REVIEW:
Unfortunately, this late August, end of the DCEU line, superhero release also happens to be the most predictable superhero movie ever made. You see, it’s one thing to be able to predict what will happen. Predicting an ending, for example, is normal. It happens. But being able to predict exactly how it will happen, is something else. And that’s what happens in this movie again and again. When storylines and subplots are mentioned repeatedly, you just know they will turn out to be major call backs at the end of the movie, and you can even predict how.
Without giving anything away, the three areas that I am specifically referring to are the lead villain, Victoria Kord, and what happens to her at the end, her henchman Carapax, and what happens to him at the end, and another character, Sanchez, who Kord keeps referring to by the wrong name. It’s not so much that you can predict what will happen, but how it will happen. We’re talking about exact dialogue. Now that’s pretty bad.
The movie itself is okay. It’s watchable. But there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done or seen before a thousand times over. There’s nothing really creative or interesting here. The movie is about an ancient artifact that is stolen from a lab and given to the protagonist, Jamie. He opens the box containing it, and it bonds with his body, transforming him into the Blue Beetle, which looks a lot like a blue version of Iron Man.
A lot is being made about the family in this movie, and how the film features a nearly all Latino cast. That’s all well and good, but if the movie is lousy then what difference does the cast make? The most interesting parts happen at the beginning when Jamie is trying to get a job. Him showing up at a building where he hopes to be interviewed by the woman who said she might be able to help him, and then running down escalators to try to meet her, is a lot of fun. But once the actual superhero story kicks in, it’s pretty lame. And the humor (which is where the family comes in,) is actually not very funny at all.
There’s one sequence in the movie that hints at what this one could have been. It involves a giant bug vehicle crawling all over the enemy hideout and taking out bad guys one by one. The bug even stabs them with its legs and then carries their bodies along with it, as it continues to walk around. This is pretty fantastic. It is funny, and a great visual gag, among other things. And it hints at wha the movie might have been like, had it been rated R. One would have hoped that a movie like this (a late summer, August throw-away release,) would have the “what do we have to lose?” attitude and approach to try something like that, Deadpool-style. Only this movie doesn’t. Instead, it is just a very basic, predictable, and unfunny movie. What a disappointment this one was.