here, but my self-imposed time/space limitations require me to send you to this site to see what they are, as lots of combat occurs when Kara’s pumped up by a yellow sun (though she almost dies under a green sun [not clear what causes this reaction]). Despite some brief appearances by Superman, this story develops far from Earth to keep the focus on Kara, yet in the process you can’t help but think you’re encountering a cinematic gumbo mixing elements from various franchises—Star Wars, Mad Max, The Handmaid’s Tale—topped off with a reminder from Raising Arizona (Joel Coen, 1987) with this new burly, dangerous biker character, Lobo (Jason Momoa), who becomes Kara's ally. Despite all these allusions, though, Supergirl holds up on its own, especially when Kara roars into action, finally wearing her Supergirl clothes as she’s made some decisions about herself.
Supergirl debuted in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on June 26, 2026, made $73.4 million (worldwide $126.5 million), now seems to be available only on streaming where it rents for $6.99 if you’re a subscriber to Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV or it’s free to subscribers of HBO Max (it also pops up periodically on HBO cable which is where I saw it, putting that subscription to occasional use). However, the OCCU offers faint encouragement to see it, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a mere 53%, the Metacritic average score at a similar 50%. Among the smaller group who liked it is Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service (2½ of 4 stars, a percentage somewhat similar to my 3½ of 5 stars): “The strongest scenes aren’t when she’s battling bad guys in a motorcycle wagon circle from hell, but the quiet ones when Alcock delivers the story of Kara’s loss and grief, the pain she’s masking with alcohol and isolation. [¶] This is a new version of the character that’s more ‘Rebel Girl’ than ‘Supergirl,’ with a distinctly mid-aughts flavor. With Kara’s melancholy monologues and musical taste, there’s really only one way to label her: emo girl. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t, but what works here is Alcock, and all that matters is that we find some inspiration in the girl at hand, even if being good means being a little bit bad.” Bad she can be!
Yet, there’s plenty of negativity out there as well, as with Stephanie Zacharek of TIME (MC 40): “The gags are both belabored and feeble. Occasionally, Kara will utter some kind of pithy truism: ‘He sees the good in everyone, and I see the truth,’ she observes solemnly, in reference to her goofy-gallant superhero cousin. But she clearly can’t see the truth of the dull, dismal movie around her. […Kara’s] like the final straggler at an outdoor festival, refusing to go home for a bath long after the last band has packed up its gear and split. [… It’s] a throwaway superhero movie. Welcome to the new Hollywood, or what passes for it. It’s the coldest planet of all.” All I can say to that is both Nina and I enjoyed this movie, think there’s a good possibility you would too. I’ll bow out with my usual Musical Metaphor, this time Neil Diamond’s "I Am ... I Said" (1971 Stones album) which to me has resonance with Kara’s inner-difficulties: “ ‘I am,’ I said / To no one there / And no one heard at all […] I’ve got an emptiness deep inside / And I’ve tried, but it won’t let me go” (of course you’d need to change New York and L.A. to Krypton and Earth, but you'll surely get the idea for such substitutions).
(In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.) If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,
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