On a whim, I decided to watch the recent superhero movie, Blue Beetle. I’ve been feeling a little burned out by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I figured I’d try something from DC. It also stars Xolo Maridueña (who I’ve enjoyed in Cobra Kai) as the main hero, Jaime Reyes.

The basic structure of the movie is standard hero-origin fare, but at the very least, it ends up being better than a lot of the recent Marvel stuff. I think where Blue Beetle succeeds (and where the MCU increasingly fails) is that it feels very human and doesn’t get lost in the weeds of a “superhero universe” or its tropes. In the case of Blue Beetle, the emphasis on Jaime’s Latin American background is what holds the entire film together. 

Jaime’s family is Mexican, and they are shaped by both the struggles and triumphs they’ve had to face making a life in the US, ranging from some members being undocumented immigrants, to enduring years of backbreaking labor, to a rather surprising detail about his doting old grandma. Blue Beetle asks how a person like Jaime, the very first member of his family to graduate from college, gains a lot of his strength from his upbringing and the values of his culture. The generational and cultural gap felt by Jaime as a first-generation American feels very authentic. And all through this, the story of the Reyes family delivers a complex message about what it’s like to aim for the American dream in an America that doesn’t see you as equal.

Blue Beetle isn’t spectacular, but it’s still a pretty entertaining feature with some solid legs. It frames the superhero aspects of its story through an exploration of a multigenerational immigrant experience, and manages to cross a finish line that many of its peers have been unable to reach.