“Supergirl” And The New DCU (With Patrick Willems)
7/2/20261 hr 35 min
This week we’re Gunn-ing for Supergirl, with filmmaker and video essayist Patrick Willems!
Supergirl is the second feature film in the new DC cinematic universe, now helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy mastermind James Gunn. Gunn’s 2025 Superman breathed new life into one of the genre’s biggest icons, but Supergirl blew a raspberry at the box office, despite the good vibes surrounding the new DCU.
Supergirl, directed by I, Tonya's Craig Gillespie, borrows liberally from Gunn’s style, but in imitating Gunn, it shows just how difficult it is to pull off his deft mix of humor, spectacle, and heart. Patrick walks us through the movie’s source material, the acclaimed comics miniseries Woman of Tomorrow, and how the film follows and diverges from that book’s True Grit-inspired journey, often to negative effect. We also get into Milly Alcock’s performance as Supergirl, the needle drops, Krypto and the Superhorse (!), and what this movie means for the future of the DCU.
Next week, we’re all in on Minions (Babylon Version)
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMarie Barty0:00
[upbeat music] From BlankCheck Productions, this is Critical Darlings, a podcast about the movies everyone's talking about, one new release after another. Please welcome your hosts, Richard Lawson and Alison Willmore.
Richard Lawson· Host0:24
[clapping] Thank you, Marie Barty, for that super introduction.
Alison Willmore· Host0:31
Oh.
Richard Lawson· Host0:32
She's a superwoman.
Alison Willmore· Host0:33
Oh, wow.
Richard Lawson· Host0:34
Not a girl.
Alison Willmore· Host0:35
Not a girl. Not a, not a Supergirl. [laughs] [laughs] Not yet, not yet a superwoman.
Richard Lawson· Host0:38
We are joined as ever by our producer, Ben Frisch. Hello, Ben.
Ben Frisch0:41
Good morning.
Richard Lawson· Host0:42
And we have a very special guest that we're thrilled to have for this episode in particular because of some expertise that he has. We have filmmaker, essayist, Nebula personality, Patrick Willems. Hello, Patrick.
Patrick Willems· Guest0:53
Hello, guys. Uh, great to be here, and I just realized that on my desk there is a baby Joey- Yeah ... which is, uh- Oh, yeah, yeah ... delightful.
Alison Willmore· Host1:00
Yeah, if you need to, like, cuddle him- Yeah ... we can do- That's the only pop culture curio in this studio, though. Yes.
Richard Lawson· Host1:06
[laughs] It's the only thing.
Patrick Willems· Guest1:07
[laughs] Just bare white walls all around me.
Alison Willmore· Host1:08
Yes, it's extremely severe minimalism in here.
Richard Lawson· Host1:10
Yeah.
Alison Willmore· Host1:11
Yeah.
Richard Lawson· Host1:12
Yeah. Um, so this is the rare movie that we do for this show that I'll be honest I only watched once, 'cause I try to do a second viewing. Sometimes I'll write about the movie, and then I'll see it for this again for the podcast. But I kind of, to me, felt like once was enough [laughs] for this. Um, and I, we have all seen the movie obviously, but