It’s a new one DC Universe, but the results with critics look pretty much the same.
The current regime at DC Studios released their second film this week: Supergirl directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Milly Alcock as the woman of tomorrow. It may still be a box office hit, but it hasn’t fared as well with critics. As of this writing, it currently has a rotten rating of 57 on the review aggregator site Rotten tomatoes. It is based on reviews from over 230 critics listed on the site.
It’s a violent comedown from the first new DC Universe movie, last summer Superman written and directed by James Gunn. It scored 83 on Rotten Tomatoes, 26 points higher than Supergirl. Gunn is also co-CEO of DC Studios, and as such oversees all of the company’s films, including Supergirl. But whatever input he had on the final product, it wasn’t enough to make it a critical hit.
READ MORE: 25 Classic Movies That Got Bad Reviews From Critics
The score, which is still changing to some extent, sets Supergirl more along the lines of the much maligned DC Extended Universe launched back in 2013 by director Zack Snyder. While some DCEU titles received strong reviews from critics, including Wonder Woman (93 rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and Shazam! (90), eight different DCEU movies currently have rotten results on the site, including Black Adam (39), Snyder’s Man of steel (56) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (28), and Suicide Squad (26).
Despite the fact that I really enjoyed Gunn’s Superman and I loved the new cartoon series Supergirl was based on, I am among the 43 percent of critics who did not enjoy the film. As I have put it in my reviewthe film’s creative problems are…
…especially disappointing because the new DC Universe got off to such a promising start with last year’s Superman. Milly Alcock’s Supergirl appeared in that film and was so instantly likable in her brief screen time that it set high expectations that her spinoff won’t come close to matching. That’s despite the presence of Superman’s biggest scene-stealer – the battered super dog Krypto – and even Iron Man himself, played by David Corenswet in a small but important supporting role.
Follow The Flash (which actually has a rather fresh score of 63 if you can believe it) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in 2023, Warner Bros reset their DC team and brought Gunn in from Marvel to oversee the creative side of the company. He relaunched the DC film universe starting with his new interpretation of Superman. That movie did well, but Supergirl is at least not nearly as well reviewed by critics.
There is still reason to be optimistic about DC’s future. This fall Clayface looks like a real departure for the company, and potentially very interesting. And they’ve already got a new one Superman sequel coming next year from Gunn and Corenswet, and another Batman movie from director Matt Reeves. But if nothing else Supergirl shows: These cartoon movies are not easy to make.
Film with 100 percent on rotten tomatoes
These films did the nearly impossible: They got film critics to agree on something.
