PicoBlog

For whatever reason, there seems to be more DC Comics movies this year than in the past few years. Maybe some of it is due to delays from COVID and other things, but it’s a good thing that someone decided to release Blue Beetle in movie theaters rather than the rumored plans of just putting it on the HBO Max streamer (which I don’t fully believe after seeing it), because the resulting movie is one that is so much fun to watch with other people. 

Directed by Puerto Rican filmmaker Ángel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), the film follows young Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña), who lives with his extended family in the poorer section of the fictional Palmera City. In the comics, it’s set in Texas but in this case, Palmera seems to be a substitute for Miami. Things aren’t looking good for the Reyes family, who are about to lose their home, but Reyes has a fortunate encounter with Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezina), who comes from a wealthy family. Her aunt Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) runs Kord Industries with an iron fist used to crush those below her or anyone who gets in her way. Victoria is obsessed with an alien artifact, a scarab, that can be used to fulfill her desires to create the ultimate military weapon, along with her right hand Guatemalan military leader, Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo). Instead, Jenny steals the scarab and stealthily gives it to Jaime, who ends up getting bonded to the scarab, named Khaji-Da and voiced by Becky G, and it provides whatever the lad might need to protect himself and his family.

The more cynical non-comic book reader will assume that Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle is a flagrant rip-off of Iron Man meets Miles Morales with a bit of the Iron Spider armor (seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home) thrown in. Actually, Reyes was introduced years before the first two, and never really looked like the latter in the comics. Fans of the comics should be thrilled by how the scarab is used, how Jaime gets his hands on it, and how it casually ties into comic book favorites like O.M.A.C. and the original Blue Beetle aka Ted Kord. 

The rarity of a single screenwriter in this day and age may be one of the reasons why Blue Beetle works as well as it does. It rarely if ever feels like an action movie cobbled together by committee, and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer seems to have a good handle on the characters, their surroundings and making them relatable to different audiences. The first twenty minutes of the movie, before Jaime becomes Blue Beetle, there may be a little too many laughs, much of them coming from Jaime’s sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) and the sometimes insufferable George Lopez as his paranoid Uncle Rudy, who doesn’t trust government or corporations like Kord. 

I’ve never seen Cobra Kai, but Xolo Maridueña has so much charm and personality, that it definitely has gotten me more interested in a series that I’ve been hearing people rave about for many years. Same with Brazilian actress Bruna Marquezina, who offers such a great counterpoint bit of chemistry to Maridueña that it brings a romantic angle to the story that’s solely lacking in similar movies. I wasn’t as enamored by Sarandon’s turn as a villain, who frequently relies on Carapax and her armed security guards to do her dirty work.

There is a lot going on in Blue Beetle, some derived straight from the comics, others that just plays up the LatinX family dynamics that we rarely see on the big screen, as opposed to television shows like the recent One Day at a Time. (I’m kind of surprised they didn’t get Rita Moreno to play the grand-matriarch Nana, but Adriana Barraza does a fantastic job, especially when it gets to the last act climax.) In some ways, this shares of that familial DNA with the recent Flamin’ Hot, but integrating it with a far more mainstream piece of big screen storytelling. 

Sure, there are some tonal and pacing issues I can’t get too far into without delving into spoilers, although something tragic happens that would normally derail any family. Instead, the Reyes carry on with their jokes and going after Victoria Kord captures and plans to kill Jaime to gain control of the scarab. 

When Carapax armors up and goes toe-to-toe with Blue Beetle, that’s where the Iron Man comparisons come to the fore, and it’s something people who absolutely detest superhero movies – no, I have no clue why they’d go see this movie either – might hold against the movie. Notably, the stunt and VFX work is just so much better than many movies that might cost twice the production budget.

I’m going to unleash some of my inner nerd right now, because I greatly appreciated how much Blue Beetle fits in with the type of DC movie I like (see Aquaman, Shazam! and its sequel), but with more of an ingrained innocence that we’ve only seen in a movie like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. 

Blue Beetle should win audiences over by leaning heavily on the humor and heart, but also offering the type of quality VFX-laden action that comic book movie enthusiasts have come to expect. It’s not often I watch a movie and hope it does well, just so I can see more of a character. (James Gunn seems to already be a fan who wants to integrate Reyes into his DCEU.) In this case, I also hope it allows Soto to get more work, since he really knocked this one out of the park, and I’d like to confirm that Blue Beetle is no fluke.

Rating: 8/10

Blue Beetle will hit theaters on Friday, August 18 with previews on Thursday night.

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