Review: 'Blue Beetle's' true superpower is 'la familia'

There's a lot riding on the theatrical release this week of "Blue Beetle" as the first Latino superhero movie. So it's a shame that this epic from DC Comics only fitfully lives up to its potential to represent an underserved audience (Latinos make up nearly 20% of America's population) that deserves better than a generic good time.

Happier news is that "Blue Beetle" improves on "Black Adam," "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" and "The Flash," the three DC fizzles that preceded it. Kudos to "Cobra Kai" standout Xolo Maridueña, of Mexican, Cuban and Ecuadorian descent, who radiates star quality as Jaime Reyes, the pre-law student who never asked for the powers that are thrust upon him.

There's a lot of backstory about Jaime's Mexican family, rotely delivered in the script by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. In the comics, which started in 1939, Jaime lived in El Paso, Texas. Now, home is the fictional Palmera City, with a bustling population of immigrants, including Jaime's family.

It's family that that gives "Blue Beetle" a lifeline out of the copycat quicksand that comes from imitating better-known heroes (Spider-Man, Superman, Ant Man) that got there first. Despite the fact that the family auto business is about to go under and Jaime's father Alberto (Damián Alcázar) has suffered a heart attack, the Reyes clan is an irresistibly rowdy and resilient bunch.

They include mother (Elpidia Carillo), a revolutionary nana ("Babel" Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza), a scrappy sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) and -- every family has one -- wacky Uncle Rudy (the reliably lively George Lopez) whose conspiracy theories are hilariously limitless.

This movie is at its entertaining best just watching Jaime trying to keep his head above water with his relatives. But the plot keeps interrupting the fun as Jaime looks for a job to support his kinfolk. It's a flirtatious meeting with Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) that hooks him up with Kord Industries, run by Jenny's aunt, Victoria Kord, played by Oscar winner Susan Sarandon.

Sarandon is not doing a quickie cameo. With her scar-faced flunky Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), she's the hissable villain. Described by Milagro as "sexy in a Cruella Kardashian sort of way," Victoria is a war criminal who lusts to enslave the world with her robot army -- the horror of AI incarnate -- powered by a magic scarab that Jenny warns Jaime never to touch.

You can write the rest of the script from here. Of course, Jaime touches the scarab that attaches itself to his head and entire body, speaks to him in the voice of Becky G and turns him into the Blue Beetle, who must decide to use his might for good or evil. One guess how that goes.

There are moments of body horror in Jaime that make you think for a fleeting moment that "Blue Beetle" might develop the delicious creepiness that Jeff Goldblum felt when he morphed into an insect in the 1986 David Cronenberg classic "The Fly."

It's not to be. Puerto Rican director Ángel Manuel Soto ("Charm City Kings") plays it safe like a filmmaker who understandably wants "Blue Beetle" to spawn sequels and become a franchise that can celebrate his culture. But representation without originality and risk lead to yawning.

"Blue Beetle" suffers from connect-the-dots plotting, shoddy digital effects given the film's reported $120 million budget and a wrong-headed decision to revert to deadening, repetitive action cliches when the heart of the movie is right there with Jaime and his family.

The unlikely chance of a sequel in our time of comic-book blockbuster fatigue rests with the one true superpower of "Blue Beatles" -- la familia.