REVIEW #311 Blue Beetle (2023)

Jaime Reyes finds himself in possession of an ancient alien biotechnology that bestows him with remarkable powers. But with this great power, comes a new threat that the Reyes must face.

Blue Beetle is a wonderful blend of an early 2000’s superhero flick and the more modern takes on the genre. Balancing a wholesome, grounded origin story with the goofy humour that seems to come part and parcel with modern comic book movies. I won’t go as far as saying that I agreed with all of the silly punchlines that were included, for example all of the Nanna action sequences become a little too much for me, but for the most part, the humour worked really well! At the heart of this story is the Reyes family and they were as crucial to the plot as Jaime himself, contributing the emotional core that brought a tear to my eye in multiple moments throughout the film. The heroic story isn’t flashy or over complicated, in fact it’s super simple and that works in the movies favour. The antagonists were probably the weakest part of Blue Beetle, a little cheesy and stereotypical but luckily they weren’t even that important because the rest of the characters brought enough energy to carry the film. Big shoutout to George Lopez’s Uncle Rudy, he was absolutely brilliant always landing every joke, making the entire cinema chuckle. As for Xolo Mariduena, he was perfect as Blue Beetle and I can’t wait to see him incorporated into the new DC universe under James Gunn.

Now I want to talk about Blue Beetle as a concept and a character, I wasn’t familiar with him prior to the movie but boy is it great! The powers are amazing and the suit…that has to be a contender for one of the best superhero suits across all live action comic book projects right? What a hero that could really be a staple for DC, especially with the Mexican culture that this version brings along with it. Which was a great aspect of the film! The CGI throughout was actually really good too, which was surprising considering most CBM’s lately have been sub par at best! You could probably argue that the Blue Beetle dream like sequence looked a bit odd, but I think that was their intention rather than the CGI being at fault, clearly separating it’s aesthetic to that of the real world. However, that being said, the fictional Palmera City had a really unique look which worked well. I think that’s where DC works wonderfully, having lots of fictional cities and locations that can really become a character within itself. 

I really hope more people get out to see this movie because it deserves the attention. It certainly doesn’t deserve to go down as a box office flop, so if you can, I’d definitely recommend getting out to see it in the cinema and let’s hope we see the amazing Blue Beetle back on our screens sooner rather than later.

Overall (8/10)

Thanks for reading!

Callan