2019’s Brightburn,
directed by David Yarovesky.
Starring Jackson A. Dunn, Elizabeth Banks, David Denman,
Emmie Hunter, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner, Jennifer Holland, Gregory Alan
Williams, and Michael Rooker.
What is it about?
Rural farmers Tori and Kyle Brewer (Elizabeth Banks and David Denman) one day have a spaceship
crash onto their front lawn. Inside it they find a baby humanoid being that they
christen, Brandon Brewer (Jackson A. Dunn), and raise him as their own child. After he becomes an
adolescent, the spaceship begins to call out to him, and he begins to possess
superhuman abilities. But Brandon may not be interested in the usual superhuman
route- and considers instead his purpose regarding becoming a super villain.
Why is it worth seeing?
These days superhero films are all the rage, the equivalent
of Westerns in decades past. After a golden age of entrenchment, with each year
the product became more and more ubiquitous, and it became an increasing
challenge to stand out in the morass of business as usual product, whether it
be chaps and six shooters, or tights and laser beam eyes. The strangely titled Brightburn (named after the indistinct town
the film is set in), attempts to separate itself from the pack in its story of
a Superman-like child who breaks bad in the worst of ways.
Its premise, admittedly different, doesn’t do itself any favours in its execution. Its horror movie-like tropes of jump scares, slasher film-like stalking, and creepy We Need To Talk About Kevin child murderer vibes, ensure that any kind of originality is instantly forgettable. It’s the origin story of something that’s closer to Friday the 13th than Superman, but (unless you’re a sociopath) it has us hoping for an overmatched group of indistinguishable characters to overcome the adolescent menace. Banks and Denman, as Brandon’s good natured adoptive parents (the bio parent after all is a glowing spaceship satanic blob sequestered in the barn), do their best, but Banks’ shrill denial is pathologically inert, as only the average kind of horror victim can be.
Unlike the superior Chronicle, the last superhero movie I can think of that featured a homegrown hero who decides to go a different way, at times it can be a little confusing whom we’re cheering for- is it the small town’s hapless victims (dispatched in pretty grisly fashion), or the god-like deity who is a half decade away from applying for his driver’s license? If it’s the latter, than I’d prefer the tone set by 2017’s Life, in which it comes around belatedly that it just might be a film based around the other side’s perspective- which was a neat trick.
Its premise, admittedly different, doesn’t do itself any favours in its execution. Its horror movie-like tropes of jump scares, slasher film-like stalking, and creepy We Need To Talk About Kevin child murderer vibes, ensure that any kind of originality is instantly forgettable. It’s the origin story of something that’s closer to Friday the 13th than Superman, but (unless you’re a sociopath) it has us hoping for an overmatched group of indistinguishable characters to overcome the adolescent menace. Banks and Denman, as Brandon’s good natured adoptive parents (the bio parent after all is a glowing spaceship satanic blob sequestered in the barn), do their best, but Banks’ shrill denial is pathologically inert, as only the average kind of horror victim can be.
Unlike the superior Chronicle, the last superhero movie I can think of that featured a homegrown hero who decides to go a different way, at times it can be a little confusing whom we’re cheering for- is it the small town’s hapless victims (dispatched in pretty grisly fashion), or the god-like deity who is a half decade away from applying for his driver’s license? If it’s the latter, than I’d prefer the tone set by 2017’s Life, in which it comes around belatedly that it just might be a film based around the other side’s perspective- which was a neat trick.
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