Are all superhero movies made for the same audience? I’ve often thought so, and know for certain that I am not in that target audience. But this one seems made for a different audience, what with its specific story slant. Or maybe I’m overreacting. You be the judge.
Angel Manuel Soto’s story (from the DC comics stable) has an alien Scarab fall into the hands of a young Hispanic man, Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) and transforming him into the title character through symbiosis. Jaime’s family tries to help him while the corporate military conglomerate which wants to use the Scarab to power an army of cybernetic soldiers wants it back. The ruthless corporate boss is Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), while her daughter Jenny (Bruna Marquezine) has taken a liking to Jaime and hates what her mother has done to her late father’s company. The result is a power grab that transfigures Jaime and his family and threatens Palmera City.
The film has a lot to say about corporate greed, the terrible poverty experienced by immigrants who continue to be oppressed by the country they have chosen, the bonds of family and the bravery it takes to stand up against such oppression. All of that is fair (and good), but it is undermined by Jaime’s awkwardness and complete lack of understanding of the gift that he has been given. It falls to his family to show him the way. Which they do, in somewhat spectacular fashion (especially Nana, whose revolutionary past comes in quite handy during the story’s climactic battle). All of which is fine, if rather obvious. And comic, particularly when Uncle Rudy (George Lopez) gets involved in the action.
Where the film treads new ground, I think, and where it walks a particularly fine line with its audience, is its overwhelmingly negative attitude regarding white America. Victoria Kord is only one person but she controls a whole army of people who actively oppress the Latino population of Palmera City. Uncle Rudy continually rails against the government and the greedy conglomerates and how they exploit the Latino area of the city, until they want the property and then force everybody out. I don’t remember a single non-Hispanic character being shown in a positive light. And that’s fine; white America can afford to be the villain now and again, perhaps more often. But I confess that this attitude made me slightly uncomfortable as I was watching the story unfold — and maybe that’s the filmmakers’ point.
Ultimately I didn’t really relate to this movie. More could have been done, and made clear, about the Scarab’s symbiosis with Jaime, and just why it chose him in the first place. Jaime’s family is a hoot, providing the story’s best moments and emotions. The Kord corporation’s greed is a bit much, especially when Victoria orders her armor suited and helmeted goons to target Jaime and his family without remorse. Subtlety is present in the family scenes; it is conspicuously absent in the rest of the story. Finally, the DC Comic universe seems less involving, both emotionally and action-ally, than the Marvel universe. Just sayin’. ☆ ☆. 31 August 2023.