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Blue Beetle opens with Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon – Jolt) and underling Lt Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo – Sicario 2: Soldado) looking for a particular scarab, similar to one the latter is wearing.
Known as an OMAC (One Man Army Corps) suit, it’s basically an exoskeleton, because he would be otherwise crippled, following an altercation prior to the film beginning. Because reasons, Jaime (Xolo Maridueña) ends up with the Scarab attaching itself to him – okay, this comes about after he turns up to the Kord building, because an earlier situatoin led to Kord’s niece, Jenny (Bruna Marquezine), promised him a job after she took a shine to him. Plus, the Scarab has to choose the host, so he should be honoured, right? Erm…
The fact Carapax ended up with his Scarab inside him – and as the first ever recipient – is all controlled by Victoria, so this becomes rather like a Frankenstein film, since she wants to create a killbot factory, with thousands of such men.
Along the way, Jaime’s Mexican family are chatting and mixing up Spanish and English in the same sentence, which gets confusing, and they spend a lot of time moaning about how they’re Mexican and poor; Jenny talks about how her Dad, Ted, built the Blue Beetle space craft and obsessed about the Scarab, but he disappeared many years ago; Jaime’s sister, Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), has a prototype which is a shield/fist-combo powered by a Nintendo Powerglove, there’s some very nice Vangelis ‘Blade Runner‘-esque music in the score, and Nana (Adriana Barraza – Bingo Hell) has a few tricks up her sleeve, and ends up stealing the show, late on in the movie.
However, the plot of Blue Beetle is formulaic, and reminded me of Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, with Jaime being Charlie, and Rudy being Grandpa Joe, following him along. They could also have ended up living at the Kord building, as Charlie did with Wonka.
While I loved the recent The Flash, that barely clawed back the basic budget at the box office, and since films need to get 2-3 times their budget back in order to turn a profit (after marketing costs are taken into account), there won’t be a sequel. However, Blue Beetle has done even worse. It has a budget of $104m, struggled to get to even $50m, but now with other territories taken into account, after around a week of release, it’s taken just $81.8m.
I do feel a bit sorry for the cast members, however, since some of them are relatively new to the movies, and while the premiere took place at the TCL Chinese Theatre in California, none of them could attend due to the ongoing SAG actors and writers strikes.
For those wanting to see this in IMAX, while this movie does actually have some scenes opened up to 1.90:1 (around 70 minutes, I understand), you’ll be hard-pushed to find an IMAX theatre showing it that way, given that they’re still dominated by Oppenheimer.
There’s also a mid-credits and post-credits scene, for which the details can be found in the video below.
Blue Beetle is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 127 minutes
Release date: August 18th 2023
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (ARRIRAW (4.5K), 1.90:1 (IMAX: some scenes)
Cinema: Cineworld Didsbury
Rating: 4.5/10
Director: Angel Manuel Soto
Producers: Zev Foreman, John Rickard
Screenplay: Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer
Music: The Haxan Cloak (Bobby Krlic)
Cast:
Jaime Reyes: Xolo Maridueña
Victoria Kord: Susan Sarandon
Jenny Kord: Bruna Marquezine
Khaji-Da: Becky G
Alberto Reyes: Damián Alcázar
Rudy Reyes: George Lopez
Nana Reyes: Adriana Barraza
Lt Carapax: Raoul Max Trujillo
Milagro Reyes: Belissa Escobedo
Rocio Reyes: Elpidia Carrillo
Dr. Sanchez: Harvey Guillén
Kord Receptionist: Brianna Lewis
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.