DCEU Review Series
Blue Beetle
2023
Director: Angel Manuel Soto
The DCEU burn-off continues with Blue Beetle which had a lot of potential but ultimately comes off as a made for TV comic book movie. The acting is weak, the plot is derivative, the characters are one dimensional. The big Hollywood trope these days is the need to emphasize family when making films that don’t involve white people. Hollywood leans on the family devotion card anytime they make a film with a main character of a nontraditional Hollywood ethnicity. It’s like Hollywood feels the need to explain to white people that ethnic people have families. Or they don’t think white folks watching the film will be able to relate to anything other than family devotion.
Xolo Maridueña Comes with a lot of clout as an actor after his stint on Cobra Kai. He plays Jamie Reyes/Blue Beetle which should be perfect casting. The acting is phoned in like a bad single camera format sitcom. Susan Sarandon as Victoria Kord does no better. All the performances are staler than a soap opera. This isn’t the result of poor talent. It’s poor writing and bad directing.
The plot is Blue Beetle comes back from college and finds out his family is broke. Susan Sarandon is making military weapons despite Jenny Kord’s (played by Bruna Marquezine) objections. Blue Beetle sports a total crush on Jenny Kord and befriends her.
Through circumstances which require movie magic Jenny passes a special scarab to Blue Beetle which gives him his power. It’s some piece of tech which infuses itself to a host and gives him superpowers. One nice twist on the superhero trope is his entire family sees him get the powers, so there isn’t a secret identity. The implementation of that could have been better. George Lopez was too over the top with his reactions. The director went for comedy where it should have been genuine concern. The discovery of his powers is a rip off of Iron Man.
Jenny pops in and explains the origin of the scarab and how Susan Sarandon will kill Blue Beetle to get it back. Team Blue Beetle form a plan to get intel to help him remove the scarab. Antics ensue and they infiltrate the bad guy compound. Blue Beetle fights a villain very similar to Iron Man’s villain Warmonger. We learn Blue Beetle doesn’t want to kill people but the robot voice in the scarab attached to him has no issue doing that. Blue Beetle learns the scarab is attached to him until he dies. It’s a Hollywood requirement to dislike this finding, need time alone to think, followed by a pep talk from a mentor, love interest, or elder. In this case George Lopez gives him the talk.
Susan Sarandon attacks Blue Beetles family to draw him out. Blue Beetle shows up to save them and action ensues. During the battle Blue Beetle’s dad has a heart attack and dies. This distracts Blue Beetle enough that he ends up getting captured. His family rallies together to rescue him with the help of Jenny. She hooks them up with the original old school Blue Beetle tech. Before they can reach him, Blue Beetle is about to die while Susan Sarandon downloads the scarab’s code. Blue Beetle’s dead dad shows up in a vision as he’s about to die and gives some extra inspirational guidance, like in Thor: Ragnorok. He bust loose from his captivity and takes down the bad guys. Everyone gets a happy ending. Blue Beetle gets the girl.
It’s not a terrible film but there’s nothing truly unique or interesting. They took Marvel plot points, tossed them in a blender, and we got Blue Beetle. The film is a four-ball walk. There are arguments this is not part of the DCEU but the intention was there. It has been made clear it’s not part of the new DC film universe but the lead actor is supposed to play Blue Beetle in future installments of the new universe. Xolo can thank how awesome Cobra Kai is for the second chance and the job security.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
