Throughout Blue Beetle’s run time, I struggled with a question that’s been on my mind lately: What does meaningful representation look like? The latest entry into the DCEU, Blue Beetle follows Jaime Reyes (Maridueña), a college grad and eventual, unwitting host of the Scarab, a sentient piece of alien tech that allows him to become the titular hero. The movie has a big heart, ambitious references, and moments that make it an entertaining watch, but it can curdle thanks to the constraints of the superhero genre.
Balancing the possibilities of throwing specific, Mexican American cultural references into a big-budget spectacular with all the requirements of broad, tentpole entertainment is a challenging task. Writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer and director Ángel Manuel Soto are ambitious and warm in their work, giving a lot of loving nods to Chicane touchstones like Cheech and Chong, Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos, El Chapulín Colorado, and the films of Gregory Nava. Spanglish is built into the movie, family dynamics are warm but ribbing, and familiar needle drops hit me like a warm abrazo at the entrance of a family party. It’s also ideologically ambitious, using the ongoing gentrification and class struggles of the fictional Palmera City to mirror the same struggles in our world, as well as referencing the infamous School of the Americas. Blue Beetle works as an introduction to these issues while grounding a superhero fantasy in real-world stakes.
At its best, this is thoughtful, specific, and carefully crafted work that can make a Chicane person feel seen. However, it loses its power when it is undercut by choices the movie makes, and forced story beats. Take, for instance, a beautiful sequence in which Jaime is reuniting with a lost loved one surrounded by candles. The mood and look are reminiscent of El Norte, Nava’s powerful 1983 film about immigrants coming to America. It’s a moving moment until it is shattered by tacky, invasive CGI imagery that changes and cheapens the scene. We only get an instant to absorb that sensation before the film wastes some genuinely moving filmmaking, filmmaking of the kind that echoes some of the very real grief Latine people face in real life while highlighting the communal bonds and strength that get us through it. Instead, Blue Beetle is forced to move forward to the next item on the superhero checklist.
In that relentless push, there’s little room for actually trying something new within the genre. There are some set-pieces that feel weirdly similar to other, non-DCEU films that should have been reworked to give the movie something truly refreshing. A bus splits in half, nearly exactly like in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the tone and pacing feel akin to the early Ant-Man movies. Action sequences are full of confusing bluster, and the Beetle suit interface is filmed almost exactly like Tony Stark’s POV shots in Iron Man. For every lovely moment, there’s a callback that’s too close for comfort.
The tension between creating meaningful, poignant art, and bending to the demands of modern blockbuster filmmaking threatens to break Blue Beetle, but thankfully doesn’t. The cracks are still visible, and the end product is something entertaining, warm, and flawed. Meaningful representation means something different to everyone. For this Chicane critic, Blue Beetle is at its best when it grounds itself in real-world stakes and culture, creating a movie that feels thoughtful and lived in. It gets flattened because it has to be both specific and broad in its appeal – an inherently impossible task. For the young Chicane or Latine person seeing this movie, though, they might just feel a little more powerful after recognizing themselves onscreen. Blue Beetle is a start, but I’m hopeful the next tentpole movie about Chicanes can dig deeper and breathe a little more, without the same impossible demands.
Don’t miss our interview with Blue Beetle director Ángel Manuel Soto about his long history with Austin and Fantastic Fest, How Austin Made the Blue Beetle Fly,” Aug. 18.
This article appears in August 18 • 2023.