I have no idea who Blue Beetle is as a DC comic book hero. He’s up there with the Guardians of the Galaxy and even Ant-Man as characters I didn’t know until the movie released. So maybe I wasn’t the target audience, maybe I missed all the referential fun bits… I’m not sure. But I loved Guardians and liked Ant-Man so it was on them to sell me.

The flick is about a young man who accidentally absorbs an extraterrestrial scarab and becomes a superhero. Now with the powers of a big bad beetleborg, he must fight the evil forces of Susan Sarandon (and another super powered big bad beetleborg).

It is, of course, unfair to compare this DC character to the Big Bad Beetleborgs just as it’s unfair to say his depiction is a cross between Iron Man, Venom, Ant-Man, and Shazam. Most superheroes are an amalgam of other heroes and certainly Marvel copies DC archetypes and vice versa. But it is emblematic of a problem with the script since it continuously calls back to other (better) movies. And that’s on the screenwriters for not realizing – or not caring – that we’ve been here before. Recently. A lot.

While I enjoyed the first twenty minutes of character introductions, the rest of the movie was tiresome. The humor, which started out strong, wound up feeling too manufactured. The overall plot was remarkably pedestrian while the A to B to C moments often relegated Blue Beetle to an extra in his own movie. And, most importantly, the superhero action was generic and uninteresting.

I did like the cast though. Xolo Maridueña, when outside of his superhero suit, was charismatic and amusing. Some of the gags with the family were cute. I liked the sister… she was a lot of fun. And Susan Sarandon knew what movie she was in and twirled her proverbial mustache well.

I’m giving the score a slight nudge just because maybe I was expecting too much and because I liked the cast, the opening, the representation, and a few moments in between. But as the introduction of a new cinematic superhero, it floundered.

Score: 69