Well, I guess I've finally hit the point where a run-of-the-mill superhero film just doesn't do it for me any more. There's nothing ostensibly wrong with Blue Beetle. The cast is solid, the plot is fine in a very Marvel-esque "oh look, the villain is just an evil version of the new hero!" way, and it does at least try to ground itself in a non-white-European culture. I mean, props where they're due: it really doesn't shy away from having a lot (possibly a majority?) of the dialogue by in Spanish, which is kinda dope. But if you were to sit down and right out the plot beats for a "generic superhero movie", this is what you would turn in. Every single major moment plays out exactly as you expect it to ‒ even the ones which deliberately try to subvert it, like the moment he attempts to "Superman-pose" his way into flight and nothing happens. It doesn't even feel forced, it's just predictable.
There are one or two moments of attempted original humour, mainly focusing around the grandmother, but even here, I can't really fault the attempt, the delivery, or anything else, but it just lacks any bite. Ditto the action sequences, where they occasionally have some fun ideas, but mainly just rehash the same things we've seen a dozen times before, with a few set pieces to stick in the trailer 🤷♀️ (Seriously, is that sword a pop culture reference? Why was that such a big deal?)
But then, what about the family? If there's one thing I'd heard, it's that this film finally gives a solid representation to Hispanic/Latino family culture, so was that at least interesting? Eh... Look, I'm a white British dude, I can't really say if it's authentic or not, but it sure as hell didn't make me root for them. I literally yelled at the TV "you deserved that" at one point, because honestly, his family kind of suck for the first third of the movie. His sister is an arrogant, egotistical douche; his uncle is a conspiracy theorist and narcissist; and whilst his mum and dad seem nice enough, they still have the social etiquette of either a toddler or an animated joke family a la The Simpsons. Jamie spends the first chunk of the run time trying to help people, trying to be a nice guy, trying to knuckle down and help out, and what does he get in return? Bullied, frankly. So when the movie then wants me to feel bad for them, I just don't. They deserve what they're getting. Sure, at the very end the whole "now it's time to cry" moment felt good and all, but honestly the whole "I love my family, and they love me" stuff isn't earned. This family doesn't seem to love him. They seem to want to wear him down. And maybe that is realistic; it's certainly a pattern I've known in white, working class families. But those families are called toxic, so why isn't this one? Maybe it's just a cultural difference, but I didn't love it.
Which is a shame because Jamie is a solid character with some genuinely decent motivations; Blue Beetle is a great character that could have been a lot of fun; and the movie does a decent job of highlighting the inherent racism that the family faces (even if it slightly overuses the whole "white people can't remember brown people's names" trope). All it had to do was make them likeable and this might have pushed the rest of the plot a notch higher. As it is, it purely flounders.