A Review of Blue Beetle: A Film I Watched With a Five-Year-Old Jumping Around
I see why I choose to watch movies at the Alamo Drafthouse, now tsiddahn, kid!
I like that tagline. Jamie is the FIRST superhero in his family as if we should expect more.
Blue Beetle came out in August 2023. I wanted to see it back then, but it was out for about 11 seconds before disappearing into the ether. I forgot about it. So to make up for the dearth of superhero movies in my life, I decided to watch Blue Beetle in January 2025. Unfortunately, my 5-year-old cousin came over at the beginning and wanted to play video games. MY video games.
I had done this kid a favor the week before and closed Dragon’s Dogma 2 and tried to explain Super Smash Bros. to him. I tried to explain how special moves and dangerous attacks worked, but he wasn’t here for it. I’m not sure if it was because he’s 5, not as good at video games as I was at his age, or if it’s because these kids can’t commit! Gen “whatever’s after alpha” is too busy with their Tiktokin and Insta-whatsit I tell ya. Regardless, we spent a couple of hours of playing the Nintendo Switch together before I had to tag out with my brother and let him occupy the 5-year-old while I went to sleep. Well, the boy’s grandfather brought him back the next week during the beginning of my personal Blue Beetle watch party.
Here’s how this story breaks down
I'm at home, minding my own business. Due to my deep hunger for video games and my lack of time to play them, I try to finish at least one every year. The game I've been trapped in for an insane amount of time is Dragon's Dogma 2. It is a more hardcore Role Playing Game (RPG) where you run around in a group as a single player of changeable battle vocations and three pawns that follow you around and do what you say - unless one of them gets a disease where they murder everyone in town. This has not happened to me... yet!
On that beautiful to bloody Sunday, I wanted to scramble to the finish of Dragon's Dogma 2 or take a break and watch Blue Beetle instead. Blue Beetle ultimately won that argument. As soon as I turned the movie on, my 5-year-old cousin entered the room and all he wanted to do was have me turn off the film and play Super Smash Bros. on my Nintendo Switch.
Rather than accepting this as I did a week before, this time I said, "No! Child! I'm watching a movie now, we can play when it's over." One might think that would be enough, but it wasn't with this kid. He spent the first 30 minutes of the movie complaining about ME ruining HIS fun because I wouldn't play a video game with him. This kid also doesn't know what it's like to play someone who understands a game while doing nothing that they're told. I basically had to be like that lady from the "Ya'll Won" sketch from Saturday Night Live.
Despite the nerve-racking childishness, I eventually, got this kid to settle down enough to watch the movie once the movie violence happened. Kids love the thrill behind laser guns and sound cannons and Blue Beetle has a lot of that. So I want to give a big shout-out to the Reyes family, particularly Jamie (Xolo Maridueña) and Rudy (George Lopez) for being such great actors they made a 5-year-old "tsiddahn," be quiet, and watch a solid film.
Should I watch Blue Beetle?
The best DCU characters are the conspiracy theorists like Uncle Rudy here.
This movie came out back in 2023. Chances are you've already seen it, especially if you are a big-time DC Comics fan. Likely you'll already have your thoughts on it. Feel free to correct mine in the comments.
If you're late to the Blue Beetle party like I was, the answer is Absolutely! There is a lot to love here. For instance... how many Mexican superheroes do you know? Probably not many as there have never been that many in the US other than Nacho Libre of course. One of the most fun things about this film is that Jamie Reyes is the person infected with the scarab technology, but he comes from a family that is always there for him. It doesn't matter if it's giving Jamie advice in the afterlife, stomping bad guys in the first Blue Beetle's Bug Ship, or wielding a chain gun, due to a revolutionary past - a past I would most assuredly watch a movie about if there were one. In my opinion, Jamie's family is the best part of Blue Beetle.
So yeah! There really isn't much more to say. After what Zach Snyder did to Superman in Man of Steel I felt these DC movies were not going to be for me. How is the young Superman going to be told by Pa Kent that he shouldn’t save kids from a bus spilling off the road? Would it have been better for him to see all those dead bodies of his school friends up close? Not my Superman! I couldn’t deal with that and felt it was a character violation. To prove this point Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came out. That was one of those "wish I could leave the theater" movies. I hated that movie so much that I almost gave up on DC films entirely. I did like the first Wonder Woman! However, I got that same "hate everything" feeling from Wonder Woman 1984. Why were they in the 80s? What's Maxwell Lord doing there? Why is a Chilean guy playing him? What I'm just saying I did not care for this film. I didn't care for Aquaman either regardless of what those dudes in Cambodia were talking about.
Blue Beetle though... That hits the sweet spot. It was one of the only DCU films I enjoyed. I enjoyed it despite a 5-year-old jumping up and down and stressing me out about playing video games. Luckily... I got my revenge. It was SO LATE that I just couldn't be bothered to play with him and set him up to play on his own. He hated it, but it served him right.
Oh! Before I forget, "Muhuhuhu hahahahahahaaaa! Take that, child! Never come between me and my movies."
(It’s good his parents don’t read my stuff 😅)
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