Blue Beetle

So, this has been sitting on a shelf as a rough draft staring at me for over two weeks. Overall, I have been HIGHLY demotivated with work, stressful situations, and overall personal issues. That being said, I'm finally relaxed after a decent week and relaxing weekend. So, here's the first review of the week! BLUE BEETLE!

PLOT: A return to basics.

Where the movies as of late have been complex and oversaturated with heroes. Now, we just have a singular hero rising up in the Keys! The plot is basic, but that doesn't inherently mean bad. It's just very simple: kid becomes hero against his will and has to avoid evil bad guy. It's nice to just have a basic movie sometimes.

CHARACTERS: A mixed bag?

Surprisingly, I got behind most of the characters minus a few. The two Kords present in this movie are both kind of iffy in terms of characterization and writing. The best focus is on the family and the secondary villain. Jaime Reyes is a likeable kid played by a young actor who's doing a great job. George Lopez is absolutely stealing his scenes and delivers a performance I would expect from him in a characterization I never expected him to pull off, but he does. It's great. Not much to say here.

SHOTS: Nothing special.

This movie does nothing special in terms of cinematography. But, the colors in the city besides the final battle are great and really make the city feel alive and real. That's the most positive thing I can say as the final battle becomes a cluttered dark mess that's impossible to make out through the CGI. While I want to be nice to this movie, the third act battle while emotional is visually difficult to make out.

SOUND: Nothing special?

Strangely enough, the music is pretty okay, but does nothing special again. While I like some of the licensed tracks, the original tracks feel a bit... generic? They feel like they're trying to recreate a similar vibe to Spider-Verse but doesn't have any of the hits Daniel Pemberton did in Spider-Verse. Either way, this movie feels very generic in terms of music.

WRITING: The family is the best part.

The best parts of this movie are when it focuses on the family and their interactions. They are absolutely hilarious, tragic, and hold some of the best moments in the movie. The writing is well-done in these scenes as you can tell the director and writer were both highly invested in making a movie about a Latino family. However, the biggest problem is when they attempt to write villains for this movie. While the big corporation message has been done well and works in fleshing out Karapax, it fails on a fundamental level to flesh out Victoria Kord, who ends up being a bland antagonist who does LITERALLY nothing.

CONS: What I said before.

Just gonna say shots, sound, and parts of the writing are the bad parts while I really like characters, the basic plot, and some of the action choreography. While this sounds highly mixed, much of it I can excuse as the acting is selling much of it. We'll leave it at that.

LITTLE THINGS: The representation!

As someone who isn't Latino, I can't claim whether or not this is fully accurate. However, I highly enjoy being able to see this community represented at all since most of the Latino community tends to be relegated to specific cliches in Hollywood, something I consider highly disingenous. I think here it makes the family feel real as many of the people involved are not just fans of Blue Beetle but also Latino themselves. I won't ramble too long, but the representation seems to be well-done!

VERDICT: A well-acted movie held back by problems.

Overall, I feel as though the plot and acting hold this movie up, but it keeps getting held back by parts of the writing, the score, and the sound. If it had just a little more love, it would've been stellar. Side note: I appreciate some of the references, especially for the Final Fantasy references made since it seems Jaime is a bit of a gamer. Mild jokes like this help the movie feel better overall I guess. Please watch it, it deserves more love.

SCORE: 7.5/10, I know I was mean :P