BLUE BEETLE

Recent college graduate Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns home, only to find his family is about to be evicted due to the landlord tripling their rent. Getting a job with his sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) as a housekeeper for Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), Jaime and Milagro soon find themselves unemployed when Jaime interjects himself into a verbal altercation between Victoria and her niece Jenny (Bruna Marquezine). Grateful for Jaime's attempt to diffuse the situation, Jenny offers him employment in another capacity at Kord Industries (think of it as DC's Stark Industries). However, once Jaime arrives, he's quickly given a box from Jenny and told not to open it and to guard it with his life. Of course, once he gets home and shows it to his family, they open it and an ancient piece of alien technology (the Blue Beetle) chooses and attaches itself to Jaime, turning him into the superhero. I honestly didn't know anything about this character, nor had I even heard of him prior to the film being announced. But, with it being a comic book property, I gave it a shot and it's a fun ride. There were moments where Jaime felt like a crossover between Peter Parker and Tony Stark: a 22-year-old young adult given a technologically advanced suit and inadvertently becoming a super hero. It follows the same formula as every comic book movie nowadays and while the fatigue is starting to set in on me, this was a refreshing new entry. Family is at the core of the story, it's funny, has some great performances by Xolo, Bruna, and George Lopez, who I'm usually not the biggest fan of his work but he won me over in his role as Uncle Rudy. Supposedly this is the first entry in the rebooted DCEU and while it wasn't a homerun, it's still found solid footing. 6.5/10