Review of Brightburn (2019) by Greenisgood — 07 Sep 2019

TL;DR - A good one time watch in this current age of over saturation for the 'Good Guy Superhero' tales, though not perfect since the movie could have used some polish on the emotional side. Even so Expecting a Superhero movie is a big mistake and the viewer would benefit from a open minded approach or a Horror expectation since the latter is clearly what the Writer/Director's intended this film to be. And boy do we have Horror feels in spades. If you watched Slither and thought it was a good and or average watch this movie is definitely up your alley.

The Good.

I am pretty shocked at the rating for this movie, specially the critic side. I do not know if it was case of misplaced expectations although I don't know why considering the trailer was pretty straightforward, but for a 7 million budget this movie is quite a watch.

Personally I was definitely not expecting a typical Superhero action flick, neither was I expecting a legitimate horror experience. For leaning towards the horror side I do believe this movie was on the right track considering Gunn's experience with Slither and good story telling in general.

Even though Gunn did not direct the movie I still see his panache of good writing, great characterization and compacted story here. The VFX were thankfully sparring used since they were not the best but that being said they were effectively used fully taking that R rating into itself.

The Bad.

There were a few things that would have benefited from streamlining. For example the child-mother relationship could have been better. The child seems to be distant from the start there by only giving us a one sided Maternal love to an unruly child over a more emotional Mother-Son relationship, especially considering how the film ends. The ending would have been more impactful if the Son really made us believe that he truly loved his parents before his turn rather than the aloof and already distanced feel that permeated the characters. A little bit more surprise and confusion on the part of the Son would have also helped in driving home the emotional side since the Horror aspects of the film were excellent.