I'm not a fan of superhero stuff, but I'm able to enjoy it when it's good. Blue Beetle is right at the edge of that line: On the one hand it's relatively well-made, pacey, and has a slightly stronger paintjob than usual of latin (mainly Mexican) culture which goes beyond just pop culture stuff. I can't think of any mainstream picture that even mentions the Escuela de las Americas, much less use it as a plot point. I can't be mad at a superhero film that does that, even when it does so without supplying any context or proper information on it.
On the other hand... this movie is so very clearly not for me. It's a kid's movie, an old-school family film both in form and content, cheesy, cliché ridden and enthusiastically... wacky. Everything is either over-the-top, simplified, or both, and all the plot beats feel repurposed from a hundred other movies. Meanwhile, like most other superhero movies, it doesn't pay enough attention to the spectacle side of things, featuring the same boring, weightless set-pieces we've seen in a dozen Marvel movies.
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| Someone's clearly been watching too much anime. |
Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns to his family in Palmera City (which seems to be the DC version of Miami, but with a majority population of Mexicans rather than Cubans and other central Americans.) after being away a few years getting a degree at Gotham.
Things aren't great, though; the family's about to lose the house, thanks to villain Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). And I want to highlight this because it isn't just shitty storytelling, it dilutes the portrayal of systematic racism that the movie does try to show. It's shitty storytelling because... well, come the fuck on. You have the villain doing all sorts of world-breaking villainous stuff and, on an unrelated note, kicking out immigrant families for some sort of land development deal. That'd be like... I don't know, a third-act revelation that not only is Rhas Al'ghul behind the plot to destroy the city, he personally also had Batman's parents killed. How do you call it - oh, a Goyerism.
But more importantly, it pins institutional racism on a very rotten apple. Wouldn't it have been much more simple and believable to say it was gentrification instead? I mean, that's evil enough.
Anyhow. Through a series of pretty forced contrivances, Jaime ends up in the possession of an alien artifact that gives him exoskeleton-related superpowers, complete with Iron Man-style internal helmet cam. They should have trademarked that shit. There's a montage of misadventures as he gets used to his newfound powers, then he starts sparring against Victoria Kord and her cronies, his family gets dragged in, tragedy, comedy, extremely CGI-tired-marvel-looking action... all the sort of stuff you'd expect. It's not bad, necessarily, but none of it essential. And the film's constant pandering to the younger set is often cringeworthy.
When the scarab first melds with him, it does so by... crawling up his butt, something that the movie avoids coming out and saying outright, but highlights a couple of times. Not funny, exactly, but bizarre. I guess it makes sense in a world where the hero's bug-shaped vehicle has a fart gas attack, complete with fart sounds. It's pretty rough.
There's a few cool details: a couple of fight moves, some of the synth-driven music (by Bobby Krlic), and I like how the suit burns Jaime's clothes when it gets deployed: a pretty tactile effect that is unfortunately mostly there to get him naked so his zany family can make fun of his chorizo; They are so loco.
It's hard not to be down on the acting when everyone is pitching to the rafters like this, but I did enjoy some of the quieter interplay between Maridueña (who's pretty good in this overall) and his sister (Belissa Escobedo). The less said about the zany grandmother character (Adriana Barraza) the better; She's a good actress (a regular with Iñárritu) - this is strictly a Blue Beetle tone issue.
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