‘Blue Beetle’ Review: Buggin’ Out
DC’s latest addition to superhero cinema, Blue Beetle (★★☆☆☆), seems to thread together two disparate films that the makers struggle mightily to fuse into a satisfying, cohesive whole.At its most successful, the movie, directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), introduces Mexican college grad Jaime Reyes, played by Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña, along with Jaime’s loving, but financially imperiled family. Dad Alberto (Damián Alcázar), mom Rocio (Elpidio Carrillo), younger sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), crazy conspiracy theory-addled uncle Rudy (George Lopez), and feisty matriarch Nana (Adriana Barraza, who almost steals the show) all rally around Jaime when a mysterious sapphire-blue scarab latches onto his body and consciousness, making him an unwilling host to a “world-destroying weapon.” Time spent with Jaime and the Reyes family, steeped in authentic Latino culture, humor, and relationships, plays like the warmly comic pilot episode of a sitcom I’d gladly binge.Each episode could include a flashback to the adventures of Nana Reyes, which, based on the hints she drops, would be as thrilling and dangerous as anything Jaime encounters in his new scarab-assisted superhero form as Blue Beetle.That brings us to the other, less successful counterpart to the Meet the Reyes Family sitcom: the relatively lame-ass origin story of another DC Comics hero that’s so clearly intended as a setup for future appearances that it fails to do anything interesting with the character’s big-screen debut.