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A Complete Unknown is far from the worst thing you'll see this Christmas season, and many people will probably like it simply because of the various performances.
Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: blue beetle, dc studios, Review, Warner Bros
Blue Beetle Review: A Solid Superhero Film, Doesn't Reinvent The Genre
Blue Beetle hits all of the familiar notes of the superhero genre and is a solid origin story for a new young hero. However, it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the genre either, aside from the family dynamic.
Blue Beetle hits all of the familiar notes of the superhero genre and is a solid origin story for a new young hero. However, it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the genre either, aside from the family dynamic.
Director: Angel Manuel Soto
Summary: An alien scarab chooses college graduate Jaime Reyes to be its symbiotic host, bestowing the teenager with a suit of armor that's capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the superhero known as Blue Beetle.
Blue Beetle Shows Up And Hits All Of The Right But Expected Notes
The superhero genre has been dominating the box office for over two decades now, and even when everyone thought it was "dead," it never stayed dead for very long. Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe came onto the scene in 2008, things have only gotten more saturated, with the definition of "comic book movie" expanding over multiple mediums. We have seen game changers like Avengers that brought the concept of the cinematic universe to life for the first time on the big screen. We saw Netflix skillfully adapt Sandman, one of those comics that everyone thought couldn't ever really make it to the small or big screen in any way without being compromised. We saw Max create a sequel to Watchmen and expand on one of the best comic books of all time. We have seen movies like Wonder Woman and Black Panther bring life to communities that often feel like no one is ever catering to them.
And then there's Warner Bros. and DC, who have been struggling after the Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman films. Regardless of what you might think of the last ten years of DC movies, there have been some winners [Shazam!, Wonder Woman] and some losers [The Flash, Batman v Superman], and now we are approaching a new beginning of DC. While the other three films that DC and Warner Bros. Discovery have coming out this year are very attached to the previous films, Blue Beetle has kept its connections loose and shows up by doing exactly what a good superhero movie needs to do and then leaves.
Blue Beetle is original in that Jaime [Xolo Maridueña] doesn't have a secret identity, and his entire family knows what is going on the entire time. This was built into the movie from the beginning, with writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer saying back in 2021 that if you're in a Mexican family, you don't have any secrets, and Jaime certainly doesn't in this film. While Shazam! Fury of the Gods played with the idea of a family knowing about each other's powers and working together; for Blue Beetle, it's just one person with the powers, and everyone else is just a regular human [aside from Nana Reyes, who you don't want to mess with]. While the film is very aware of how human Jaime's family is, they are never presented as weak or even a weakness for our hero. So often, family members and loved ones are used as cannon fodder or hostages, but the Reyes family is not here to be damseled. They are here, and they mean business.
While Jaime is a good character and Maridueña gives an excellent performance, we have seen many of these beats before. When it comes to that aspect of Blue Beetle, these are well-traveled roads, but this time, we are in a car that is polished and running smoothly, not a scratch on it. Blue Beetle has looked at the template, took what worked, and ran with it for its hero. You don't need to fix something that isn't broken, and this angle isn't broken by a long shot. A fresh coat of paint and a charismatic leading man is all you need to make it feel new.
The places where Blue Beetle shines come from the women in the film. Jenny Kord [Bruna Marquezine] is not here as a love interest, and she has a story that she is working her way through. Jaime's sister, Milagro [Belissa Escobedo], is grappling with being the sibling who didn't leave home and staying to take care of everyone while Jaime got to move forward. Nana Reyes is awesome, and Rocio Reyes would smack someone for looking at her family wrong [Elpidia Carrillo].
However, where Blue Beetle really does something interesting with its women is with Victoria Kord [Susan Sarandon]. This was a villain arc where they could have easily followed the beaten path that so many superhero films have traveled before, put a fantastic actress in the leading role, and called it good. However, they didn't do that, and they gave Victoria a motivation that makes it hard for you to disagree with her on some points. The best villains think they are right, and, in some ways, Victoria is not only right but also justified in her anger. It makes her so much more complex that you wish more time were spent with her, but it's understandable why they didn't. The film is just over two hours long and, like many films this summer, didn't need to be over two hours long. There were twenty minutes they could have cut to make the movie a little snappier, which would have significantly improved the pacing, specifically in the first and second acts.
The other thing that Blue Beetle does that many other superhero films forgot how to do is world-building. While the director has gone on the record to say that there are a ton of Easter Eggs in the movie, the obvious ones are a couple of lines of dialogue [one of which is a zinger featured in a trailer] and a hoodie that Jaime is wearing at one point in the film. Nothing else is so brief and left to the margins that you don't know it's there unless you are looking. That is how worldbuilding was done a decade ago when we saw hints of Wakanda and Talokan as far back as Iron Man 2. Worldbuilding shouldn't be the focus of your film; it should be details that enhance but never distract, and both of the big studios making superhero movies have forgotten this. Blue Beetle is now the exception, not the norm.
Blue Beetle isn't going to set the world on fire, and it doesn't bring that much new to the superhero table. However, what it does do is show up and do a damn good job of being exactly what it wants to be without also trying to start a cinematic universe and revive people for pointless cameos. It feels like a return to form, which is something that DC Studios needs as they head into a new chapter of films and shows. Unlike Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and likely Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Blue Beetle shows up with virtually no baggage from the previous era and confidently stands on its own. If this were the beginning of the new DC universe, it would feel like an excellent first brick to build that new foundation.
Blue Beetle
8.5/10
Blue Beetle isn't going to set the world on fire, and it doesn't bring that much new to the superhero table. However, what it does do is show up and do a damn good job of being exactly what it wants to be without also trying to start a cinematic universe and revive people for pointless cameos.
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