Blue Beetle - Review

Rating: 2 out of 5

IF superhero fatigue is genuine, then movies like Blue Beetle don't help.

Directed by Puerto Rican-born film-maker Ángel Manuel Soto, and notable for being the first DC superhero film to focus around a Latino family, the film nevertheless still manages to embody many of the worst elements of the franchise.

It contains a slightly retro feel that aligns it more with the knowingly cheesy superhero era pre-Marvel, it follows most of the expected plot beats for an origins story and it feels derivative of so many past characters (emerging as equal parts Iron Man, Venom and Spider-Man) without really adding anything of its own.

Perhaps worse, though, is the sense that the characters are too thinly drawn and, in the case of the main family and the central villain, just plain annoying.

The plot focuses on Jaime Reyes (played by Xolo Maridueña, of Cobra Kai fame), as he graduates from Gotham law school to find that his family is destitute and in danger of losing their house.

Things start to look up when benevolent industrialist Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) offers to help him find a job. But it isn't long before Reyes is bit by a biotechnical scarab that turns him into an armour-plated blue avenger, complete with guiding (and potentially sinister, ie world destroying) inner voice.

This, in turn, puts him on the wrong side of warmonger Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). who had planned to use the beetle to power her One Man Army Corps.

As expected, Soto's film ticks all the boxes of your typical superhero origins film - from awkward first moments as the hero comes to grips with his new powers, to inevitable smackdown involving seemingly indestructible opponents.

There's awkward romance, the odd sprinkling of comedic mishap and the obligatory 'big loss' involving a key [and beloved] character.

But while Soto hopes to overcome some of this familiarity by placing a bigger emphasis on the Latino element and Reyes' wider family, he's not served by a cast that becomes irritating as the family dynamic feels forced and over-played.

This even comes to the detriment of the film's emotional beats, with the aforementioned loss feeling underwhelming. Sarandon's villain, meanwhile, is played on auto-pilot and is of no interest or real menace. A second-in-command, who provides a formidable opponent to the Beetle, has a more interesting back story, which is all too quickly discarded once revealed.

Blue Beetle has little or no emotional complexity, which means becoming invested in the characters is virtually impossible when placed against the context of such a crowded genre field.

In short, it has nothing to make it really stand out.