Our Blue Beetle review is here! Please support our channel by shopping our MERCH STORE Here → https://screencrushmerch.com/
Blue Beetle is the first film of the new DCU, and we’re excited to see how this character teams up with other heroes in the future. But is this hero good enough to be the new Iron man? Can the pina. franchise to Jamie Reyes? And will he even be back, after the movie doesn’t make much money? IN this ScreemnCrush rewind we answer those questions and more.
Go here → http://screencrush.com/
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@screencrushnews
Like us → https://www.facebook.com/ScreenCrush
Follow us → https://twitter.com/screencrushnews
Get our newsletter → http://screencrush.com/newsletter/
Written and Hosted by Ryan Arey (http://twitter.com/ryanarey)
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright and Brianna McLarty
Featuring Brianna McLarty https://www.tiktok.com/@briannatmclarty and https://instagram.com/briannatmclarty
Featuring Colton Ogburn (https://twitter.com/ColtonOgburn)
#BlueBeetle #DCU #ScreenCrushRewind
I want to talk about the new Iron man: Blue Beetle. Now whether you have seen the movie or not–and judging by the box office, a lot of you haven’t–James Gunn has hinted that blue beetle will be the first movie of his new, soft reboot DC universe of films. So I’m going to give you my spoiler free thoughts on the movie, the state of DCU, and later I’m goingt o bring in Colton Ogburn so we can talk about whether or not this movie is a worthy start to the new DCU.
And by the way everyone, before we get rolling, I want to let you know we;ve relaunched our merch store with these cool new douglas super soldier team mugs, and we’re so excited to bring you new awesome stuff every week. Check it out, link below.
First, here’s my take. Blue Beetle is one of the best superhero movies of 2023–I’d put it behind Guardians of the galaxy 3. I can see why James Gunn saw this movie and said yes, this is a film you can build a universe around.
On a technical level, the visual effects are sharp, clear–and they’re kept to a minimum. After recent VFX s hit shows like the flash and quintumnia, a superhero film that saves the VFX for important moments is a breath of fresh air. I also loved the synthesizer heavy score, composed by the Haxan Cloak.
But mostly, I love that this movie is giving us a kind of superhero movie we haven’t; seen before. This is where I think the trailers failed the movie. They make it seem like a pretty typical superhero film, with an origin story [clip] and a looming threat [clip], blah blah blah. Nothing wrong with those tropes, but we’ve seen it before.
But where the movie really excels is that it subverts a lot of these same tropes by putting Jamie’s family in the foreground. Usually, superheroes don;t have families. Or if they do, they’re one or two people, or they;re orphans, or their uncle is evil or something. But this film is steeped in Mexican American culture, with tight bonds with large families being a mainstay of that culture.
Early in the movie the villain tells Jamie that his family is his weakness, and then the movie proves they;re his strength. So I’ll compare this movie to spider-man, because the heroes are similar. Peter Parker is in school, he;’s awkward, and he keeps his powers a secret. This is because peter’s owners are a metaphor for puberty. [clip, webbing accident]. I mean, he learns to explore his new powers alone in his room [big change].
Whereas Jamie’s origin story happens in full view of his entire family. They are his partners in this movie. Everything he does in the movie is for them, and for his community. We’ve just never seen a superhero movie that puts family first, and it was really fun,and exhilarating. Most superhero movies cut out the family because they could potentially eigh down the narrative with too many characters. But in this movie–like for Jamie, family becomes its strength.
There is an incredibly touching moment in the films, after Jamie gets his powers, when Goierge Lopez’s chacrete uncle Rudy says not to call the cops, because they would ask for documents on the family.
It’s a tiny moment that hits very close to home, with so many families every day facing the threat of being split apart by men with guns. There’s a sequence in this movie that is brutal, and hits this nerve so well. I saw the first showing of the movie with a large crowd of hispanic americans–which was awesome. The crowd laughed at jokes I did not get, and during this one particular scene, they were dead quiet.
This is also the first superhero film headlined by a latino hero, played by Cobra Kai’s Xolo Mariduena. You know this guy [it’s not karate, it’s cobra kai]. So the character’s mexican-american heritage is also an important part of the film, just like the dignity of black Americans was key to black panther.