Jamie Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns to his home in the Keys after graduating with a pre-law degree; the first in his family to graduate college.  While waiting for an interview with the powerful Kord Industries, a weapons manufacturer, he bumps into Jenny (Bruna Marquezine), the heir to the company, and is tasked with removing a strange package from the facility.  Curiosity eventually gets the best of Jamie and his family, and they look inside to discover a blue crystal in the shape of a scarab beetle, but when the beetle is activated and fuses itself to Jamie granting him superpowers, the entire force of Kord Industries will come down on his family until they retrieve the alien technology, even if it would result in the death of its host. 

Originally slated as an HBO Max exclusive, the Angel Manuel Soto directed Blue Beetle was instead given a theatrical release when the slate was reevaluated during David Zazlav’s transition into the role of CEO of the new Warner/Discovery. Unattached producer, James Gunn has been quick to claim the positive buzz ahead of the film’s release as a feather in his cap while remaining vague and non-committal about the specifics of Blue Beetle’s future and despite the fact that the film is in actuality the final film of the old regime which just so happens to be released under Gunn’s tenure as fanboy-in-chief.  Before all of this release strategy shifting took place, the 127-minute origin story was written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, and he imbues such a deep love for the characters on the page that it is impossible to deny the chemistry of the family unit at the heart of this film and the care they show for one another. 

Maridueña leads the film and has the burden of introducing a new character – that is pointedly referenced to as not being Batman – and a new world to audiences already apprehensive given the wishy-washy future of the character after Gunn’s comments about rebooting the DCEU and possibly still feeling burned by The Flash (2023). He perseveres, however, and in lock-step with Soto who was always out to make the film as if it were to get the theatrical treatment, Maridueña charms audiences with his doe-eyed wit, affable nature, and smoldering oafishness.  

Jamie starts off the film as a bit of an outsider returning to his family home after graduating college, and while he is lightly teased about being the fancy city boy who will solve all of their problems with his new piece of paper, the jeers are all coming from a place of love as the multi-generational household rejoices in being complete again. It is not all fun and jokes, though, and one of the first major issues the film brings to light is not ripped from the pages of a comic book, but rather the very real threat of gentrification that is pricing the Reyes family and countless others from their homes; concerns that were bluntly made clear to Jamie by his brash younger sister, Milagro (Belissa Escobedo). While Blue Beetle is not out to solve these problems, it does choose to root its story in a world where its characters face these challenges though notably does not get bogged down in it all. One such instance of how it strikes this balance is in how it treats Jamie’s optimism at having his undergrad degree paid for in five years or less with enough cash to on had to own property in the Keys as laughable especially when the following scene finds him and Milagro working as cleaners at the luxurious Kord suites; literally, serve the beast or be crushed by it and as Milagro informs Jamie you either work for Kord or you do not work at all.  

As the plot expands, it begins to take on a more traditional action format introducing Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), a high-ranking executive within Kord who is spearheading the development of OMAC, a cyborg soldier program, and Ignatio Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), her henchman and OMAC prototype. The scarab which was lifted from the Kord building by Jenny and later fused to Jamie is the key to completing the OMAC code and Victoria will stop at nothing to get it back. What makes this plot line feel a little dirty is when it begins to really cross threads of fiction and reality by making Carapax a child solider in what was presumably one phase of the Guatemalan Civil War. Victoria, on her hunt for the Scarab disguised as presumably an aid mission, finds the older Carapax bloodied from war and recruit him into the OMAC program where he was robotically enhanced and designed to kill. Blue Beetle is hardly the first film to utilize this perverse form of historical fiction to inject tragedy into a character’s backstory and this goes beyond just characterizing Carapax as a war veteran. As presented, his entire life is redefined and recharted time and time again by the decades-long civil war that resulted in 140,000-200,000 lives lost across the years. Beyond just the battlefield, this number takes into account the many atrocities which were carried out by the US-backed military government including the genocide of the native Mayan people as well as numerous human rights violations committed against its own citizens. It is always a folly to try and place the motivations of fictional characters who have been inserted into real scenarios, but the way that Blue Beetle – and many of its ilk – utilize history to blend fact and fiction makes it is an unavoidable question as to what Victoria was doing in war-torn Guatemala in the first place as a citizen of the United States? Further, and honestly, more insidiously, it is also an embarrassing example of a massive American company squeezing every last dime out of and exploiting the tragedies suffered by others. Good ol’ American capitalism strikes again. 

At the half way point of the film, there is another really disturbing and troubling sequence where Kord security outfitted with even more armor and weapons than a SWAT team raid the Reyes home looking for Jamie who is not even there. The allusions to an ICE raid could not be more apparent, and while eventually the comic book nonsense with laser guns and force fields gets in the way of the tension, it remains at its core a truly harrowing sequence. Nana (Adriana Barraza), still exclusively a Spanish-speaker, is jostled out of the home not understanding the orders being shouted at her by a police force that is incapable of anything but destruction and has no compassion for other humans. Soon after, Alberto (Damián Alcázar), the patriarch of the Reyes family, succumbs to a heart attack in the middle of the street. The film is certainly in passing conversation with the black smear that is our current immigration policy and the treatment of immigrants in a supposed “melting pot,” but its primary goal is still being a people-pleasing action film so it does not dig too deep. What makes this mid-way interaction work better than Carapax’s backstory is that Soto and Dunnet-Alcocer have made sure that we have grown to feel the love for the Reyes that they show each other and it feels like a much more human story. As such, that discomfort we feel during this sequence is intentional as the film forces us to watch as our innocent friends and neighbors are being terrorized by a weaponized police force, and while it is not the goal of the film, it can hopefully serve as a subconscious call to action against the recent emboldening of Southern-State governors and the brutal immigration policies they are seeking to implement. 

The biggest fault of Blue Beetle is ultimately its existence as a superhero movie and subsequent reliance on that formula and format. While it can be commended that its relative “low stakes,” insofar as Jamie is not out to save the world, are a refreshing change of pace, it is saddled with yet-another origin story as Jamie is hurled this way and that through the city as he gets the first taste of his do-anything powers. There is no real definition to Jamie’s limitations as Blue Beetle, going so far as to be able to create any weaponry which he imagines. As with his human co-stars, Maridueña can build good rapport with Kaji (Becky G), the voice which he interacts with when acting as Blue Beetle, but audiences certainly loose that connection when his face-concealing helmet is engaged, and we must endure listening to two disembodied voices discussing battle strategy. With the exception of a poignant scene in space, many of the action and effects-heavy sequences are too dimly lit – a common practice to used hide the edges of the CGI – and given that the film was originally supposed to drop directly on streaming, it is unlikely the VFX team was given the time or the budget to pull off some of these effects in the day light which would have helped Blue Beetle look more organic. Combined with not being able to see the armored Maridueña, it becomes really hard to stay engaged during the action sequences, but thankfully the film is not too innundated with extended melees.  

The film makes a bold move by captruing and removing Jamie for much of the final battle and instead it relies on the family to come and rescue him before he can face off against Carapax. Nana gets her moment to shine and by this point, we have grown accustomed to Uncle Rudy’s (George Lopez) unique brand of humor and find him endearing as well. There are even moments where the absolute silliness of it all does not seem distracting because Soto has directed these sequences so that they are designed to be fun. He is not trying to take a “Bug Ship” with a farting gas defense mechanism too seriously, but the film is also not so overly saturated with this cloying and saccharine sense of humor that only works on the page and not well represented as real life. 

Blue Beetle is a surprisingly enjoyable film even though it suffers from a major identity crisis. It is carried by what is hopefully a star-minting performance for Maridueña, but the efforts of Soto and Dunnet-Alcocer cannot be overlooked as well. With luck, they will be able to use this as a springboard and break free from the suffocating grips of franchise-fare so that they continue to bring unique stories to the screen. It is probably a mark against it as a superhero film that the titular Blue Beetle is the least interesting part of the film, but it is a testament to the filmmakers for trying to find – and succeeding in showcasing – the humanity of these inhuman characters. Freed from the burden of absurd fantasy, there is no telling what these three would be capable of either as a unit or on their own, but thankfully Blue Beetle has enough of a balance to showcase that talent and does not need to cater to existing franchises or share the spotlight. Soto has a vision, Dunnet-Alcocer a story, and Maridueña is a star, and – at least for this film – the three of them get to revel in that synergy together.