If this movie was scheduled to come out three years from now, I’d be a lot more excited. The first trailer for Blue Beetle dropped a few days ago…and the movie looks pretty decent at first glance, though its DCEU baggage will probably derail it.
Similarly to Marvel’s Secret Invasion, I’ve really got no idea if this movie will be great or another DCEU bust.
Honestly, I’m leaning towards the movie being a bust as it not only appears to follow the increasingly annoying trend of goofy, cheesy, cartoonishly simply characters and plot premise most superhero movies in the last five years have suffered, but it also falls under the damning DCEU banner.
Essentially, from the 2 minutes or so of footage shown in the trailer, this Blue Beetle interpretation looks to be in line with the comedic aspects of the character, which is not a bad thing in of itself. In the comics, Blue Beetle is only a college student (well, a college graduate in this case) that inadvertently became “possessed” (for lack of a better word) with a supernatural beetle, thus him being naive, funny, and unserious is what many people would expect from a Blue Beetle movie.
That’s not the issue I have with the film. I have an issue with its release date and place in the current climate of superhero movie.
Simply put, people (including me) are SICK of superhero movies showcasing lighthearted, nonsensical plots and characters that really have no real purpose or reason to be on our screens other than being used as cash grabs by the major studios.
Now, I’m not trying to be dismissive of Blue Beetle, but following up Shazam (DC), who is also a lighthearted character, and Ant-Man, another lighthearted, non-serious character, in the box office doesn’t bode well for how this movie will perform. Both Ant-Man 3 and Shazam 2 failed massively at the box office as they not only received poor critical and audience scores, but they also lost money due to their enormous marketing budgets.
And Blue Beetle is an even more obscure,
Pumping out yet another superficial, unserious superhero movie to an audience that is growing extremely bored with the trend is really a terrible idea, and the movie being a part of the DCEU, a movie continuity that is getting dismantled immediately after this movie releases, makes this release date even more baffling.
I honestly don’t understand why any more DCEU movies are being released other than The Flash (which is supposed to reset the timeline) as everyone already knows the continuity is dead and stands completely against the James Gunn/Peter Safran takeover of the franchise. Blue Beetle should have been pushed back for a few more years and set within the new James Gunn DC-timeline as the movie itself didn’t actually look too bad.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the Ms. Marvel-like graphics and CGI effects, while Blue Beetle himself looks a little clunky in the suit…just like Ms. Marvel with her costume.
In fact, this movie is giving me massive Ms. Marvel vibes as the trailer showed a societal outcast (Jaime Reyes) gain supernatural/superhero powers from an inanimate object (the Blue Beetle), which appears to have caused the antagonist force (Susan Sarandon’s character) to target the outcast and his large, prominently featured. If you just replace the word “him” with “her”, you’d get the exact plot outline of Ms. Marvel.
Nevertheless, I will say that I actually enjoyed Ms. Marvel (for what it was), so I have confidence that Blue Beetle can be good if the plot is given enough care and respect.
Unfortunately, I just don’t think Blue Beetle will be able to shed the criticisms the currently goofy, lighthearted superhero trend has incurred from the general public and critical reviewers, nor the baggage that comes with being a DCEU movie.
I hope I’m wrong.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Warner Bros. Discovery/DC Studios) (Blue Beetle – Official Trailer – YouTube)
