The DC movie universe has been holding out for a hero, and it might just be a 22-year-old Mexican college grad with a really cool family.
Following on the heels of high-profile box-office busts “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and “The Flash,” and inconsistent success even before those, the refreshing “Blue Beetle” (★★★ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters Friday) arrives with a young superhero – played by “Cobra Kai” standout Xolo Maridueña – and an inspired immersion in Latin culture. Director Ángel Manuel Soto’s fantasy adventure will feel familiar to fans of “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Black Panther” and even “Iron Man,” but it’s a nifty change of pace for a main character’s superteam to include his parents and grandma instead of Batman and Wonder Woman.
Jaime Reyes (Maridueña) arrives back home in fictional Palmera City with a degree and almost immediately is given bad news: Mom Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo) and dad Alberto (Damían Alcázar) have shut down their auto shop and are about to lose their house in a part of town forcefully gentrified by Kord Industries, a tech firm that dabbles in creating global conflicts, and its imperious honcho Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon).
Jaime has a chance meeting with her much kinder niece, Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), who volunteers to help him get a job so he can support his family. But things quickly turn extraordinarily strange for Jaime when, instead of an interview, she gives him a dazzling blue scarab that also happens to be a valuable piece of alien biotechnology. The curious Jaime takes the bug out of its box and the otherworldly entity chooses him as a host, giving Jaime a supersuit and crazy-cool abilities.
“Blue Beetle” takes a page out of the Spider-Man comic playbook by putting Jaime through the wringer with his new powers, accidentally sawing a bus full of people in half and even going to space, before the voice of the scarab entity Khaji-Da (Becky G) begins to give him the lay of his weird new landscape.
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Maridueña is extremely likable in these learning-to-be-a-superhero scenes, which go a long way in getting to know Jaime’s strengths and insecurities. You feel for him that much more when his world starts to fall apart as Victoria comes after him to take the alien tech out of his body, dead or alive. (And like Spidey, Jaime’s open to love: While many movie superheroes aren’t exactly amorous, Jaime definitely having the hots for Jenny adds an extra layer of humor and young-adult hormones.)
DC has had some pretty crummy supervillains in recent years, and Sarandon’s antagonist is one of the better examples because she’s just deliciously bad. Described by his sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) as “sexy in a Cruella Kardashian sort of way,” Victoria wants the scarab to help her create a One Man Army Corps of souped-up soldiers. That nefarious scheme involves her formidable right-hand armored man Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), a character intriguingly tied to the controversial real-life School of the Americas, an Army facility whose graduates include a number of infamous Latin American figures.
Jaime takes Victoria on with the help of his family – there’s none of that secret identity sneaking around here. His Nana (Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza) is uncannily adept at handling large machine guns, his sister keeps him in line with her one-liners, and Uncle Rudy (a scene-stealing George Lopez) is a fast-talking Doc Brown type who subscribes to all the conspiracy theories. Jaime’s loving relatives ground his story and add a key sense of representation.
Armed with a freewheeling sense of humor to soften its darker edges – Jaime’s transformation involves some pretty effective body horror – “Blue Beetle” weaves together lively personalities with a sneakily deep comic book mythology that goes down smoothly (and centers on Jenny’s missing dad Ted Kord, the previous Blue Beetle). And with so much in flux with the DC universe these days – from a change in Superman to new leadership – at least fans can expect to see more of Jaime as part of the upcoming reset.
Fingers crossed he’s bringing the fam with him.
