Some debate exists that franchise movies are what’s wrong with modern cinema, that they’ve poisoned the well of what a well-crafted story should be. That growing character arcs and constant leveraging of world-building should be reserved for television. While I could start with Star Wars as an example for the sake of that debate, I won’t. Instead, I’ll focus on the beast that is comic book adaptations. Enter DC’s Blue Beetle.
Blue Beetle is the second-to-last of the projects greenlit by the previous DC bosses at Warner Brothers. Based on how it did at the box office, it will not make its way into James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooting of DC projects within the studio. Perhaps I was naive, but I hoped they would get this movie right. That hope was in vain, like Wonder Woman 84.
If you’ve ever seen the TV series Young Justice, you can understand where I hoped they’d go with this film; with massive tweaking, sure, but an entry point for new and younger characters and stories. The origin story for that Blue Beetle is vastly different from the one in the movie. The movie version brings nothing new to the plot. An ancient alien artifact is found, and some evil family member who runs a powerful company wants to use it for evil and greediness. It’s a tired vehicle to introduce a character/plot; frankly, it’s insulting. If you’re going to use something that audiences have seen before (over and over again), you must add something to make it fresh.
Blue Beetle is lackluster and cliché. The fight scenes are boring and predictable, and basing them off a video game didn’t transfer well to real life, in this case. If you are familiar with Jaime Reyes’s character, you know it takes him ages to get along with the Blue Scarab, and when it’s allowed to let loose on enemies, kicks ass. This version had kid gloves on and is still pulling punches. There is so much wasted potential here, like everything Warner Brothers touches regarding DC projects. The only positive I have is that the suit looks awesome.
Aside from the fact I’m not a George Lopez fan, who is just as predictably annoying as I’d expect as Uncle Rudy, nothing stands out to me about the performances of the rest of the cast. This is one of those instances where I won’t judge the cast on what I’d call mediocre performances, at best, because it’s not their fault the story sucks. Changing a bit of Jaime’s family dynamic for the film to include a larger Latino representation was (in theory) wonderful. Why not? Yet, when a movie ends up being terrible, it comes off more as a missed opportunity because audiences like to forget or rag on films that bomb.
Image: DC via wegotthiscovered.com
My hope, if Gunn and Safran did reuse these characters in their reboot, would be to get to the origins of the Scarab and introduce that into the DCEU. There is so much potential with established characters (we don’t need an origin story for everyone) and their protégés. It would be a fantastic on-ramp to many aspects of what Warner Brothers has epically failed to do for decades, mainly because it moves away from Batman. I’m probably being too naive again, but DC makes it easy to buy into the ‘franchises killed good story writing argument.’
Blue Beetle is the cinematic equivalent of going to eat a hardboiled egg only to find it’s still raw because you forgot to turn the stove on. You will miss out on nothing by excluding Blue Beetle from your watchlist.
-A Pen Lady
Directed: Angel Manuel Soto Runtime: 2h 7m Rated: PG-13 Screenwriter: Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer Studio: Warner Bros. Cast: Xolo Maridueña, Bruna Marquezine, Becky G, Susan Sarandon, George Lopez
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