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Is 'Blue Beetle' the Best Modern DC Superhero Movie? (msn.com) 85

Posted by EditorDavid from the just-the-beginning dept.
At the Washington Post, David Betancourt's title is "reporter focusing on comic book culture."

Saturday he wrote that the Blue Beetle movie "isn't just a good superhero movie, it's the best film from DC in its modern era, this past decade marked by their struggle to catch up to Marvel Studios..." "Blue Beetle" has heart. "Blue Beetle" has soul... There's a feeling that those of us who love superhero cinema get when we know we've seen something special. The feeling that compelled us to buy a ticket for a midnight screening back in the day. That feeling that makes you see a superhero flick four to five times in theaters because you want to see it again and can't wait for it to arrive on home video. "Blue Beetle" will leave you feeling that way when you walk out of the theater. It certainly made me feel that way...

Xolo Maridueña as Jaime Reyes (the kid under the Blue Beetle armor) gives a performance that I can only describe as Downey-esque. Yes, I have no qualms in saying "Blue Beetle" gave me "Iron Man"-in-2008 vibes. Not just in the individual performance of the lead actor or the high-tech suit of armor, but also in the feeling that this is the start of something big. The second "Blue Beetle's" credits started rolling I knew I had seen the best DC movie of the last decade. The movie had heart. Humor. Multiple complex villains...
The DC movie has a 91% audience score and a 75% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, notes this analysis from Forbes: The DC movie is projected to make between $25 million to $32 million through Sunday, Variety reported, though Deadline puts it at $25 million, making it DC's latest underperforming film as it struggles to compete with rival Marvel... By comparison, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 pulled in $118.4 million in its opening weekend in May, while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania grossed $106.2 million in its opening weekend in February and Sony's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse grossed $120.7 million in its first weekend.
"Warner Bros. has experienced underperformance with recent superhero films like Black Adam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Flash," writes Collider: Originally designed as a direct-to-streaming title, Blue Beetle now serves as the second-last installment of a bygone era of the DC Extended Universe, which will be rebooted under the supervision of James Gunn and Peter Safran with Superman: Legacy in 2025. The current DCEU era will officially come to a close with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom later this year, which has a larger overall connection with the series, while Blue Beetle is a mostly standalone story. The movie's opening is in the same range as Birds of Prey some years ago. That film is generally considered to have underperformed at the box office, finishing with less than $100 million domestically and just around $200 million worldwide...

Barbie will take second place with an estimated $20 million fifth weekend, after grossing $6 million on Friday. By Sunday, the film's running domestic box office haul should hit $566 million. A few days after that, it'll overtake The Super Mario Bros. Movie's $574 million lifetime haul to become the year's biggest film...

[Oppenheimer] is also passing $700 million as we speak.
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Is 'Blue Beetle' the Best Modern DC Superhero Movie? More

Is 'Blue Beetle' the Best Modern DC Superhero Movie?

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  • DC is kind of a misnomer (Score:3)

    by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @07:44AM (#63781970)
    I thought the movie took place in Washington DC, home of The Washington Post and I tried to read the article accordingly until I figured it out. I know, Slashdot editors, etc. (I'm only kidding a little overlords, please don't sue. That's really what I thought for a while).

  • No. Just no. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by prasadsurve ( 665770 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @07:49AM (#63781978)
    >>>Is 'Blue Beetle' the Best Modern DC Superhero Movie? No. It is made for TV movies which was sent to theatres only because movies on TV don't earn money. Its another Superhero origin story; contains the same tropes we have seen in countless other movies. If you want to go to the theatre and watch a good movies, go see Oppenheimer.

    • Re:No. Just no. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @08:35AM (#63782030)

      I read a fairly detailed review that did a scene-by-scene breakdown of where each component was lifted from other fairly recent superhero movies. It doesn't sound like there's much originality in it at all. It sounds like the CGI has serious flaws which they chose to cover with poorly lit scenes.

      It is not high art. It's likely getting a boost because the main character isn't a white male, and apparently a few of the actors are fairly charismatic.

      I'm going to see it, I expect to enjoy it well enough... but I am not expecting to remember much about it a year or two from now.

      • Yeah I agree. Oppenheimer's CGI was crap. Nuclear explosions look like gas fires. I've never seen a real nuclear explosion in person but I've seen enough Hollywood car explosions to know neither are realistic.

        My friend who was is huge nerd was bored to tears an hour in and was begging me to leave. I enjoyed it but I can definitely see where they tried to bolt on the formula of an action thriller to what really should have been a educational documentary.

        • No CGI in Oppenheimer [Re:No. Just no.] (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @01:16PM (#63782462) Homepage

          Yeah I agree. Oppenheimer's CGI was crap.

          Oppenheimer was unusual in that it was a movie that had no CGI. All of the special effects were actual physical effects.

          Nuclear explosions look like gas fires.

          Yeah, I agree. That characteristic orange color of gasoline flames; we've seen it a hundred times (in movies). But don't blame CGI; it looked like gasoline because it probably was gasoline. No CGI!

          What I was impressed by was the fact that the nuclear explosion was absolutely silent. Hollywood usually synchronized the sound with the visual explosion, neglecting the speed of sound means that the sound happens much later.

          And when the sound (and blast wave) hit later, it really made the point. (I do wish they'd shown Fermi estimating the power of the explosion from the strength of the blast wave, though; that would have been a nice bit.)

        • Re:No. Just no. (Score:4, Interesting)

          by dfm3 ( 830843 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:37PM (#63782598) Journal
          It wasn't CGI. Apparently they used a whole bunch of flammable material to make a "fireball" and filmed it using all sort of creative angles and camera tricks to mimic a nuclear explosion. And TBH while I loved many aspects of the movie - the detail in the sets, the intricate political backstabbing, the "red scare" cold war politics, the numerous scientist "cameos", the creative use of color/monochrome as POV changed - the trinity test which was supposed to be one of the high points of the film fell very flat on the big screen.

          • I agree, what I thought was going to be a climax fell a little flat. Still, I enjoyed the movie, and never felt that feeling of âoewhenâ(TM)s this damn thing ever going to endâoe, though I did have to take a pee break somewhere in the middle. Sitting anywhere for three hours straight is just too long.

            The audio jump scares were outstanding, especially in an IMAX 70 mm.

          • the trinity test which was supposed to be one of the high points of the film fell very flat on the big screen.

            Real life explosions tend to bit flatter than what is portrayed in movies. Practical explosives explode so quickly that the explosions are over before anyone can comprehend what happened. The only thing interesting about a nuclear fireball is the shear scale. A sufficiently far away observer sees the fireball expanding slowly because of the distances involved. For anyone nearby, the blast is ins

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Presumably it's already cancelled anyway. The whole DC universe is getting a reboot so it's probably a one-off.

        Marvel seems to have lost its way too. Maybe James Gunn can do something with Superman - his other hero stuff is good, especially Peacemaker.

        • The whole DC universe is getting a reboot so it's probably a one-off.

          Can't wait to marvel at the results. :-)

        • Peacemaker is a perfect blend of human drama, action, black humour and simply presenting the absolutely ludicrous to us seriously.

          From the mesmerizing opening dance number to the end credits, I loved it and can't wait for more.

      • I read a fairly detailed review that did a scene-by-scene breakdown of where each component was lifted from other fairly recent superhero movies.

        Actually, the plotline was taken from The Greatest American Hero [wikipedia.org] TV series from the early 1980s. Ordinary person gets alien spacesuit, figures out how to use spacesuit, bad guys want spacesuit, and everyone fights over the spacesuit.

        I saw the movie with a mostly white audience that didn't understand the Mexican cultural references. A mostly Latino audience would have enjoyed the movie better.

        • You are right, I was at a screening with easily 1/2 of audience being Hispanic/Spanish-speaking, they loved parts of the movie based on the whooping and hollering they did.

          I think they handled the English/Spanish thing well, didn't distract me, and I only gave a smattering if Spanish language ability...

        • I don't recall it all that well, but I don't think Greatest American Hero ended with a vs. Nega battle like every unimaginative superhero movie ever.

          Even Iron Man, which arguably kicked off the current period of superhero popularity, was guilty of that one.

      • I had a hamburger from Wendy's the other day. There wasn't much originality in it. Two pieces of bread, some meat in the middle with ketchup and mustard? They totally stole that from Burger King. The only reason people go to Wendy's is because the mascot is a girl...

        This movie was made by people who CLEARLY loved the source material. Blue Beetle is a legacy character going back 84 years -- the same year that Batman was created, by the way -- and the history of the character is woven throughout the story. Th

      • They're all terrible. All comic book movies. Comparing them is like comparing Cotton candy, Some might be less terrible than others or have some hints of flavor, but its all just puffed up sugar, with no substance.

    • Re:No. Just no. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @11:06AM (#63782214) Homepage Journal

      The article is just advertising intended to spur movie sales.

      Rotten Tomatoes is the same. I have never trusted their audience reviews since the outright obvious botting used to prop them up during the run of Star Wars the Last Flop. They do that during the run to create a false impression of widespread audience adoration, and then drop the botting some time after it is done in theaters. Does anyone else remember when movie industry Tycoons were loudly crying about Rotten Tomatoes and how it was the worst thing that ever happened to the movie industry, because poor user reviews were driving audiences away from their films? And how they all shut up about that after the audience reviews all mysteriously started being more positive for almost every movie (only to crash for some movies after it was out of theaters)?

      It's all pretty obvious.

    • If you want to go to the theatre and watch a good movies, go see Oppenheimer.

      Those are trying to be two completely different films.

    • I saw this at a very, very well-attended 'sneak preview' in Texas, and I thought it was OK, the plot seemed a bit confusing to me, but that's OK, I might have missed a few things along the way.

      I'm not sure if it was because George Lopez was in (he was good in his role), but it really had a Spy Kids vibe for me.

      I can tell you the Spanish-speaking people in the audience really were hooting & hollering when the characters spoke Spanish. Not speaking Spanish didn't diminish the movie, as I recall all the Sp

  • No. (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @07:57AM (#63781982)
    No.

    I haven't seen it either.

  • Yes absolutely. (Score:2, Informative)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

    Superhero DC movies of the modern era have been ... let's not mince words ... complete steaming loads of shit made after an all you can eat burrito night. They are woeful in every way, incoherent, poorly acted, poorly written (MAAARTHA!), poorly animated, and clearly directionless.

    Yes, this movie is the least most horrible DC superhero movie of the modern era. That doesn't mean much. I feel like most teens with their mobiles and a TikTok account can make better movies than the DC superhero movies that this

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pr0nbot ( 313417 )

      Wasn't Joker a DC movie? I think that's the only superhero movie I'd ever watch a second time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        It was and I agree, Joker was extremely solid.

        The above poster is definitely overgeneralizing a bit as the modern Batman movies were also generally regarded as being pretty decent movies. Overall though the DC movies that I've seen were disappointing enough to where I avoid them unless I hear major buzz suggesting the movie is good.

        I was actually surprised to see such a glowing review of Blue Beatle here on Slashdot as all the buzz I hear about it is that it's not very good. To be honest I didnt even think

        • as the modern Batman movies were also generally regarded as being pretty decent movies

          The most recent batman (singular) was passable. But don't use plurals. There is only one Batman movie in the modern era. When talking about modern DC films precisely no one is considering Nolan's Batman, but rather they largely talk about Reeves' and more frequently, Snyder's. Snyder's batman was abysmal. He may never have gotten his own film, but Batman vs Superman, The Justice League (both cuts), and The Flash are just fucking garbage that is not pleasant to watch. Reeves' Batman was a nice change, but it

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            While I suppose what is modern will always be debatable I dont think the confidence in which you display your own opinion is warranted. After that, the Joker was in fact an excellent movie which I dont think anyone who isnt a teenager should be able to debate as modern or not and I did catch the second Suicide Squad and that movie was actually quite a bit of dumb fun. Moreso than a lot of Marvel movies in fact.

            • The Joker was an absolutely amazing movie that I would recommend to everyone. Not sure why you brought it up because it is not a superhero DC movie. In fact in that movie Batman doesn't even exist yet.

              I did forget about Suicide Squad. That movie was dumb fun. I stand strongly by my opinion but drop Blue Beetle to 2nd place. Not 3rd place because again Joker is not a "superhero" movie (I used those words in my original post for a reason, and I suspect TFA did too), and talking about Joker alongside superhero

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by skam240 ( 789197 )

                Not sure why you brought it up because it is not a superhero DC movie. In fact in that movie Batman doesn't even exist yet.

                I'm not onboard with your differentiation here. They're both comic book movies and I have no interest in further differentiation even if you happen to think it meaningful.

      • Wasn't Joker a DC movie? I think that's the only superhero movie I'd ever watch a second time.

        It was. An absolutely excellent one. But Joker is not a superhero nor was the movie a superhero movie. I very purposefully used the word superhero in conjunction with DC specifically to exclude Joker which personally I think was a masterpiece. I suspect TFA did the same.

      • I barely watched it the first time. I still don't get the whole Joker thing. I nearly walked out of that movie halfway through because I got bored of seeing this middle aged loser guy be a complete loser, with people treating him like a loser. And I'm suppose to believe that in the near future THIS guy was going to give Batman a run for his money.

    • Come on, say the word. I know you’re trying not to.

      • Come on, say the word. I know you’re trying not to.

        Which word? You don't know me very well at all. I don't ever try and not say what I mean.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Dont feed the trolls.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Suicide Squad, the Gunn one, was good. Peacemaker was even better. The first Wonder Woman was decent too.

      Oh and The Batman wasn't bad, a decent take on the dark knight.

      There have been plenty of terrible DC movies too. Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman 85, The Flash, that one with Dwayne Johnson in it, Justice League... The first Shazam was okay for a comedy, the second one was lacking.

      • Oh yeah I forgot about Suicide Squad. That one was good. Wonder Woman was okay, it was formulaic. So is Blue Beetle. The Batman was ... refreshing, but I don't consider it good. It bored me. It was too long. It was incidentally the first batman film the wife never finished as well, she went to bed half way through. I can see why some people like it though, it wasn't my cup of tea.

  • Seems unlikely (Score:3)

    by Smid ( 446509 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @08:08AM (#63782000)

    Because people forget The Suicide Squad and the first Shazam! movie were really really good.

    • Split decision. The original SS was very good, but the Shazam! movie was a painful to watch adolescent fantasy with predictable story progression. Oh look. The bully gets his comeuppance.

      • The first Shazam was great because it presented the realistic infantile ego that superheroes would likely have (and some young viewers would like to imagine) and made the characterization endearing. Almost every hollywood story includes moral or physical victories, in the end. Not sure how you can enjoy movies at all if you are trying to avoid predictability.

      • In a morality play, which any hero arc is, the villain gets his comeuppance. Shazam was a good rendition of Captain Marvel's origin and kept things light, like the original comic.

  • For the ones that bubbled out the last quite a few years (that's a Vernor Vinge reference): this is an INCREDIBLY low bar!

    • "Bobbled".

      I am so excited by the introduction of some random new superhero that I may go back to bed.

      Also, I propose that we should not be inventing new superheroes until we force Superman to divest his powers. His corporate greed has become ridiculous, and he needs to be broken up into dozens of supermen of no more than three powers each.

  • Keep in mind the core material, comics, are series content, not one shot movie style.

    In a series, we get a few issues or episodes of origin and then get a long running plot.

    In a movie, especially with a less familiar character we get a large chunk of the movie and often the entire movie as origin story. That's fine n all but when every supers movie is an origin story we don't get the more interesting stuff. I'm tired of origin stories even for characters I don't know.

    As shitty as they are I prefer the long

    • Which is why the MCU skipped the origin story for Spider-Man. Well, at least until they retconned in the two existing origin stories.

      • Yes I appreciated that one time.

        It makes me feel like they're going cheap on the writing and storyline when they take a well known character and burn so much time telling us what we already knew.

        Or a movie like Morbius with a protagonist I barely knew, the entire movie is origin but then they screw it up so I still don't really know the character when it's over. That's the worst.

        At least in Spawn, they pretty quickly got it over with and made a movie I could watch because it held my attention for 93 minute

  • Is this slashvertisment? (Score:5)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @09:36AM (#63782088)

    Same answer for both: Who gives a fuck?

    • Excellent!
      Where are all the "late stage capitalism" folks when you need them?

    • Everything on Slashdot is a Slashvertisement. We post things and discuss things that are happening now in the world and in pop culture. Right above this story is a Slashvertisement for Russia's space program who needs better engineers. Underneath this story is a Slashvertisment for AlmaLinux so brazen they put the name of the product in the title. Like how dare they!

  • Not at all (Score:1, Troll)

    by Souldat ( 7184952 )
    The first half of the movie is good, but the second half that embrace the woke culture, turning it to an ideology, political crap. Instead of focusing on character and story development you are instead bombarded with thins that has no relevance to the story and just distract you. I hate how Hollywood is destroying franchises with this

    • That's a franchise now? I didn't even know anything called "Blue Beetle" existed.

      And frankly, I fail to see how I was missing anything.

  • Never even heard of this before. Are they down to C level comic book characters now?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aergern ( 127031 )

      Nope. He was a major character in the animated Young Justice show and the 2nd incarnation of the character (Ted Kord) was a member of the Justice League in the comics starting in 1986. It's just not your jam (comics) so you don't know. /shrug

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      If you've ever seen Watchmen the character Nite Owl was based on the Blue Beetle. When Alan Moore decided to do Watchmen he originally planned to put together a team of non-mainstream comic book characters. Like Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, The Question, Nightshade and Thunderbolt, who were all classic comic book heroes from Charleton comics that DC acquired. DC decided that he had to use original characters though, so he created altered versions of them: Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan, The Comedian, Ror

  • Blue Beetle?
    DC Comics?
    Comic books?
    "Catch up to the Marvel [Comic] Universe"?

    Uh. No.

    I had a blue beetle once. But it started backfiring and the battery died and really we just sold it to the first person who offered $250 for it. Good luck to the makers of this summer "blockbuster" (lmfao, after Barbie this thing is shit that stopped stinking years ago) and may they not count on this for their Oscar Trophy.

  • Writing a story for a movie today has nothing to do with what you would consider writing a story. What you get is a few pages of ticker-box blurbs that you need to include. Because this, this, that and of course that focus group are so terribly important, so we have to include a character of each of them. And a person from this, this and that ethnicity for that all important foreign market where the movie clearly can't succeed without having one of these characters in it. And we have to address this, this,

  • I have superhero movie fatigue (Score:3)

    by ruddk ( 5153113 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @11:26AM (#63782262)

    I have had enough of superhero movies. :D not interested in them at all.

  • I hadn't enjoyed any of the DC films of the past two decades until I watched The Flash. It's fun, clever, and interesting. The CGI is questionable, and there is a whole lot of it, but the bones of the film more than make up for the weak surface. Best DC film since Batman of the 1980s.

  • watching the preview I got the distinct impression it is just yet another origin story with the same overused cliches we have seen in every other superhero movie. I will wait to stream it.
  • It got released without anyone noticing. I read comics and only knew of the character when he was put into the Justice League International in 1990, as a comic relief character.

  • RED FLAG: Reviewer had made up thief mind how good it was by the end of the opening credits. Smells like a media whore reporting to me. (IMHO) Can anyone really write something like that and also expect to be taken seriously?

  • It's amazing how quickly Hollywood rehabilitate these creeps and gives them more work. https://apnews.com/article/med... [apnews.com]
  • Avengers is the top-of-the-line success for Marvel studios! It brought all the sub-plots of their other movies together brilliantly. i suspect that, from now on, anyone who makes an action movie will fall back on that one as an example. Expect a lot of "mimicry". (for example, the most recent Godzilla). DC studios is praying for even a fraction of this kind of success and are trying their best to imitate Marvel's formula. i guess producers are now trying it with Lord of the Rings to see if they can come up

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