Jaime Reyes’ character Blue Beetle will be familiar to comic book readers but not generally to a wider audience. A legacy character much like Ryan Choi who took over the mantle of The Atom from Ray Palmer, Jaime Reyes is the second Blue Beetle after Ted Kord. Ted Kord (peripherally) and his company Kord Industries feature in Ángel Manuel Soto’s Blue Beetle, with the original filmic creation Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) acting as the main antagonist, and Ted’s daughter Jenny (Bruna Marquezine) acting as Jaime’s (Xolo Maridueña) ally and love interest, but the film firmly belongs to the protagonist and his spunky Mexican American family.
Jamie returns to Palmera City (Miami in all but name) after studying pre-law in Gotham City. His family, including his dour but amusing sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), his loving parents Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo) and Alberto (Damián Alcázar), his Nana (Adriana Barraza) and his wildcard uncle Rudy Reyes (George Lopez) are there to welcome the new graduate with love. They’re also arguing about how to tell Jaime about a series of tragedies that have befallen the close-knit family. Alberto has recently had a heart attack, the family business is gone, and due to gentrification, their family home in Edge Keys is no longer affordable and they will soon be evicted.
No longer being the son who will fulfill the “American Dream,” for the working-class family, Jaime is now just looking for a job, any job, to keep the family afloat. Milagro gets him a job as a cleaner for Victoria Kord (an avatar for soulless corporate greed) which puts him in the path of Jenny Kord, which of course puts him in the path of the alien entity known as the Scarab – a sentient intergalactic weapon who symbiotically bonds with a host.
The Scarab originally sought by Victoria Kord to create a brand of super-cops for the rich choses Jamie as her host (her name is Khaji-Da and is voiced by Becky G). Suddenly the young man has to deal with becoming a carrier for a potent being that gifts him a super-suit that grafts itself on to him in a manner that veers into body horror; but is mostly played for laughs and maximum confusion.
Blue Beetle isn’t playing for originality as far as superhero origin stories go. Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer’s script has strong echoes of Peter Parker learning how to deal with his Spider-Man powers (even the Tom Holland version again learning how to navigate Tony Stark’s ‘Iron Spider’ suit). Poor Jamie is not in control of his body nor Khaji-Da’s decisions and the two need to find a way to get into synch to exist as a single entity. Blue Beetle is striving for is cultural specificity. It’s rare that a family is so involved in any young superheroes journey. Of course, family is the core for Black Panther, but being the Black Panther is a dynastic gift. Here, the Reyes family are Jamie’s champions as much as he is theirs and together, they fight, laugh, grieve, and kick the butt of a villain who has used her family’s wealth and technology as a way to wage secret wars and sell illegal arms.
It might not seem that there are world-ending stakes in Blue Beetle, but the stakes are grounded in a reality that reflects the dispossession of those who are rarely part of any elite. Victoria Kord, ably played by Sarandon who is not striving for anything more than pure villainy, is an avatar of privileged white America. An America that interferes with the democracy of other countries. An America that overreaches and is colonialist. An America that has long ghettoised LatinX people and racially abused them. Even Victoria’s chief henchman Conrad Carapax, AKA Carapax the Indestructible Man (Raoul Max Trujillo) the typical antagonist who is similarly powered to the hero, has his own scars that were brought on by what Kord Industries under Victoria and her father represented.
The rich and colourful cinematography by Pawel Pogorzelski is rarely overwhelmed by CGI effects which dominate the superhero genre. CGI is of course used, but in Blue Beetle it is used with a specific tone in mind and although not top-tier it isn’t as distracting as it is in many other much higher budgeted superhero movies – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania being an example of the worst uses of the technology. Blue Beetle was originally destined to go straight to streaming until Ángel Manuel Soto fought for a cinema release, so any big screen flubs with the GCI are forgivable.
Blue Beetle is a refreshing and fun superhero caper that doesn’t reinvent any wheels in terms of an origin story but rolls those wheels with gusto and the absolutely required representation of LatinX communities and their voices. Not only does Ángel Manuel Soto employ LatinX talent above the line, the below the line talent is populated by the people who are being represented in the film. There are things that will resonate absolutely with the audience that the film is speaking with. Pop culture and music cues that belong to the LatinX and Chicano community.
Xolo Maridueña is wonderful as the hapless young adult suddenly thrust into a life he could never have predicted. He’s equally good as the son who realises that his dreams came with a great sacrifice on behalf of his family – a family who would do anything for him. George Lopez, Damián Alcázar, Belissa Escobedo, and Adriana Barraza all get their hero moments as well as more serious emotional gravitas. The warmth of the family and their bond far outweighs anything Vin Diesel has been serving up in the Fast franchise.
Ultimately, Blue Beetle is slight in places – it isn’t doing anything audiences haven’t seen before in terms of the hero’s journey – but what it is doing in terms of being a story about a community geared to celebrating the best aspects of that community as well as the daily real world struggles they face is vital. The maxim ‘Pop culture is pedagogy’ comes to mind when we witness Jaime have to deal with people assuming he is a delivery boy or deliberately mispronouncing his name. Or when we see Victoria Kord blithely ignoring her chief scientist Harvey Guillén not only warning her of the destruction her monomania could bring but also misnaming him with whatever Latino surname she decides is his.
Blue Beetle is relatively small time in the canon of superhero adventures but that is to the film’s advantage. For a DC Studios who has been putting out some distinctly sub-par work such as Shazam: Fury of the Gods and the woeful Black Adam, Ángel Manuel Soto’s film is a course correction for them and makes on wonder why the Batgirl film has been forever shelved. Blue Beetle is a good time and proves that with the right blend of heart and passion the lesser-known superheroes can soar.
Director: Angel Manuel Soto
Cast: Xolo Maridueña, Bruna Marquezine, Susan Sarandon
Writer: Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer
