Blue Beetle Review

Blue Beetle is the third DC film of 2023 and this one serves as an origin story for the titular character.

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns home to Palmera City after graduating from university. He finds out his family is struggling and about to be evicted. When Jaime has a chance encounter with Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), the daughter of an industrialist, she offers to meet the young man about a job. Yet Jaime’s life takes an unexpected turn when Jenny gives him an alien scarab that fuses with Jaime and the Reyes family becoming a target for Jenny’s amoral aunt, Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon).

The superhero genre has dominated mainstream culture for over a decade. Marvel had been cranking out hit after hit and Warner Brothers and DC have been desperate to catch up. Recently there has been talk of superhero fatigue since the MCU has been oversaturated and suffering from poor quality control whilst DC suffered from two box office bombs: Shazam! Fury of the Gods and The Flash. The pre-release projections for Blue Beetle were poor, but hopefully, it will have staying power because of good word-of-mouth.

Many recent films and TV shows have suffered from inflated budgets. The Flash had a budget estimated between $200-$300 million, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One budgets were close to the $300 million mark and Secret Invasion cost Disney+ $200 million. Blue Beetle seems like a bargain at $107 million. Blue Beetle followed the example of the first Shazam! film because it was on a smaller scale, more personal film.

Blue Beetle was a standard origins story where a character through a quirk of fate is granted superpowers, learns how to use them, and faces some sort of threat in a climactic battle. We have seen this in good films like Spider-Man and Iron Man and bad ones like Catwoman and Fantastic Four. Blue Beetle followed the formula of those films, with Iron Man and Shazam! being particularly influential.

Jaime as Blue Beetle had a similar powerset to Iron Man since his suit could fly, was extremely durable, and had all sorts of weapons. Blue Beetle also had a little bit of Green Lantern in him because the only limitation to their weaponry was the human imagination. The main threat in Blue Beetle was a multinational company that wanted to use the scarab to make weapons and Victoria Kord’s main henchman had similar powers to the hero – this added to a sense that Blue Beetle felt similar to Iron Man. There was also anime quality to the action when Blue Beetle was at full power.

The filmmakers who made Blue Beetle learned the right lessons from Shazam. Both films were focused on young characters from modest backgrounds and had a focus on the hero’s familial relationships. In Blue Beetle’s case, Jaime’s relationship and loyalty to his family were what drove him. He was willing to take a service job to help his family and he would do anything to protect them. Jaime stood out from other heroes because of his background. He was a working-class young man compared to the affluents of Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne. Nor was Jaime scientifically minded like Peter Parker or Scott Lang, so he was more of an everyman.

The family theme ran throughout the film. The Reyeses were a healthy family unit despite their financial problems, whilst the Kords were dysfunctional even though they were wealthy. Jenny was grieving for her parents and the only family she had left was her aunt who didn’t respect the young woman. The final pillar of the family theme came from Victoria’s henchman, Ignacio Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo) who believed that Jaime’s devotion to his family made him weak. The word ‘family’ was said so much that it felt like a Fast & Furious film.

Blue Beetle’s unique feature was its celebration of Mexican American culture. The majority of the cast were of Mexican heritage and the film looked at issues being experienced by Latino communities. Their neighbourhood has become gentrified and people and local businesses were getting pushed out. Jaime’s sister, Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) stated that Latino people were pushed to the outskirts as they viewed Pamera City’s futuristic skyline and were now being pushed out to the outskirts. This focus on Mexican culture gave Blue Beetle a little extra flavour.

Blue Beetle was a throwback to a simpler time of superhero films since it was a standalone film. It was focused on a straightforward story and not on universe-building or setting up a bigger, multi-film narrative. There were references to other DC characters but Blue Beetle stands on its own. The majority of the film was set in one city, the threat was severe but not world ending, and the tone, comedy, and visuals, Blue Beetle felt like it was influenced by the first Spider-Man film.

Blue Beetle shows that a superhero film can be formulaic but can be entertaining if it’s made with care and passion.