Blue Beetle seems to be the DCEU answer to something like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or the first Ant-Man. Take a comic book character that doesn’t get a lot of attention and churn out a nice superhero movie that is fun and leaves you entertained. It’s nowhere near the level of some of the other movies, but it doesn’t have to be.
One thing the DCEU was good at was acting like Superman and Batman were in existence without having to throw them in an extraneous cameo that slowed the movie’s pace to a crawl like that scene with Sam Wilson/Falcon in Ant-Man. (One of the problems with the MCU is it references other properties too much.) Also, it’s about time DC has branched out from Metropolis and Gotham City to focus on superheroes in their other roman a clef universe. In this case, most of the action takes place in the fictional Palmera City, which is a coastal city in Texas that looks more like it’s modeled after Miami with all the glitz and glamor.
Jaime Rayes (Xolo Mariduena) returns after graduating college to live with his family but discovers the family is in dire straights. The family business is gone and money is an issue. So, Jaime and his sister, Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), get a job cleaning at the house of Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), the evil CEO of the Kord Industries in a power trip struggle with her niece, Jenny (Bruna Marquezine). But Jaime screws up when he observes Victoria treating Jenny wrong and defends her and loses his job along with Milagro’s.
Sarandon is perfect in the role as a villain. And seeing how she’s now isolated a lot of the same liberals who once defended her now don’t like her because of they way she’s behaved since 2016, she’s perfect. (Not to get too political, Sarandon has always acted with a pious sense that she’s better than both liberals and conservatives and others.) It’s almost comical that she often speaks on human rights, but is playing an industrialist who wants to gentrify the Latino community of Palmera. But the movie only drops a few hints of this. It doesn’t keep hammering the issue.
For the most part, this is a fun-filled action-packed superhero that harkens back to the 2000s when most filmmakers were trying to find how to make the movies right after the problems in the 1990s. Blue Beetle himself seems like a hybrid of Spider-Man and Iron Man. But unlike the Miles Morales latest Spider-Man movie, this one more accurately portrays a Latino superhero and his family as if they are more genuine. I know a lot of people defended Morales family and how they acted in NYC but I found them to be working against him in Across the Spider-Verse.
George Lopez has a neat small supporting role as Jaime’s conspiracy theories skeptical uncle Rudy Reyes and Damian Alcazar is very good as Jaime’s father, Alberto. And the always watchable and enjoyable Adrianna Barraza is perfect as Jaime’s Nana. I kinda like how they know from the start that Jaime is the Blue Beetle and help him.
In the prologue, Victoria has obtained the alien artificat Scarab in Antartica but Jenny later steals it but when she spots Jaime who’s come by as she told him, she passes it off to him so security won’t think she stole it. So, naturally when Jaime takes it home, they get curious and the Scarab is activated and fuses with him encasing him in the armored exoskeleton. So, there’s the usual awkward scenes where Jaime gets the handle of everything but eventually Victoria determines he has it and wants it back.
Action scenes and past secrets come out. But director Angel Manuel Soto handles it perfectly. Or as good as he can with the material. I admit that Mariduena may just be the weakest link and is eclipsed by his co-stars. Hollywood still hasn’t learned the proper way to portray younger superheroes without treating them the same. Look at Spider-Man: Across the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.
I call it “The Tom Holland Effect.” He seemed to know just how to play Spidey as Gen Zer. And now, everyone from Barry Allen to Leonardo have to spout numerous pop culture references and ask numerous annoying questions to anyone over 30. Tobey Maguire in the first two Spider-Man movies was made as a three-dimensional character. But it seems writers, producers and directors think all people in high school and college are the same now. Thankfully, the pop culture references that have been used ad nauseam in the MCU and other movies are few and far between in Blue Beetle. I also like Rudy’s music preference. I won’t say what it is, but it works.
If there are some problems, it’s just that the whole format now is so typical that you kinda wished a filmmaker would make the movies with a different “Big Loud Bang” action sequence that goes on a little longer than it should. And there’s a set-up in the mid-credits scene for a sequel that may or may not happen. James Gunn, who is co-chair of DC Films has indicated that Blue Beetle may be in the upcoming redesigned DCU. He’s also said he wants to move away from those endings and I, for one, hope he can do it.
But I can understand the movie’s failure at the box office to make big bucks. The movie was originally intended to be streamed on HBO Max and still can’t shake that look. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t rely on the samed things that bogged down The Flash. Sometimes less is more. I think David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery moved it to the bigger screen but wouldn’t allot for more funding. He’s probably already got the accountants working on how they can write it off for tax reasons.
However, I think the movie’s reception is also a factor of superhero fatigue, poor marketing by Warner Bros., the SAG-AFTRA strike, focusing on a lesser know character, and people’s just general hatred for the DC Comic movies. I would also guess the predominant Latino cast with the only caucasian character as the main villain had some audience members not wanting to watch it for being “woke.”
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 