James Gunn’s DC Cinematic Universe is one of the most talked about topics in the film industry right now. Gunn makes radical creative decisions that go against the grain of what Zack Snyder had previously built for DC Comics films. The full-fledged cinematic universe will begin with a film based on Superman, but Blue Beetle is technically already in it, which the director himself confirmed. We’ll tell you in our review how this movie turned out.
Pros: high-quality technical component; staging battles; interesting secondary characters Cons: extremely bland script; the stereotyped nature of all scenes and plot moves; overly stereotypical portrayal of Mexicans
“Blue Beetle” / Blue Beetle
Genre superhero action
Directed by Angel Manuel Soto
Starring: Sholo Maridueña, Adriana Barraza, Damian Alcazar, Elpidia Carrillo, Susan Sarandon
Premiere cinemas
Release year 2023
IMDb website
Young guy Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns from college to his hometown of Palmer City. There it turns out that his family may soon be left without a home, so Jaime urgently needs to find a prestigious job. In Palmer City, she can only be found at Cord Industries, which deals with advanced technology. But quite by accident, an alien relic of the Scarab falls into the hands of Jaime, which “possesses” the guy and allows him to release exoskeleton armor, thereby turning him into the Blue Beetle.
What you need to understand before you watch: Blue Beetle is a classic story of the birth of a superhero. And “classical” here leans more towards “stereotypical and template”.
Jaime receives his powers absolutely by accident, while the Scarab “chose” him for his pure heart and selfless intentions. That is, the whole story practically began by accident.
And it develops along all the script trails that superhero films have been exploiting almost from the moment of their appearance. There is not a single original scene in the film from the point of view of the script. And the characters sometimes say such stereotypical things that it’s impossible to do without heavy sighs while watching.
This is especially confusing against the backdrop of the Mexican aesthetics with which “Blue Beetle” is trying to bribe viewers. She looks attractive on her own, but the film doesn’t seem to allow her to fully develop. In addition, too often the story seems to slide into stereotypes about Mexicans. They become one of the driving forces of the plot and manifest themselves most clearly in the family of the protagonist.
“Blue Beetle” is a family movie that shows that even superheroes cannot do without the support of their families.
Jaime’s family is filled with quirky personalities that are quite enjoyable to follow. To some extent, they even draw attention away from the somewhat boring main character.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t really save the overall impression of the film. Boredom is the main emotion when watching, since almost everything you see in Blue Beetle you have already seen more than once in other comic book films.
And often in a more worthy implementation. At the same time, the script does not lose focus and tells a solid story, it’s just that the story itself is so bland that there is no particular desire to follow it. It is likely that you will even have thoughts of leaving the theater before the end of the viewing.
The script is the weakest point of the film. Everything else in it is done at a normal or generally good level. The director is pleased with visually pleasing moments, and the staging of individual battles is not at all afraid of experimentation. The approaches used here are very different: one battle scene is filmed entirely in one shot, while another will please you with a pleasant reference to Final Fantasy VII.
“Blue Beetle” is technically excellent. Which is especially nice and even somewhat surprising, given the problems with computer graphics in films based on DC comics. There are absolutely no complaints about CGI here, everything is high quality and creative. Even if at times the film sometimes resembles a clash of computer models, this is again a complaint about the script, and not about the technical department.
As part of the new DCEU, the film doesn’t try to overwhelm you with too many references, instead sticking to small hints and passing references. This allows Blue Beetle to remain a standalone piece without trying to be more than what it is.
And such simplicity could be captivating, but the film crew didn’t seem to even try to do anything exciting. Perhaps the fact is that Blue Beetle was originally supposed to be released directly on the HBO Max streaming service, which imposes its own restrictions and conventions. But they still decided to remake it into a theatrical release. It turned out that this was not the best decision in the history of comic book movies.
Conclusion:
“Blue Beetle” tries to please the viewer, but it only succeeds at about twenty percent. This is an overly basic origin story of a superhero who isn’t pushed into the right situations for him. So the beginning of the DC cinematic universe from James Gunn can hardly be called successful. We hope that only for now
