Blue Beetle (2023)


Blue Beetle had everything going against it.  The DC Cinematic Universe was on its last legs and everyone knew it, from audiences to the Warner Bros. executives.  By the time the movie was wrapping up I'm sure even director Angel Manuel Soto knew it.  At this point movies like Batgirl, which was pretty much completed, were being scrapped and used as tax write-offs.  Blue Beetle, which had originally been meant to stream on HBO Max, somehow scampered into theaters and, except for those who revel in seeing things fail, it was largely ignored.  Though critics gave it decent reviews it didn't catch on with audiences.

Part of the problem is that by this time most people only wanted to watch these movies to mock them.  So many of the DC films had been hollow spectacles with little to no entertainment value, so it was expected that the movie also wouldn't be any good.  It's a minor character, the plot is way too similar to Shazam!, and it came on the heels of the disappointing Black Adam.  There is pretty much nothing to entice people to see it in the theater, even the Latin audiences that this was aimed at. Having a poster that looks like it was designed by AI also doesn't help.  Thus, it gained a reputation of being a horrible film just because it existed, not because there was a whole lot wrong with it.

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) has just returned home to Palmera City after graduating from college.  While glad to be back he finds out things aren't going great.  His father (Damián Alcázar) is out of work and they are about to lose their home due to the landlord raising the rent.  This means Jaime must get a job - any job - even if that means working with his sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) at the home for billionaire Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon).  Kord is involved in production of military weapons and, after a long search, has obtained a device called the Scarab with which to power her tech.

Her niece Jenny (Bruna Marquezine), on the hand, desires the company to go in a different direction.  She steals the Scarab and, as Jaime comes looking for a job, gives it to him.  Not knowing what it is he activates it in front of his family, ultimately being possessed by a mechanical symbiote called Khaji-Da (Becky G) that allows him to fight against bad guys.  With the help of Jenny and his uncle Rudy (George Lopez) Jaime at first hopes to find a way to remove the Scarab but soon finds out that having it has its advantages.

Blue Beetle is largely origin story and a rather predictable one at that.  We see little of Jaime being the Blue Beetle as the movie focuses on family drama.  This does set things up for a humorous rescue of Jaime and Jenny, although it is also one of several parts of the movie that gets overly corny and beats the audience over the head with the "family is everything" theme.  Still, it is called Blue Beetle, and it would have been nice if writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer had bothered to let Jaime do something other than get thrown around and rescued.  He is pretty much a lovable lunkhead most of the movie, and Maridueña is good in the role, but George Lopez and Belissa Escobedo constantly upstage him.  

Still, as predictable and hokey as it is, the movie has its appeal.  It's got a good cast and, for once, the special effects are halfway decent.  It doesn't try to jam a whole bevy of heroes and villains into one movie, and one of them has an arc, as tride and true as it is.  It just takes way too long to get to the point, something that the writers and directors of some of the more recent reboots are starting to figure out.  

Blue Beetle (2023)
Time: 127 minutes
Starring: Xolo Maridueña, Bruna Marquezine, Belissa Escobedo, George Lopez, Damián Alcázar, Susan Sarandon, Raoul Max Trujillo
Director: Angel Manuel Soto

 

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