"Blue Beetle": "Girls are the meaning of life" for the 3,000th time. Plus a cute guy and a sarcastic scarab.

 

For movie night Friday, we saw Blue Beetle (2023), a superhero movie based on the Disney comics character.  Here are the top 10 out of 300 things that I hated about it.

1. Recent college graduate Jaime (Xolo Maridueña) has a large. loud, very annoying family, consisting of an overly-optimistic Dad, mousy Mom, sarcastic younger sister, telenovela-addict grandmother, and conspiracy theorist uncle. All of whom are way over-enthusiastic about everything.   Who comes with you to a job interview, and stands outside the building chanting your name?  Or cheers loudly when you kiss The Girl?

2. In this world  of absolute good vs. absolute evil, the racist, classist, money-grubbing Wicked Witch (Susan Sarandon) will do anything to get what she wants, including trying to kill her own family members. She has absolutely no redeeming qualities, not even a tragedy in her back story.  She is pure evil.

3. She is developing a special suit that will turn a single soldier into an army. That is impossible; how could one person, however power, get to all of the places they need to be to fight a war all alone?

4. But those special suits have nothing to do with Jaime.  For some confusing reason, he gets another suit, origin unknown (or explained through gibberish), activated by a face-hugging scarab that is sentient, makes ironic comments, and rarely does what it's told.  When it turns off, he's naked, even if he was wearing clothes before (actually, I liked that part).

5. The movie is 3/4ths loud fights between people wearing flickering, glowing monster suits.

6. Jaime is assisted by the nice, good, kind, non-racist, environmentally-aware Absolute Good niece of Absolute Evil. Yep, a girl.  You know, about 50% of the people born are boys.  It could easily have been a boy.  But in movies, IT IS ALWAYS A GIRL. 

7. Do Jaime and the girl become platonic pals?  Of course not.  Screenwriters, producers, actors, and crew make movies for one reason, and one reason only: to brainwash you into believing that heterosexual romance is the meaning of life.  Every boy, without exception, will meet a girl, fall in love with her, and marry her. This is his sole reason for existing.  This is his destiny.

8. In the comics Blue Beetle is gay.  Here, of course, same-sex desire does not exist.

9. Harvey Guillen, Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows, plays the Big Bad's assistant, who finally refuses to kill Jaime, even though it means that she will kill him.  He's gay in real life, and often plays gay characters, but here there is not a single hint that he is gay. Oh, we can't have gay characters; this is 1956!

10. Why does every superhero have the same origin story?