DC's "Blue Beetle" turned out to be gray and optional

On August 18, the film "Blue Beetle" was released worldwide.

Initially, it was supposed to be released on HBO Max, but later they decided to show it in cinemas. The film was directed by Angel Manuel Soto (The Twelve) and written by Gareth Dunnet Alcocer (Miss Bullet). Starring Cholo Mariduegna ("Cobra Kai"), Susan Sarandon ("Dead Man Walking"), Bruna Marchesini ("God Save the King").

Came from an immigrant family, Jaime Reyes graduates from university and returns to Texas. He learns that his father was fired and due to financial difficulties, the family is about to lose their home. Jaime takes a job with Victoria Kord, the managing director of Kord Industries, a technology corporation. By chance, an alien artifact Scarab, which was found in the tundra shortly before, falls into the hands of a guy. The scarab implants itself into Reyes and begins to protect him from any threats. Jaime wants to get rid of superpowers. But first, he needs to save himself from a corporation that wants the Scarab back.

Boring and hackneyed superheroes

"Blue Beetle" from the very first minutes hints that the viewer will not see anything new - except for the character himself. Other than that, it's a standard superhero story. Absolutely all elements are familiar. Most intersections with the first "Spiderman- and it's not even about insects. Family values, great responsibility, misunderstanding of their own abilities - Jaime Reyes follows the path of Peter Parker.

At the same time, the Blue Beetle is devoid of enthusiasm. The first scenes seem to show bright family members, but the further they go, the more they resemble some kind of “Superbeavers”, just not so disgusting.

The lightness of the opening scenes rests more on the Spanish-language music and sunny weather than on the characters. And as soon as the picture becomes typical for DC comics (with blue color correction), the Blue Beetle loses its identity.

It seems that they are showing a new hero, but everything looks as if you always knew about him. Of the latest superhero films, it is most similar to "Samaritan» with Stallone - the same inconsistent story about a not very interesting character.

The action also looks boring and banal, although the Blue Beetle is not alone here - film comics have not been pleasing with interesting and original battles for a long time. It's no surprise that superhero writers are scaling up the dangers to give fights some sort of emotion, something we've seen most recently in "Flash».

However, Blue Beetle is a small hero from a small town, so the scale of the threat here is small. Battles lose their pathos, and most often people run one at a time at the hero, and he calmly fights back - this is 90% of the action.

Superficial social drama

When the Blue Beetle moves beyond the superhero narrative, it enters the territory of social drama. Economic inequality, the difficulty of adapting migrants, the financial instability of a small person - the film takes understandable problems and tells about them intelligibly. But every time Jaime transforms into a super scarab, the drama ends. From empathy is always separated by an action scene that occurs at the wrong time.

Despite the seriousness of the stated topics, the Blue Beetle itself is not going to be too serious. Because of this, it is difficult to perceive the problems of heroes - they are superficial. This is not even a teenage story, but rather a children's story.

Predictability and freshness

An attempt to combine several genres at once leads to an abundance of clichés. And superheroes are predictable, and family the drama is insipid, and even Jaime's romantic quest seems too simple. For example, when the hero decides to kiss his beloved, they run into the room and interfere with him. A trifle, but there are so many such trifles that there is simply no time left for original things.

It is completely incomprehensible what happens in the film with the soundtrack, which sounds as bland as possible. Lil Uzi Vert hinted at some bright hip-hop in the trailer, but it's not there. Little-known Spanish-language songs, near-metal in one scene, unmemorable ambient - it turns out that the trailer deceived. Although in this aspect, "Blue Beetle" follows fashion - with music, film comics have always been not very good.

"Blue Beetle" is standard in everything. And it's sad. The new hero is quite useful DC in the following films - they have a place for any gray character. And the fact that Zhuk was given more than two hours of screen time looks like a big mistake. The trailer revealed it just as well.