PREMISE
An alien scarab chooses Jaime Reyes to be its symbiotic host, bestowing the recent college graduate with a suit of armor that’s capable of extraordinary powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the superhero known as Blue Beetle.
THE GOOD STUFF
XOLO MARIDUENA- I don’t know if I’m too sure about Mariduena being a leading man in the future or what his future even has to hold as far as being a movie star is concerned. His performance in this movie is nothing more than being just right. He’s the right guy for the job. He’s the kind of fresh-faced actor that you should get for an origin story of this kind. On top of all that, when things get down and dirty, and it’s time for him to beat someone’s ass, he doesn’t look misplaced for the task at hand. He is as pitch-perfect for this movie as any other dceu protagonist casting. He is spot on. Full stop.
GEORGE LOPEZ- One identifiable trait of a dceu film is that of having comic relief roles that are not specified to be anything else. Someone is going to be there to crack the jokes while everybody else is acting serious. Usually, in a bad dceu film, the bad comic relief stands out the worst and is way more annoying than just about anything in the film itself.
Given what I’ve seen from George Lopez through his numerous TV shows and his stand-up comedy, he is kind of the perfect guy to play this type of wise-cracking character. Whenever the mood of the film gets too serious, it is his character that lightens things up in the movie, and it is all the better for it.
THE FAMILY DYNAMIC- I don’t necessarily know what these Blue Beetle comics are like, so I can only respond to this film as a casual moviegoer and not a comic book guy. Therefore, I will say that incorporating his entire family in the proceedings (instead of doing the comic book trope of the protagonist having to hide their identity from everybody except for a few select people) makes this way more fun than it could have been otherwise.
Everybody (and I do mean everybody) in the Blue Beetles family gets their moment to shine both in the story and in action sequences. This movie would be absolutely insufferable if the actors here didn’t have a lot of screen chemistry. Thank goodness they do.
THE BAD STUFF
JAMIE KORD- There is something about this character that feels very Michael Bay-ish. More often than not, in a Michael Bay film, you’ll just have this….. supermodel-looking lady show up as an intellectual. She’s essential to the plot. She’ll say smart things. She’s kinda involved in the action as much as she can be, but the story isn’t about her, so she takes a major backseat to everything going on in the second and third Acts. Ultimately, she exists to fall in love with the protagonist no matter how much of the plot directly involves actions that she does.
If you seen enough of these action tent pole situations (especially from Bay), then you know exactly the trope that I’m talking about. It’s entirely predictable to see where she goes in the story.
THE UGLY STUFF
TYPICAL DCEU VILLIANS- This is not so much a Blue beetle problem as much as it is (or should I say…was?) a dceu problem. Contrary to popular opinion, it is the inclusion of a great villain that ends up making great superhero movies. There aren’t too many great superhero movies that exist that have dog s*** for villains.
More often than not, the exclusion of a great villain holds a story back from reaching its full potential. In an origin story, I never feel as if following the superhero for 90% of the film is the way to go…unless you’ve built a world that is completely standalone from the rest of the superhero flicks that have come out. (Like into the spider-verse, & the avengers)
Unfortunately, like Wonder woman, Justice league, batman vs superman, and first suicide squad film, the villains in the film are really understated, and the backstories are simply something that we cut away to in brief spurts so that 100% of the film isn’t focused on the protagonist. It’s kind of a cheap way to go about things. And because it’s happened to walk in by this point, it’s really noticeable.
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Blue beetle is good. It is fun. But it is not special. It doesn’t add anything to the dceu that needs to be added, nor is it one of the things that stick out like a sore thumb. It is simply good in the most simple kind of way. And you know what? That actually is a good thing. There hasn’t been a film franchise with more movies that had all the potential in the world and never lived up to their expectations than the DC Extended Universe.
This movie is made all of the better by not alluding to anything involving a Justice League tie-in or anything like that. It is what it’s supposed to be. It gets the job done. And that’s all we should ask.
BLUE BEETLE is in theaters now
