Blue Beetle

4 outta 5

After the somewhat haphazard results of Shazam: Fury of the Gods and The Flash, DC films continues its somewhat disconnected 2023 film output with Blue Beetle. This is an engaging origin story crowd pleaser that may crib a few things directly from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, intentionally or not. A lot of DC feels ripped off from the MCU but most of the time, DC comics were first and then Marvel did a spin on it. But it’s difficult to watch Beetle and not think about the original Iron Man movie, except with an alien suit, lots of blue and an extended family along for the ride. Still, this is an enjoyable superhero film, despite feeling at times derivative.

College graduate Jamie Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) has gone back to his family, dad Alberto (Damián Alcázar), mom Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo), Uncle Rudy (George Lopez), sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) and Nana (Adriana Barraza). They are going to lose their house so Jamie gets a job working as an assistant at a high class hotel with his sister. The lady who owns the hotel, and many other tech businesses, is Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), and one day Victoria ends up threatening her niece, Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) and Jamie intervenes. This gets him promptly fired but Jenny, heiress and daughter of the missing billionaire inventor, Ted, offers Jamie a job. Surprisingly, Jamie is given by Jenny a mysterious scarab that bonds to him, outfits him with tech, reads his mind, talks to him, and gives him superpowers of the Blue Beetle. Victoria was researching the scarab to create a new tech super soldier, OMAC personified by Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo). Now to complete her plan, Victoria tracks down Jamie and his super suit and even if she destroys Jamie’s family in the process.

The biggest influence on this movie is Iron Man, but that’s not too surprising as the original Ted Kord Blue Beetle is a billionaire tech genius that fights crime. Although the direct influence of Iron Man is apparent as there are closeups of Jamie’s eyes talking to the computer voice in his suit while in Iron Man it’s a close-up of Tony Stark’s entire face talking to the computer voice. There’s a lot of closeup eye acting by Maridueña in intense scenes as he talks with Khaji-Da (Becky G), the entity inside the suit. Another parallel with the MCU output is the evil tech genius master plan to mass market and produce and evil tech version of the good guy’s suit which is remarkably to Ant-Man and the bad guy wanting to mass produce the Yellowjacket armor, or Iron Man 2 with the Iron Man tech getting out to the bad guys.

There are fun references to Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle as the movie establishes (but never directly shows) that Ted was the original Blue Beetle in the past, featuring shots of the classic Blue Beetle outfit hanging on a podium. One of the movie’s best scenes is when Rudy ends up piloting one of Ted’s classic vehicles with a giant, flying Beetle that wrecks bad guys while Motley Crue is blaring. That would be the best action scene were it not for the insanely awesome bit with Nana hollering while blasting bad guys with a minigun. The flashes Barraza shows of grandma’s revolutionary past are hilarious. Lopez as the uncle delivers fun quips throughout and the rest of the family have some good moments. Escobedo as the sister throws good snark at her brother as the mother is often worrying about her son. The father reveals he had a heart attack while Jamie was away at school and, as movie cliches must go, this becomes a problem later.

Sarandon as Victoria is appropriately nasty, even at one point ordering her goons to fire upon Jamie’s family to test out the suit’s abilities. She also never remembers her scientist assistant’s name which lets Harvey Guillén, who plays the long-suffering assistant, slowly burn until he gets his revenge. Trujillo as the bad guy is basically a generic faceless goon that gets more tech for the action climax, until there’s a collision of emotional backstory flooding in to give character depth at the very end. Marquezine as Jenny delivers lots of exposition until she gets romantic with Jamie, as is demanded by the genre. Maridueña is a likable performer, and his exasperation and exhaustion at seeing the scarab attach to himself is entertaining. He is especially good at freaking out, like when he first is taken for a ride by the Blue Beetle suit or when Jamie is arguing with the suit, telling it not to make killer weapons. There’s an abstract trippy visual bit when Jamie is leaping through a void to bond the suit that is oddly dramatic and works well.

Blue Beetle isn’t reinvigorating the superhero origin story, and its component pieces have been seen many times before. But the family dynamic, some interesting bits of action, a nasty villain, and fun peeks into the past of the Blue Beetle make for a serviceable superhero romp.