Supergirl is in theaters, and if you have been anywhere near film social media this week, you already know that one moment is eating the whole conversation. Not Milly Alcock’s performance, which people love. Not Jason Momoa’s Lobo, which people also love. No, the thing everyone is screaming about is a song.
During the movie’s climactic battle, the soundtrack drops a cover of Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle, the version by Kelty Greye and KidMotel. And the reaction has been merciless. Fans have called it the worst needle drop ever and floated it for instant worst-of-all-time contention. Critics joined in too. ScreenCrush’s review flatly called it the most eye-rolling song choice in any Hollywood movie of 2026. When the critics and the fandom agree this completely, something genuinely went sideways.
Why it lands so wrong
Needle drops are not new to this corner of the universe. They are practically a signature. James Gunn built the Guardians of the Galaxy films and last year’s Superman on pop songs scoring big emotional beats, and when it works, it feels personal, like you are hearing the character’s own inner jukebox. The trick is that it has to feel earned rather than engineered.
The Middle is a fascinating misfire because on paper it almost makes sense. It is a 2001 emo-pop anthem about hanging on through a rough patch, all reassurance and “you’re in the middle of the ride.” Map that onto a lonely, grieving Kara Zor-El and you can see what the filmmakers were reaching for. The problem, by most accounts, is the execution. Dropping a cover of a beloved anthem into a life-or-death cosmic brawl reportedly plays less like catharsis and more like karaoke. The lyrics land too literally, and the cover sands off the scrappy charm that made the original work in the first place. The result is a climax that pulls you out of the movie at the exact moment it should be lifting you up.
A symptom, not the disease
Here is the part worth sitting with. The needle drop has become the lightning rod for a film that is otherwise getting a very specific kind of review: great lead, shaky movie. Supergirl sits around 58 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a low mark for the new DC Universe, even as Alcock and Momoa earn near-universal praise. Director Craig Gillespie made the film, but it leans hard into Gunn’s grungy, music-soaked aesthetic, and the critical knock is that it copies the surface of that style without quite capturing the soul.
The song is the most screenshot-friendly version of that exact complaint. It is the moment where you can hear the movie trying to be a Gunn movie and not landing it. Tastes vary, and the audience score has run warmer than the critics, so some viewers genuinely did not mind it. But when the bit everyone is quoting back is your climax, that is not a small thing.
One song will not sink a movie. Supergirl has real strengths, starting with a lead the whole internet seems to adore. But it is a little painful that the most-talked-about beat in the DCU’s big summer swing is not a hero moment or a gut punch. It is a song choice that fans cannot stop laughing at. For a franchise that nailed the music in Superman just last year, that stings.
