Blue Beetle

This weekend, Blue Beetle, the newest film in the DCEU releases in theaters. Blue Beetle follows Jaime Reyes as he is unexpectedly given a mysterious blue scarab. When the scarab suddenly connects with him, Jaime must use his new problems to protect his family and stop the shady Kord industries.

Blue Beetle ends up being a decent enough superhero film. It is a lot smaller in scale than most of the recent MCU and DCEU films which is a bit refreshing. It doesn't have as big of sequences or as flashy of CGI. At its core, it is about a family as they all cope with Jaime's new powers. I really enjoyed the family aspect of this film. It took what worked about the original Shazam! movie and applied it to this film. All of the different family members have their own personalities and get their moments to shine. The standout of the movie was George Lopez. He provided a lot of funny moments and stole every scene he was in. The movie also manages to have a lot of heart to it with some very emotional moments towards the end of the story. I also thought that the action sequences were a lot of fun and entertaining. Finally, I like that the movie included all the Hispanic culture. It just adds a different twist and personality to the movie.

However, there are a few things that keep this movie back for me. The first issue is that the villains are pretty bland. There is a little bit of motivation for what they are doing but it ends up basically being just a greedy rich person trying to make money. She doesn't have many layers to her. I also thought the story itself is a bit generic. Some elements are new but overall the story and character idea feels a lot like Iron Man and Spider-Man. It doesn't try anything new and just plays the story and characters pretty safe. Finally, I thought that Jaime got lost as the focus towards the end of the story. He is supposed to be the lead in the story but ends up getting sidelined by the other members of his family.

Overall, this was an entertaining yet safe superhero film. It doesn't try to do anything new and doesn't try to swing for the fences. It just wants to be a smaller-scale superhero movie about family and I feel it achieves that.

Score: 7.5/10 Grade: B

Recommendation: Watch it if you love superhero movies, otherwise just wait to stream it.