Blue Beetle – Review

You’d have every reason to not bother with the penultimate outing of the exhaustive and uncoordinated DCEU franchise. No-one really knows what’s going on, and which actors/characters will make it into the revitalized DC comics franchise going forward. Blue Beetle’s weekend box-office record certainly didn’t convince people into buying tickets neither, hitting the lowest sales for an opening weekend cinema release for the brand. But don’t let these facts fool you, as Blue Beetle brings us back to basics with an offering that is as reminiscent and ridiculous as the early 00’s comic book movie, but it does so with gusto.

Starring Xolo Mariduena – who rose to fame in the Netflix series Cobra Kai – as Jaime Reyes. A goofy kid with a bright future, whose return to his hometown of Palmera City – a fictional city that sort of blends the landscapes of El Paso, Texas with Superman’s Metropolis, is interrupted by an ancient symbiotic scarab that grants its host some rather unique and very convenient superpowers. The scarab in question belonging to Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), who has plans to create a one man army through the powers Jaime now possesses. Why? Because that’s what super-villains do, duh.

Blue Beetle flies through its many comic related cliches and tropes to give us an origin story that is far from original, but yet again feels far removed from all the franchise building, multiverse merging that has come to be the new norm of cinematic comic-book storytelling, that it kind of feels refreshing. There are mentions of Batman and Superman (which iteration who even knows at this point), but that’s basically it. Blue Beetle lives in its own little world, and breathes through its vibrant and earnest representation of Latin-America.

See, the Blue Beetle may be the only superhero on show, but Jaime’s family are equally heroes in their own right. Jaime’s sassy, underachieving sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) brings a heavy portion of the comedic relief, along with ‘Nana’ (Adriana Barazza) – who reveals her revolutionary past by wielding a mini-gun during one surprising sequence, and the beating heart of Blue Beetle, George Lopez’ ‘Uncle Rudy’. The family formula really sells its story and provides its narrow narrative with warmth and charm that succeeds when it needs to – and has more to say than just squeezing the word ‘family’ into as many sentences as humanly possible like a certain other franchise that focuses on its Latin-American representation.

Blue Beetle is cheesy, but not without its charm. It takes a cookie cutter approach to the comic-book formula that the industry has since tried to distance itself from, and it’s the audacity from director Angel Manuel Soto to regress to what was once ridiculed is what I admire most. Sure, you can pretty much work out what will play out act by act, and sadly Sarandon surrenders completely to the silly script and lacks the character strength to be the super-villain of a stand-alone title. But, with Xolo stepping into the shoes of Hollywood’s first Hispanic hero with such creditable confidence, and the movie’s bright tone and bonkers energy, Blue Beetle braves its release ahead of an unpredictable storm – that may yet squish what success it makes with the changing of the guard, and finishes closer atop of the tower than anyone ever would have predicted it to.