[Blue Beetle Review – Superhero Fun With Immigrant Survival
Subtext]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

BLUE BEETLE REVIEW – SUPERHERO FUN WITH IMMIGRANT SURVIVAL SUBTEXT
 
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Mark Kermode
August 20, 2023
The Guardian
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_ Blue Beetle Review – Superhero Fun With Immigrant Survival
Subtext _

‘Our eyeballs kept spinning, our heartstrings plucked’: Blue
Beetle. , Photograph: Warner Bros Pictures

 

Cinemagoers could be forgiven for suffering from superhero fatigue of
late, with outings such as _Black Adam
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Flash
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and the Wasp: Quantumania
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Fury of the Gods
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to match spectacle with anything vaguely approaching substance. This
latest offering from DC (and its extended universes) is a little
different, focusing on a believable Latino family whose lively
interaction really powers the drama. Directed by Puerto Rican-born
film-maker Ángel Manuel Soto, it has something of the anarchic charm
of Robert Rodriguez’s _Spy Kids_ flicks, albeit welded to the
chassis of a franchise-launching DC FX vehicle.

Originally intended to go straight to the streaming service HBO
Max, _Blue Beetle _may be frontloaded with visual fireworks that
neatly meld the practical and the virtual, but it is the likable
interplay between its down-to-earth characters that gives the film
oomph, making it more than just a _Shazam_-style romp.

Rising star Xolo Maridueña (best known for the Netflix series _Cobra
Kai
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is excellently cast as Jaime Reyes, the Gotham law school graduate who
returns home to find that his family is destitute, in danger of losing
their house. “I’m gonna get the money to save this place,” Jaime
assures his sister, Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), looking out over
Palmera City – the fictional replacement for the comic-strip’s El
Paso, Texas.

But when the benevolent industrialist Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine)
offers to help him find a job, Jaime instead becomes welded to a
biotechnical scarab – a glowing creature (“is that the new
Tamagochi?”) that turns him into an armour-plated blue avenger with
a mysterious inner voice (think Iron Man, but without the option of
stepping out of the suit).

Wicked warmonger Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) had planned to use the
beetle to power her One Man Army Corps – a range of Robocop-style
weaponised law-enforcers. Now she must track down Jaime and extract
his newly found superpowers, with inevitably fatal consequences.

It wouldn’t be half as much fun were it not for the boisterous
dinner-table vibe that drives the film

“We’re invisible to people like that,” Milagro tells her
brother, “It’s kind of our superpower”, a line that rings
through Mexican-born writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer’s script,
unexpectedly recalling a key plot point from Wim Wenders’ underrated
1997 drama _The End of Violence__._

Later, when Jaime’s family is confronted with the awful realities of
their son’s predicament (“What do you think Kord’s gonna do when
they find out some Mexican kid has _that_ kind of military tech
inside them?”), invisibility vanishes, leaving them exposed and
endangered. Good job grandma Nana (Adriana Barraza) has a
revolutionary past (“Down with the imperialists!”) and isn’t
afraid to get back in the game.

“People think crossing the border’s hard,” says Jaime’s Uncle
Rudy (George Lopez), a DIY tech-whiz who gets machines working by
kicking them, and who frequently steals the movie. “You know
what’s hard? The next 20 years.”

Meanwhile, spiralling CG visuals intertwine with Polish
cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski’s sinewy camera moves, ensuring
that our eyeballs are kept spinning even as our heartstrings are
gently plucked.

There’s a slapstick quality to the action scenes that fits the
film’s comedic tone, injecting pathos and humour into sequences that
might otherwise descend into smashy-crashy tedium. As for the
human-mechanoid transformation scenes, they are an alarming amalgam
of _Venom_-style possession riffs from the Marvel Universe, and the
flesh-and-metal squishiness of Shinya Tsukamoto’s _Tetsuo: The Iron
Man_.

Nods to Japanese giant-monster “kaiju” flicks and Mexican
“luchador” wrestling movies rub shoulders with good-natured
messages about embracing your destiny and standing by your kith and
kin, which never descend into the empty platitudes of the Fast and
Furious movies.

This is, first and foremost, fun – and it wouldn’t be half as much
fun were it not for the boisterous dinner-table vibe that drives the
film. Composer Bobby Krlic’s score features a bombastic theme
reminiscent of John Williams’ Imperial March from the _Star
Wars_ series, but it is the softer notes that get under the skin and
tickle our insides.

Watch a trailer for Blue Beetle.
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* blue beetle
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* Warner Brothers Discovery
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* Latino community
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* Immigrants
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* Representation in Film
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