How Blue Was My Beetle

Back from The Blue Beetle, a back-to-basics superhero movie with a theme about family feeling (a motif it shares with the two Shazam films). 

It will remind audience members of both Iron Man and The Greatest American Hero (the idealistic young protagonist has an alien super-suit that he can’t quite operate).

I was surprised to see that the movie directly ties into the previous Charlton Comics and DC Comics incarnations of the Blue Beetle, a character that in one form or another reaches all the way back to 1939. Jack Kirby’s OMAC is in there as well. 

This makes for a richer story, yet manages to sidestep the pitfalls of too much clunky background baggage.

The film is surprisingly straightforward about the malignancy of class oppression and the military-industrial complex, a fact that works to make the climax thrilling and satisfying. Xolo Maridueña is appealing as the hero, and Susan Sarandon is effective as the cheerfully amoral, bright-as-a-poisonous-penny corporate CEO villain Victoria Kord.

Seated in a cinema with only two other people, I had virtually a private showing — an agreeable way to while away an August afternoon.

Comic book fans should be sure to stay for a post-credits surprise.