The DCEU, at the current time of writing, is possibly in the greatest state of flux any long-running connected cinematic universe has ever been in. After around a decade of divisive releases, behind the scenes scandal, incessant hashtag campaigns and wildly fluctuating box office, it seemed that not even the iron-clad ego of Dwanye Johnson was immune to the ever changing landscape, but with the release of the multiverse razing The Flash, the turbulent DCEU timeline was over.
So what comes next? Well, James Gunn and Peter Safran’s brand new Gods & Monsters iteration of the DC Cinematic universe is on the horizon, but what does that means for the remaining titles left to be released, namely Angel Manuel Soto’s Blue Beetle?
Apparently straddling the divide between universes like a bright, blue Colossus of Rhodes, the alter-ego of the youthful Jaime Reyes has the near insurmountable task of ignoring ten years of lop-sided continuity while paving the road for a whole new status quo that probably hadn’t even been plotted yet.
But all self-respecting, fledgling heroes need challenges, right?
Young Jaime Reyes has returned to his hometown of Palmera City after being the first of his family to graduate college (Gotham Law University, in case you were wondering), however, upon arriving he finds out that his loving relatives have been withholding information concerning their recent, tough times. Simply put, they’re on the verge of broke and so Jaime vows to put his newly earned qualifications to use and get his family back on their feet.
However, after a chance meeting with Jenny Kord, daughter of the late CEO of Kord Industries, Jaime comes into contact with a mysterious, alien artifact that looks curiously like a scarab and that chooses to attach itself, facehugger style, in order to fuse with his body. You see the scarab is actually named “Khaji Da” and is an extraterrestrial weapons system that bonds to a host in order to operate and Jenny’s unscrupulous aunt, Victoria, is planning to reverse engineer it to crack the future of weaponry wide open.
However, to do that, she’ll have to subdue the now heavily armoured Jaime whose glowing blue form gifts him the power of flight, durability and the ability to create weapons purely with the power of a thought, but luckily for Victora’s glowering, scarred, cyborg henchman, Carapax, he’s also extraordinarily inexperienced.
Will the help of an adoring family, that includes his conspiracy theorist uncle, Rudy, teasing younger sister, Milagro and a grandmother with a surprisingly virulent past, can Reyes halt Victoria Kord’s plans and fully embrace the legacy of the Blue Beetle?
Long term superhero fanatics will no doubt be wondering how Blue Beetle fits in the seemingly endless jigsaw puzzle that comic book movies have become and how it either sets up or clarifies the new-look DCU that’s currently in the planning stages as I write these very words. However, Soto’s neon drenched serving of Latinx-steeped superheroics is best served if you mentally put all that behind-the-scenes shit on the back burner and settle in for a highly entertaining, if hardly ground breaking, punch-a-thon.
The true elephant in the room isn’t how much Blue Beetle looks to the future, but by how much it liberally borrows from the past and if I’m being blunt, the movie isn’t that much more than the superhero-in-training of the MCU’s Spider-Man wrapped in crunching, CGI smackdown’s cribbed almost exactly from the first two Iron Man movies. Simply put, if it’s originality you’ve come for, you’re going to be shit out of luck as moments that see Reyes locking robotic horns with an armour plated Carapax (who looks like a ‘roided up Maximilian from Disney’s The Black Hole) could literally be reskinned scenes from Tony Stark’s second adventure – Christ, at one point the villian even uses a laser whip!
However, while the CGI action leans a little on the side of been-there-done-that, what carries Blue Beetle through a potential lawsuit is that the moments concerning the Reyes family is heartfelt and genuinely sweet enough to still make you invested in set pieces you already saw back in 2010.
It’s no secret that the movie is infused with latino culture, be it a brief examination of the class divide, immigration and casual bigotry (once character is constantly referred to as “Sanchez” when that isn’t even his name), but while Blue Beetle isn’t as revolutionary as, say, Black Panther, it gives a unique flavour to the usual superhero shenanigans to generate that much needed original feel that the action is lacking. It also helps that the Reyes family is keenly cast with each character taking turns switching from comic relief to heartfelt whenever the tone requires with special kudos going to George Lopez and Belissa Escobedo who manage to balance it the best. Elsewhere, the villains are slightly less well served with Susan Sarandon’s Obidiah Stane wannabe feeling like a turn from a nineties comic book film, however, a late in the day origin reveal for Raoul Trujillo’s snarling Carapax proves to be genuinely touching, giving the baddie more layers in a single minute than he had for the entire film.
However, much like Reyes himself, the true weight of the film rests on the shoulders of Xolo Maridueña who quickly proves that being the most endearing, younger member of the cast of Cobra Kai was no fluke. Yes, some of his panicked stammering and earnest learning curves may resemble a certain Peter Parker (he even has a shameless, Uncle Ben moment), but the actors charm allows the movie to glide past such cracks on glowing blue, hard light wings.
Taking all this onto account, Soto pumps Blue Beetle with a suprising amount of comics lore, scratching the surface of past iterations of the character that strongly hints at a larger legacy that could bare fruit if the movie can wrestle beyond the repeated threat of superhero fatigue. The film – originally destined for a landing pad on the Max streaming service before it got a big screen upgrade – looks great, mixing 80s flare, Mexican inspirations and more light tubing than a backyard wrestling death match in order to dazzle you into submission. Be grateful that it totally works.
A needed win in the quality column for DC, those looking for titbits on the wider future of the connected universe, or even anything approaching originality might feel a little short changed. However, taken on it’s own admittedly derivative merits, this is one beetle you won’t want to step on.
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