Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto — Screenplay by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer.
Blue Beetle isn’t just the live-action debut for the titular character, it also happens to be the 14th film in the DC Extended Universe (15th, if you count Zack Snyder’s Justice League), as well as the penultimate film in the very same cinematic universe, which is being remade or rebooted by James Gunn. This act of announcing that they are starting all over again has made this year’s DC superhero films essentially lame-ducks that fans and the general public don’t take seriously because people, naturally, don’t expect them to figure into the storyline going forward. It’s also a really sad thing because, one, this was meant to be the big screen debut for a lesser-known character that DC die-hards are excited about, and, two, this also happens to be the first DC live-action Latino superhero. In spite of the lame-duck nature of its story, it is a hugely important film precisely because it makes sure an underrepresented group in film now finally gets to see someone who looks like them as a great, big superhero in a feature film built around said hero. But they really deserved better because Blue Beetle is a stale superhero flick that has very little going for it in terms of originality.
Ángel Manuel Soto’s Blue Beetle follows Jaime Reyes (played by Zolo Maridueña), a Mexican-American young man with a pre-law degree, who returns home to his family, who are all so proud of him for being the first member of their family to get a university degree. However, all is not well for his family in Palmera City, as he finds out they are struggling to make ends meet and are facing eviction from their home. While out on a job in a mansion with his sister (played by Melissa Escobedo), Jaime decides to intervene and prevent a confrontation between the owner of the mansion, Kord Industries CEO Victoria Kord (played by Susan Sarandon), and her niece Jenny (played by Bruna Marquezine).
This confrontation gets Jaime and his sister fired, but Jenny is grateful so she offers to help Jaime get a new job. Though initially reluctant, Jaime eventually takes her up on that offer and approaches her sometime later, but she is caught off guard, as, at that moment, she is in the process of stealing a mystical and powerful blue scarab artifact, which she has hidden inside of a burger joint’s to-go box. Jenny decides to give the to-go box to Jaime under the promise that he will protect it with his life and absolutely not open it. However, once he gets home, his family pesters him into opening the box. When Jaime touches the blue scarab, it activates, attaches itself to his body, and encases him inside an armored suit with several powers. Jaime is understandably frightened by this especially since he is unable to remove the scarab from his back. So now he must search for answers and, in the meantime, test out the powers that the suit has granted him with.
Although Blue Beetle eventually had its theatrical release in August 2023, it was originally envisioned as a straight-to-streaming superhero flick, and, honestly, I think that the film just struggles with living up to the set of expectations that being a theatrically released superhero film comes with. Had this been released five-plus years ago, then I think there is a chance that audiences might’ve been more accepting of its triteness, but, as it has been released during what certainly looks like some kind of audience fatigue with the blockbuster genre, the fact that this is almost nothing more than just a constant rehashing of previous superhero films, many of which do these things better, is a huge problem.
Some of these issues are related to the way the titular hero backstory is laid out and severely underexplained (unless I missed something, the film never explains why Jaime was deliberately chosen by the Scarab), but, all in all, this just feels both bland and especially generic from a plot-beats perspective. There are absolutely no plot developments that take you by surprise thanks to a by-the-numbers story structure. The power-set and character design of the henchman that Jaime has to go toe-to-toe with is quite uninventive, the few interesting ideas related to gentrification and the working class feel underbaked, and, frankly, the film does not do a good job of distinguishing its titular hero from other similar superheroes in large part because of how much it sticks what has been done (and overdone) in the past.
Even though this isn’t ultimately enough to overcome the serious drawbacks present here, the one undeniably fresh element is how much fun it gets out of Jaime Reyes’ family. Many of the family members are well-realised and entertaining to watch with Adriana Barraza’s Nana being a delightful scene-stealer. I also especially enjoyed seeing George Lopez here. I thought his character was relatively well-written for the kind of role he was deemed to fill in the overall formulaic plot, and he did admittedly have some funny lines, even though they don’t all land as successfully as intended. As for the rising star in the title role, Xolo Mardueña, I will say that I’ve really enjoyed seeing him in Cobra Kai, where he is one of the highlights. Here he is able to translate that same charm onto a feature film built around him, but, with that having been said, I don’t think he was given a lot to work with here. He is let down by a central romance that doesn’t fully work, a stale story and predictable plot structure, an almost nonexistent character arc, and a first-draft antagonist. Susan Sarandon, a super talented and highly regarded multi-award-winning actress, is given a character with only a single defining characteristic and her performance ultimately feels quite flat. The antagonists in this film are so lackluster that they make so many underwhelming superhero bad guys look solid by comparison.
I really wanted to like Ángel Manuel Soto’s Blue Beetle and champion it as an entertaining gem in the final stage of the DCEU, but I can’t do that because that isn’t what it is. Far too often (especially in the dull second half), Blue Beetle feels like an uninspired assembly line product based on a pre-defined threadbare formula. Frustratingly, the few interesting ideas that this film has are underdeveloped and do not get the focus they merit. The film as a whole is so generic, bland, and stale that the negatives outweigh whatever positives can be found here and there. While I really did enjoy the Reyes family here, their film doesn’t deserve their charm. Even the effects leave something to be desired with some completely CG environments looking downright ugly, and certain effects feel more at home with the CW DC shows, including the Blue Beetle’s heads-up display — i.e. the point-of-view from inside the suit.
4.5 out of 10
– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 