It is not a usual activity for me, but I happened to glance at the Rotten Tomatoes score for Blue Beetle before buying my ticket.  I typically do not pay any attention to these ratings because, regardless of their level, I am going to go to the cinema.  Further, more often than not, I disagree with their assessments.  Such is the nature of being a critic, with opinions usually varying all over the spectrum, particularly when it comes to popular culture.  When you have an overwhelming majority of positive views on a given title, it can be something worthwhile.  Now, as I have detailed in recent reviews of comic book movies, I am beginning to experience superhero fatigue.  Though there are some that I still anticipate them, I have watched them with a growing sense of repetition.  How many times are we going to see the world, the universe, all of existence, etc. threatened by whatever villain conjured from the pages of graphic novels?  I get the sense that I am not alone in this sentiment, which is why I was surprised to find that Blue Beetle received a 77% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.  That is approaching masterpiece status.  Do my thoughts align with these considerations?  To borrow Cameron’s phrase, “let’s find out.”

In short, no.  Blue Beetle is a mediocre science fiction/action flick about an alien artifact, shaped like a scarab, sought after by Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon).  She is a big, bad business lady in charge of Kord Enterprises, which, instead of following a more humanitarian business model, makes weapons for the government.  In the first scene, she and her team have somehow found the item somewhere.  We then zoom over to Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña), a recent college graduate who is arriving home in the fictional town of Palmera City upon the completion of his studies.  While his family is overjoyed for his return, they have bad news.  First, Alberto Reyes (Damián Alcázar), Jaime’s father, had a heart attack and lost his auto-repair shop.  Next, because of the loss of income, the Reyes family is about to lose their house.  To hopefully prevent this, the former pre-law student goes to work with his sister, Milargo Reyes (Belissa Escobedo), as a domestic servant for the Kord family.  They are at the Kord’s beach residence when Victoria comes home to find her niece, Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine).  Jenny is not happy with her aunt’s direction of Kord Enterprises and its weapons contracts.  Victoria uses her experimental soldier, Ignacio Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), to intimidate her niece.  Jaime notices this and tries to intervene, earning a prompt firing for himself and his sister for his chivalry.  Feeling bad, Jenny offers Jaime the opportunity to find a new job at Kord Enterprises if he comes to their corporate headquarters the next day.  He does so, only to encounter Jenny trying to escape the building having stolen the scarab from a laboratory.  In a panic, she hands him the fast-food box in which it is hidden with strict instructions not to open it.  Of course, when Jaime gets home jobless but plus one mysterious container, the rest of his family decide to look inside.  Upon managing to retrieve the item from their taunting, it comes alive with a blue glow and latches onto him.  It burns off his clothing, replacing it with skin-tight armor before it blasts him off through the roof and into the stratosphere.  The scarab has chosen Jaime to be the title superhero.  After finally convincing the suit to take him home, he decides to find Jenny to return it.  He conveniently finds her on the run outside of the same skyscraper where they met earlier, getting her away from the armed men shooting at her.  As soon as she realizes what is happening, she tries to help him get the scarab out of him.  This involves sneaking back into Kord Enterprises for a key to her father’s laboratory at their family estate.  There is an action set piece in here, Jaime learning that the suit is a weapon and willing to kill to protect its host, a reflex against which he must fight.  At any rate, with Jaime’s Uncle Rudy Reyes’ (George Lopez) help, they get to their destination where we learn Jenny’s father was the original Blue Beetle, sans scarab.  At the same time, Victoria has learned where Jaime lives, and sends a bunch of lackeys to bring in the young man so she can get the scarab.  Jaime becomes aware of this and zooms over to stop them from hurting his family.  It results in Alberto dying of a heart attack, their house being burned to the ground, and Jaime being captured.  So, not the best result, but you need drama, right?  Victoria takes Jaime to an island near Cuba where, in an underground laboratory, she intends to suck the energy out of the scarab and transfer it into Ignacio, thus completing her super soldier design.  Jenny and the rest of the Reyes family meanwhile take it upon themselves to rescue Jaime, using a giant beetle machine created by Jenny’s father to break into the island fortress.  As their raid commences, Jaime has a sort of out of body experience meant to show his growing connection to the scarab, or something.  Whatever it is that happens, he is able to thwart death and Victoria’s plans.  There proceeds a bunch kicking, punching, and shooting, and all the explosions you would expect from this nonsense.  At one point, it looks like Ignacio has killed Uncle Rudy, which brings out rage in Jaime.  It is the suit (voiced by Becky G) that reminds Jaime that they are not killers just before he is about to deliver a fatal blow.  It stays his hand, and Ignacio instead turns on Victoria, allowing Jenny and the Reyes family (band name!) to get away in the bug-mobile.  We close with Jenny vowing to help the Reyes clan rebuild before she flies away with Jaime.

If I were to hazard a guess as to why so many critics have given Blue Beetle positive returns, I would say that it probably has something to do with what they think are some of its atypical elements.  For one thing, Jaime Reyes is a Mexican-American superhero, something you do not hear about often in comic book movies.  There may be another example, but I cannot think of it at the moment.  I applaud diversity and inclusion, though I do not see, beyond this component, how the rest is any different from its cinematic cousins.  I have not read any other reviews, nor done any research on this, but I suspect the makers of the movie also had a sense that they needed to do something out of the ordinary.  Their solution is Nana (Adriana Barraza), Jaime’s grandmother.  When the decision is made for them to save Jaime from Victoria’s clutches, she is right there with the rest.  In this moment, we learn that she used to be some kind of revolutionary soldier.  There are a number of reasons why this is dumb.  For one thing, it perpetuates a negative stereotype about Latin Americans.  The history of upheavals in Central and South America is written in far too much blood.  Despite what some parts of popular culture will tell you, Che Guevara was not cool.  He was a misogynistic, mass murdering rapist.  And this is the kind of spirit we want to perpetuate?  Do not tell me that I am the crazy one, either, as we see Nana with a Gatlin gun like device mow down a number of henchmen.  Aside from the political ramifications, this is not an image we should see.  Oh yeah, and so much for the Reyes commitment to not killing anyone!

Speaking of stereotypes and Nana’s behavior, it was not until the building action in Blue Beetle that I became disappointed with her behavior.  Until then, we see other, more positive Latin American stereotypes connected to Catholicism.  It begins with seeing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the Reyes home.  Since the appearance of the Mother of God to St. Juan Diego in Mexico in 1531, the event has taken on a life of its own.  Not to get into too much detail about what happened, but among the many miraculous occurrences to come from this meeting was the Virgin Mary imprinting a likeness of herself onto St. Juan Diego’s cloak.  It is venerated to this day, and was responsible for the conversion of millions in the Americas to Catholicism.  This is why it exists, but for some reason it has been used outside of the Faith.  I firmly believe that most people outside of Latin America, and many Catholics, do not understand the Virgin of Guadalupe.  They see it as just another aspect of Mexican culture that looks cool.  It is way cooler than they care to understand.  I was blessed with the opportunity to have an up-close experience with one of the official copies.  If you put a stethoscope to Her womb, you can hear a beating heart.  It is taken to be a sign of the presence of Jesus.  What She is not is the kind of demi-god those non-believers seem to think of her as being.  The film, in an off-hand manner, has the proper religious connection when you see Nana blessing Jaime as he is about to go into the Kord building for the first time.  This is more in keeping of what a true believer would do, which is completely ruined when we see Nana toting a machine gun.

I am also not sure what to make of when Blue Beetle sees his face in the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  For this Catholic, whatever is intended with that, it is all of a piece, and that piece is part of the rest of what you would expect from this kind of movie.  What drove this home for me is when Victoria utters something about how the power of the scarab will finally be hers.  I had the distinct thought in that moment that this sounds annoyingly familiar.  You may like this movie, and there is nothing too objectionable about it, but it was nothing special for me.