Review of Blue Beetle (2023) by Quiet_Spark87 — 19 Aug 2023

6.5/10.

Entertaining with great action and a cool protagonist but wholly unoriginal story-wise. It’s Iron Man(2008) except Tony gets his nanotech suit immediately and all the struggle that built up his character is replaced with instant expertise. It honestly feels like a TV sitcom half the time thanks to George Lopez highjacking every scene he is in. The villains were forgettable at best and one was just a stereotypical evil corporate strawman.

What’s a real shame is the Original Blue Beetle Teddy Kord who was a sort of ramshackle batman without the wealth and used repurposed 80’s tech to fight crime would have made an infinitely better story for Jaime Reyes that would have given him the opportunity to actually struggle and grow as a character. I feel like the focus was more on Jaime being and struggling as a Latino than as a individual young adult granted powers by a dangerous alien weapon he doesn’t yet understand(this is a superhero movie after all). Speaking of the Beetle it’s origin as a world destroying alien weapon is never expanded on which would have made Jaime fighting for control more interesting and provide a definite separation between him and Iron Man.

I really wish they would have leaned far more into the 80’s power ranger vibe as well.

Lastly, apparently one can curse infinitely in a PG-13 movie as long as it’s in Spanish? George Lopez was dropping C bombs nearly every scene he was in.