Review of Blue Beetle (2023) by Batcraft10 — 23 Aug 2023

I’m going to start this review off stating that I do have a slight bias against liberalism, but with that being said, I will try to abstain from making that a huge focus of my review.

The only thing I’d like to speak on this point is that there absolutely is an agenda pushed in some scenes, but it isn’t the whole movie and it’s almost always pushed in an unnatural and inorganic way. For example, and this is a slight spoiler, in one scene a character is revealing that her grandfather gave his company to his son and not his daughter, which could have been for a myriad of reasons and I wouldn’t have thought about twice.

“That seems a little…”.

“Sexist?”.

I believe that’s the actual line. Keep in mind this character is the villain, you’re not meant to like them, and they genuinely are a bad person. So it makes this scene a bit more bizarre.

The Hispanic culture stuff is fine. There is definitely more than one moment where I was taken aback by how out of place it was, like when the main character was going for an interview and the receptionist expects him to be a delivery man despite him being well dressed. This is completely unrealistic and was hilarious because of how absurd it is; I don’t know anywhere where this would happen.

There are a lot of stereotypes thrown about in this movie, but as a Cuban, its mostly inoffensive albeit very on the nose. I don’t want to spoil too much, but depending on who you are, this movie can be seen as a racist depiction of Hispanic cultures or an exaggeration of them. I kind of went into this expecting and hoping for a sort of Spider-man-esque movie, but that is not what this is. The theme is family, and it is clear as day and seen throughout the whole movie. Some of the scenes with Blue Beetle adjusting to the suit go on for… a bit too long. It was very unsatisfying to watch him struggle for 10 minutes at a time, and whereas most superheroes are shocked that they have a power, he’s kind of lame with his powers at first not wanting them.

The ending was good, and mostly satisfying. I do wish we got to see more from Blue Beetle, and less from the family. I understand that the family was front and center of this film, but I think it would be better suited as a side theme for a superhero movie. Overall, this movie is much like Black Adam where it’s a movie laid out onto a formula. It’s good, it’s enjoyable, but it isn’t anything groundbreaking. I laughed a lot during the movie, especially many times simply because of things which were “out there” and totally unexpected.

If 5 is average, this is a little bit better than average. I’ll say it’s “good,” but not exceptional.