Movie Review: 'Blue Beetle'

Blue Beetle (2023)

Directed by Angel Manuel Soto

Written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer

Starring Xolo Mariduena, Bruna Marquezine, Adriana Barraza, Damian Alcazar, Susan Sarandon, George Lopez

Release Date August 18th, 2023

Published August 18th, 2023

What I loved about Blue Beetle is the enthusiasm that pours forth from every frame of this movie. There is a sense of wonder and delight even in as the movie laying out a heartbreaking backstory for main character, Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena). Jaime, as we join the story, has become the first member of his family to graduate from college. Sadly, he's returning home to a lot of bad news. His father, Alberto (Damian Alcazar), has suffered a heart attack and is no longer working. His not working led to the family losing their auto repair business. And the family home is about to be foreclosed upon.

Jaime feels responsible as his parents had gone to great lengths to get him into college. Now, he's back home and he can't find work. He can't afford to go back to college to complete his law degree and he's trapped in a world where his education doesn't mean nearly as much as the color of his skin. The racial divide in Palmera City is very obvious and seems to have been engineered by the Kord Corporation, headed up by the vicious and vindictive Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), a weapons manufacturer preparing to release her most terrifying new weapon, super-soldier suits based on an ancient technology.

Standing in Victoria's way is her niece, Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), daughter of Ted Kord, the benevolent former CEO. Jenny wants to carry on her father's legacy of community involvement and investment. She wants to get out of the weapons business completely. Naturally, this places her in conflict with Victoria to a point that places Jenny's life at risk. In a desperate attempt to stop Victoria, Jenny makes a big play. Sneaking into the Kord labs, Jenny steals an ancient piece of alien technology known as The Scarab. The Scarab is the key to Victoria's plans and without it, she's got nothing.

As Jenny tries to sneak The Scarab out of Kord she runs into Jaime and enlists him to sneak the ancient artifact out of the building. The two had met the day before when Victoria fired Jaime and his sister, Milagro Reyes (Belissa Escobedo) from their cleaning jobs at her resort home. Jaime developed an immediate crush on Jenny so, naturally, he's happy to help her in this moment, unaware of the level of danger he's inviting into his life and the life of his family.

The legend of The Scarab is that it chooses the person that it will attach itself to. The choice is based on who The Scarab believes is worthy to wield its magical powers. When Jaime picks up The Scarab he has no idea that he would be the one the ancient alien tech would choose. Once The Scarab does choose Jaime however, Blue Beetle kicks into second gear as the war between Jaime, his family and Victoria Kord's army of super soldiers, led by the ruthless Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), is on.

Blue Beetle was directed by Angel Manuel Soto whose debut feature Charm City Kings was a hit at Sundance and sold to HBO. It was championed by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith as Executive Producers and it starred rapper Meek Mill. Mostly however, that film got lost amid the pandemic and the inability to release the movie in theaters. Thankfully, the right people saw and enjoyed Charm City Kings enough to entrust $120 million dollars to Soto to make Blue Beetle. That trust is well served as Blue Beetle is an exuberant and lively family adventure.

Unafraid to confront a few dark and despairing racial disparities, Blue Beetle isn't a movie that I would call relevant, but it also isn't shying away from issues that need to be addressed such as the wealth gap and the opportunity gap that exists, especially when you come from a background other than being Caucasian. I'm trying to soft peddle this, the movie isn't about race or class but it cannot exist in a believable fashion without nodding towards these issues and the film does that deftly, confidently and gets on to the action you came for from a comic book movie.

There is a slightly generic quality to this Blue Beetle origin story. The outcome is certainly never in doubt, the villains aren't particularly formidable, and the action is okay at best. This very much feels like an audition for a franchise rather than an actual movie. That said, the heart is in the right place. The spirit of Blue Beetle, Jaime's wonderful family dynamic, it's a terrific jumping off point for future adventures.

The CGI is good, the story progresses with a solid pace, it's all very solid. If given the chance by audiences and the even more fickle executives at Warner-Discovery, there could be something special here. I teared up at one point because the family dynamic, the lovely and quite funny performance of Adriana Barraza as Jaime's grandmother, it worked on me. I was thoroughly charmed.

I am not a comic book guy, I have nothing against it, it just wasn't part of my childhood. That said, several years ago I became a fan of an online reviewer nicknamed Linkara. I find him to be both funny and thoughtful, creative and intelligent. He began his career on YouTube bashing terrible comic books but he's since evolved into a storyteller and a thorough critic of multiple different media.

Linkara has been around more than a decade now and even evolved into critiquing good comics and his remarkably thorough history of the character, Blue Beetle was a key element in my research of the character before I saw this movie. He's the reason I got excited hearing the names of Dan Garrett and Ted Kord, the previous incarnations of The Blue Beetle. Ted Kord may have a future in this franchise if it is successful and I genuinely hope I get to see that.

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