Microreview: Blue Beetle

Family bonds are stronger than corporations—try telling that to Warner Brothers

Writing about Blue Beetle, I can’t help but paraphrase Porfirio Díaz to describe the film: “So far from God, so close to the DCEU.” This film is currently tumbling in the box office due to a combination of the consistently sub-optimal decisions made by Warner Brothers, the ominous pallor of Zack Snyder, and the bewildering variety of misdeeds of Ezra Miller. It is such a shame, I thought as I walked out of the theater, because it’s a far better movie than its regrettable IP companions would merit.

I’ll be the first to admit that in raw storytelling it isn’t the most original; it follows the established beats of many superhero origin movies, perhaps being the most similar to Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie. George Lucas once said: “Don’t avoid the clichés—they’re clichés because they work!” And the result is a film that works. The CGI is good, the action is good, and overall it is an enjoyable experience.

What is the most innovative and interesting aspect of the film is its portrayal of family. All too often, family in superhero stories is an act of fridging, like Uncle Ben or Thomas and Martha Wayne; or exile, like that of Kal-El from Krypton, or abduction, like that of Peter Quill. Here, to the film's benefit, the family of Jaime Reyes, the titular superhero, is fully involved in the story from the beginning. Jaime has greatness thrust upon him in the presence of his entire family, three generations living in a single house.

That family is Mexican-American, and it feels fitting that a superhero from a culture not beholden to the stultifying individualism of white America would have a much more communal plotline. Family matters in this movie, each member is fully fleshed out, and they feel like a real family. This is bolstered by how unapologetically Mexican-American they are, with their culture taking center stage. A striking example of this is the scene where Jaime first sees himself in his suit in the reflection of the glass covering an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The idea here is that the ‘superhero,’ so often portrayed as a Christ figure, becomes Mexican in the way that Our Lady of Guadalupe represents Christianity becoming Mexican.

It is in this clear and proud revelry in its Mexican heritage that Blue Beetle shows again what Black Panther and Shang-Chi showed, that diversity in superhero films is something worth fighting for. There’s plenty of moral reasons to do it, but there’s a narrative one I want to highlight. I am neither Mexican nor Black nor Chinese; my father is a white American and my mother is Filipina, but I found the protagonists in all these films to feel more real, in some way, than many white superhero film protagonists, and that’s because these films make a big deal out of heritage. The typical white male superhero is portrayed as a (white) everyman, someone who could be anyone, and in doing so, doesn’t feel like anyone real (it’s Magneto's strong grounding in real history that makes him such a compelling character to me). Real people have heritages, cultural backgrounds. Jaime therefore feels like somebody, rather than anybody, and in that specificity he is more relatable to me.

(Also—I love his grandmother. She’s great and has surprising depths, some of which I wish were given more specificity.)

The film is clearly trying to give a counterpoint to the Reyes family in the villains, as there are some family connections among them. However, it is nowhere nearly as well developed as that of Jaime’s. Sure, they didn’t need nearly as much, but it could have been fleshed out better, especially given that one of them is purported to have Brazilian ancestry like the actress who plays her, Bruna Marquezine. There could have been a stronger statement about how, to quote Tolstoy, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

I ended Blue Beetle wishing that the Reyes family were my own. It’s striking that a superhero movie would make me feel this way, given how individualist the genre can be. It’s so human, so wholesome, even when confronted with alien technology and malicious corporations. It is a film that deserved so much better than it did, and a better company behind it.

Highlights: Great family dynamic, especially the grandmother.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy.

Microreview [film]: Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman opened to much ado, and critics are raving, at least in the SF/F realm, saying Wonder Woman is the superhero you’ve been waiting for, even going as far as to call it a ‘love letter to feminism'. Look, I get it, we’ve been waiting a reeeeeely long time to see a female superhero smash box office numbers, but just because it now exists, doesn’t mean it’s the one.

(Mild spoilers may follow)

The film opens with young Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, the leader of the Amazons, and Zeus (I assume you know who he is), desperately wanting to train as a warrior but forbidden to do so by her mother. Like a good little bad ass, she sneaks out and trains anyway, until her mother finds out many years later and dictates that fine, she can train, but she must be trained harder and fiercer than any warrior before her. The final training scene ends with Diana displaying a show of power she didn’t know she possessed. Shortly after, a WWI plane breaks the protective barrier surrounding Themyscira and Diana (Gal Gadot) rushes out to save the drowning pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). From him she learns that the outside world is involved in a terrible war, and knowing that the god Ares is bound to return to reign destruction, Diana sets out with Steve, against her mother’s wishes, to kill Ares and end the war.

multipass

This is where the movie becomes rather contrived at times. Of course, in the ‘real world’ Diana is the stereotypical fish out of water, and incredibly reminiscent of Leeloo Dallas – beautiful and innocent and guided through society by an obvious love interest, but incredibly fierce and independent at times. And while the initial battle scene at Themyscira was magnificent to watch, the fight scenes throughout the film were far too Matrix-esque, down to the often rubbery-looking Diana. Wonder Woman herself is very sexy, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but the film seemed to be mostly shot from the male gaze, with many upward body shots of Diana in her short armor. This was especially disappointing since the film was directed by a woman.

Overall, Wonder Woman was a decent superhero film. It was flashy and entertaining and Gal Gadot stole every scene she was in. Chris Pine was fantastic as well and the chemistry between the two was a pleasure to watch. I agree with most of fandom when the say it was exciting to see a solo female superhero finally grace the big screen and shatter box office expectations (Wonder Woman wasn't even playing in the Big D, IMAX-like room at my local theater, I assume due to low turnout expectations), and Diana had some great one liners like ‘what I do is not up to you’ directed at Steve Trevor, but it very much falls short of being the female representation we’ve all been waiting for. As my wonderful partner (who is often exasperated by my relentless critique of pop culture) pointed out when the credits rolled, she still needed the man to save the world at the end – just like Leeloo, and Furiosa, and the many other ‘strong female leads’ that came before.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for showing haters that a female led and directed movie can be highly successful, +1 for the few, but great, scenes where Diana's independence is highlighted (e.g., 'what I do is not up to you') 

Penalties: -1 for needing the love of/for a man to recognize her true potential, -1 for the male gaze thing

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 - an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws

----

Posted by: Tia  nerds of a feather contributor since 2014

Snyderisms

Do you remember Iron Man? The first one? When we were all "Robert Downey Jr is still alive? Will he stay sober on set? Yeah, right, a good Marvel movie lololol." That turned out okay, didn't it?

Well, the DC Cinematic Universe, which had the MCU template to go off of, is off to something of less than a stellar start. Three entries in, and DC fanboys are trying to shut down Rotten Tomatoes (which is just an aggregator, you idiots) because all three are getting universally low reviews. There are certainly manifold reasons for this, but I want to talk about the biggest one (in my semi-humble opinion). It has to do with Zack Snyder, and while I fully realize that a ton of blame can and should be placed at WB and DC's door, I want to focus on where Snyder fails in basically all his films, because it has essentially crippled the DCU.

Simply put, Zack Snyder does not understand subtext. What he does do is make a very pretty movie that looks exactly like his source material brought to life.

I was equal parts excited and apprehensive, as I'm sure many were, about an adaptation of Watchmen. Which, as the excellent Honest Trailer points out, is an incredibly divisive film. It is, in my opinion, a beautiful film, with some excellent touches, such as the soundtrack. It lifts scenes directly from the comic. In fact, Snyder carried a copy of Watchmen with him at all times on set. This gave me loads of confidence in what he was doing. So why is it not beloved, when it adapted one of the best stories of all time?

Because Zack Snyder does not understand subtext. Watchmen is a deep, complex story that is about a lot more than just superheroes, while also being completely satirical. None of that made it into the film. It was pretty, sure, and was a decent action romp- but that's not going to cut it when you're adapting the best graphic novel of all time.

300 is garbage, so we're not even going to talk about that. I don't think I could have been more disappointed with a movie than I was with Sucker Punch- the previews looked amazing, the action, the depth of... the... story... was like jumping off a high dive into a kiddie pool. It had no depth whatsoever. Nothing about trauma, about rape culture, any actual exploration of the human condition. Even the actual action in the movie didn't live up to the glory the trailer presented.

Then comes the ostensible beginning of the DCU, Man of Steel, which was certainly better than Superman Returns by virtue of not being completely boring. Except...

I don't even like Superman all that much, but woof. I though he stood for 'truth, justice, and the American way', although, in fairness, the way America is these days, murder *is* the American way. But Supes offing his nemesis is not exactly what he's known for. There might be in-universe reasons for it (Zod *was* about to torch a family), but it's still out there. Add in the fact that Batman- whose express edict is to not kill- murders with abandon.

Which, hey, I don't care. I'm with Punisher, if we scoot over to the MCU for a bit. Daredevil and Batman are half-measures when it comes to stopping these baddies. Them dying isn't such a bad thing- in my opinion.

But it's not my opinion that counts. The idea behind Batman and Superman is that they represent the best in humanity, and no one has accused me of being that. Batman and Superman are supposed to have the ability to be forces for good without taking lives.

This is what made Nolan's Batman trilogy so good (well, 2/3rds good. DKR sucked) - he truly understood the character, not only of Batman, but also of Gordon, Dent and the Joker, and The Dark Knight was an exploration of that- not just a bunch of action set pieces and big moments. There is tremendous depth to Ledger's Joker, and this slow momentum building to the big moments. Him leaning out the window of the captured police cruiser, his plan in motion, having been executed to perfection and followed by the unwitting pawns of Batman and the police force, epitomizes the character.

Except, it doesn't, because he is gleefully mad and glad to let Batman kill him, taunting him to 'hit me', just to get Batman to break his code. That is the Joker- and that is Batman. The Snyder-verse Batman has no such conflict. Killing the Joker would be a matter of course, since he has no problem killing criminals. One of the central conflicts of the character just isn't there. It's what makes Moore's admittedly flawed Killing Joke so powerful- Batman finally crosses the line, so does the Joker win? That's a question, for as much as I enjoy Affleck's Batman and Leto's Joker, that will never- can never- be addressed in this universe, simply because it is not a question.

In the end, what is wrong with these films and Snyder's directing and influence is not the dour tone, or even the fact that the so-called Justice League is fine killing people out of hand, it is that there is nothing beneath, no depth to them, their motivations or their conflicts. A battle between these two powerful beings is undone by a name. It's simplistic and boring. The films leap from big moment to big moment, with nothing between with lower stakes- when every moment is big, none of them are.

This causes a ripple effect even to the films he has no hand in. Look at Suicide Squad. I think, like BvS, the movie we got in theaters is not the movie we were supposed to see. There are painfully obvious reshoots, done to add humor because BvS was too dark. Guess what, WB? Suicide Squad should have been dark. And guess who the executive producer of Suicide Squad was? YUP. So Snyder reacts to the perception that BvS wasn't light enough, and assumes that making Suicide Squad funnier will be the solution - not actually exploring what makes bad guys bad, or giving them anything, like, say, character development.

DC is stumbling out of the gate, hard, and it's not because the movies aren't funny, or pretty, or lack action. It's because they lack depth.

-DESR