BLUE BEETLE : Tuesday 26th September 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'BLUE BEETLE' this week, and this American Superhero film is based on the DC Comics character Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle and serves as the 14th instalment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film is Directed by the Puerto Rican Angel Manuel Soto, whose previous feature film offerings include 'The Farm' in 2015 and 'Charm City Kings' in 2020. 'Blue Beetle' saw its World Premiere screening on 15th August before its wide release in the US on 18th August, having so far grossed US$125M off the back of a production budget of US$104M, declaring it a Box Office bomb having been the lowest grossing film so far in the DCEU despite receiving generally positive reviews from critics.

The film opens in the remote frozen wasteland of Antarctica, where members of Kord Industries, led by the company's co-founder and CEO Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), have located an ancient alien artefact known as the Scarab. In the meantime, recent college graduate from Gotham Law University Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena) returns home to Palmera City full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it, and that his family is being evicted due to their financial challenges. Jaime's sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) manages to get him a job on the housekeeping team at Victoria Kord's lavish mansion. However, both are fired after Jaime halts a confrontation between Victoria and her niece Jenny (Bruna Marquezine). On the way out Jenny tells Jaime to meet her at Kord Tower the next day to discuss a 'job opportunity' as she is feeling guilty for them both getting sacked. 

The next day, Jenny infiltrates a lab and discovers that Victoria is using the Scarab for her One Man Army Corps (OMAC) project (cyborgs with human bodies transformed by a virus into living machines to assassinate any and all beings with superpowers and to establish Kord Industries as he global dominant player in defence manufacturing). Jenny steals the Scarab but when Kord Tower goes into lock-down following the reported security breach, she avoids the security detail by giving it to Jaime, hidden inside a Big Belly Burger take-out box, but tells him in no uncertain terms not to look inside. At home, Jaime's family convinces him to open the burger box. When Jaime touches the Scarab, it activates and fuses with him, encasing him in an armoured exoskeleton.

Jaime later rescues Jenny from Victoria's armed forces, takes her home and questions her wanting answers. She tells Jaime that the Scarab is a sentient weapon and that it has knowingly chosen Jaime to be its symbiotic host. With the help of Jaime's uncle Rudy (George Lopez), Jaime and Jenny break into Kord Tower to retrieve a smartwatch that once belonged to Jenny's father Ted, but are attacked by Victoria's bodyguard Ignacio Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), who has an OMAC prototype infused into his body. The Scarab is revealed to be named Khaji-Da. It takes over Jaime's body temporarily and fights with Carapax. Rudy and Jenny help incapacitate Carapax, then escape to Jenny's childhood home with Jaime, which has been left abandoned for the past fifteen years, since her mother died, and her father disappeared.

Jenny uses Ted's watch to gain access to his hidden laboratory and reveals to Jaime that Ted was originally a vigilante named Blue Beetle who dedicated his lifes work to studying Khaji-Da before mysteriously disappearing, leaving his company in Victoria's hands. When they notice Victoria's helicopter flying toward Jaime's home, Jaime summons Khaji-Da and returns to protect his family. As the family try to escape, Jaime's father, Alberto (Damian Alcazar), suffers a heart attack and dies, which distracts Jaime so allowing Carapax to capture him. Jaime is taken to an island fortress near Cuba, where he is strapped to a machine that downloads information from Khaji-Da to the OMACs. While unconscious, Jaime has a vision of his father, who tells him to embrace his destiny as the new Blue Beetle. Jaime comes around and escapes as Carapax's OMAC suit activates and evolves into a more powerful form.

Jenny, together with Milagro, Rudy, Jaime's mother Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo) and grandmother Nana (Adriana Barraza) use Ted's Bugship and its arsenal of both hi-tech and lo-tech weaponry to storm the island. Jaime is reunited with his family, but then encounters Carapax and battles him. Jaime ultimately has Carapax pinned down and is about to kill him, but Khaji-Da intervenes and reveals to Jaime memories of Carapax's enslavement by Victoria for the OMAC experiments, including Carapax's mother's death at Victoria's hands. This data was uploaded to Khaji-Da when Jaime was strapped to the machine unconscious and so leads Jaime to spare him. Carapax rebels against Victoria and sets his OMAC suit to explode, destroying the island, himself, and Victoria in retaliation for his own mothers death. As the Reyes family and Jenny escape from the island, they take time to mourn Alberto. 

A few days later when the dust has begun to settle, Jenny is appointed the new CEO of Kord Industries and promises to repair the damage caused to the Reyes family, by helping them rebuild their home. As the neighbours gather round what is left of the Reyes family's home and provide both emotional and physical support, Jaime kisses Jenny and then offers to fly her to the Kord Estate. Remain in your seat for a mid-credits sequence, although you won't be missing much if you don't. 

For me I found 'Blue Beetle' to be more of the same run 'o' the mill pedestrian superhero movies that the DCEU seem to churn out with increasing, and frustrating, regularity. There is little new in this film that we haven't seen countless times before, except for the Latino representation which makes for a welcome departure from the norm, but this film is aimed squarely at the family and early teens market for which, judging by the films lacklustre Box Office haul, is sure to find a limited audience. There is little by way of tension or real drama here, the action sequences have become all too predictable, and the storyline borders on the unremarkable. Superhero fatigue is rearing its ugly head!

'Blue Beetle' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

RAMBO : LAST BLOOD - Friday 27th September 2019.

'RAMBO : LAST BLOOD' is Rated R18+, which I saw for nostalgic reasons last week, because I grew up on a diet of '80's action movies featuring Sylvester Stallone and his contemporaries - among them none other than our titular fractured Vietnam War vet, John Rambo. So here we have what is likely to be (judging by the title) the last in the 'Rambo' action thriller film franchise that Actor, Director and Writer Sylvester Stallone has made his own. The franchise launched in 1982 with 'First Blood', then in 1985 with 'Rambo : First Blood Part II', then in 1988 with 'Rambo III' and in 2008 with 'Rambo', and now 'Last Blood' marks the fifth instalment. The series of four films so far were made for a combined US$153M and grossed worldwide US$728M and gave rise to an animated television series, comic books, novels, video games and even a Bollywood remake. Created by David Morrell in his debut 1972 novel 'First Blood' Stallone has played the title character of John Rambo in all films as a US Army Green Berets veteran who is traumatised by his experience in the Vietnam War, and uses the particular set of skills he gained there to fight police, enemy troops, drug cartels and anyone indiscriminate enough to get in his way. Stallone Co-Wrote the screenplays of all five films, and Directed 2008's 'Rambo'.

Here in only his second feature film Directing gig, after 'Get the Gringo' with Mel Gibson in 2012, Adrian Grunberg was announced as Director in August 2018 after ten years of to-ing and fro-ing on again off again Writing and Directing false starts. The film was made for US$50M, has so far recovered US$47M and garnered mostly negative press.

And so we join John Rambo attempting to rescue three wayward mountain hikers during the mother of all rainstorms. John is on his trusted steed and the gale force winds and driving rain are forcing the local search and rescue team off the mountain. Rambo comes across the dead body of the one of the hikers and continues his search. He comes across the other two cowering for shelter - one of whom wants to go off in search of his wife (the same dead body that Rambo saw earlier) and refuses Rambo's help, leaving a young woman to be rescued from an advancing torrent of water heading down the mountain towards them. Needless to say, Rambo saves the young woman, but not the other two.

As the storm clears and dawn rises we see Rambo riding back to his deceased fathers horse ranch somewhere in Arizona, settling the horse back in the stable and taking breakfast with his old friend with whom he manages the ranch, Maria Beltran (Adriana Barraza). Living with them is also Gabriela (Yvette Monreal), Maria's granddaughter, who has done so for the last ten years or so since her mother died of cancer and her father ran out on her never to be seen or heard from since.

Following an afternoon of horse riding together Gabriela reveals to Rambo that a friend of hers, Gizelle (Fenessa Pineda), has been able to locate Gabriela's biological father, Miguel (Rick Zingale), in Mexico. Against Rambo and Maria's staunch wishes, Gabriela secretly drives to Mexico to ask why Miguel had abandoned her and her mother years ago. Gizelle leads Gabriela to Miguel's apartment, where he tells her in no uncertain terms that he never really cared for Gabriela or her mother and that it was easy for him to turn his back on them. Heartbroken by this news, and now realising that the words of Rambo and Maria were correct in the first place, Gizelle takes Gabriele to a local night club where she is drugged and kidnapped by a local cartel for use in their own highly lucrative underground sex trade.

In the meantime, Maria has learned of Gabriela's disappearance in Mexico, and advises Rambo. He drives down to Mexico and interrogates both Miguel and Gizelle about Gabriela's whereabouts. Miguel has no idea but Gizelle is a different story. Rambo is reluctantly taken by Gizelle to the club where Gabriela was last seen, and confronts El Flaco (Pascacio Lopez) the man who was last seen with Gabriela, with non life threatening but very painful injuries. A mysterious woman, Carmen Delgado (Paz Vega) who was drinking alone at the bar, spied Rambo and noticed his actions watching El Flaco. She follows Rambo from a distance as El Flaco leads him to Gabriela's location.

Rambo is immediately confronted by armed members of the cartel led by Hugo and Victor Martinez (Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Oscar Jaenada respectively), then set upon, beaten up and marked by Victor with a cross carved into the cheek. They take his driver's license, revealing the ranch's location, and a photo of Gabriela, whom Victor recognises. The cartel vow to mistreat Gabriela further due to Rambo's intervention in their business, but Hugo lets Rambo live, much to Victor's disgust. So Victor promptly takes out his anger and frustration on the captive Gabriela.

Carmen takes Rambo back to her home where she cares for him until he fully recovers, and has a friend, who is a doctor, who gives him the once over, and stitches up his cheek. After four days, and Rambo has made a rapid recovering from the heavy beatings he sustained, Carmen reveals herself to be an independent journalist who has been investigating the Martinez brothers, the kidnappers and murderers of her own sister two years ago. Rambo later raids one of the brothels, killing several men until he finds a heavily drugged Gabriela. On the way back home in his pick-up truck, Rambo thanks Gabriela for giving him hope and purpose for the last ten years before she dies from a forced drug overdose.

Enraged, Rambo has Maria move away for her own safety suspecting that the Martinez brothers will now come after him. Over the course of the following week or so Rambo rigs the ranch and its labyrinth of underground tunnels built by Rambo many years ago for reasons that are not all that clear, with traps for a pending confrontation. The montage incidentally of Rambo digging trenches, setting booby traps, fixing up all manner of deadly weapons (and many of the DIY kind), and concealing shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, knives, axes, and bows in real time must have taken a couple of weeks but here it is glanced over as though it's all in a days work!

When his work is done (and you also have to wonder why the Martinez brothers leave it for so long to allow Rambo to prepare himself) he then returns back to Mexico to ask Carmen's help in finding Victor. Carmen initially refuses, believing that it will solve nothing, but is convinced after Rambo appeals to her grief and frustrations.

Rambo locates Victor's home, kills several armed guards and ultimately decapitates Victor. When the Police arrive, the paparazzi and Hugo they are confronted by the bloody scene all thorough the house and Victors headless body laying upright on his bed with a knife through his heart, and Rambo's driving license showing his address. On his drive back home, on a deserted highway Rambo dumps Victor's severed head out of the window.

Needless to say this is an open invitation for Hugo to retaliate, and in force. Hugo leads a group of his crack hitmen to Rambo's ranch, where each falls victim to the rigged traps. Cars get blown up and Hugo's henchmen all succumb to being burned to death, stabbed, speared, spiked, shot, sliced, diced and crushed in the most gruesome and violent means possible. 

Saving Hugo for last, after Rambo has detonated the extensive network of tunnels so forcing Hugo out, he leads him to the barn. There with pinpoint accuracy Rambo pins Hugo to the barn door using four very carefully targeted arrows with his crossbow. Rambo mutilates him by plunging his knife into his chest and ripping out his heart. In the aftermath, a weakened Rambo who has sustained two shots to his upper body, sits on the porch of his father's house in his favourite rocking chair, vowing to continue fighting and to keep the memories of his loved ones alive.

With any 'Rambo' film you know exactly what your in for, and here the 73 year old Actor and Writer Sly Stallone once again ramps up the action, the blood letting and the graphic violence. It seems that in 'Rambo : Last Blood' age shall not weary him - at least where the gratuitous multiple deaths are concerned, and all delivered in creative and inventive ways in the name of revenge. But outside of the killings, John Rambo has spent the last ten years ageing peacefully in small town America, trying to put his past life behind him and getting emotionally attached to two people he now holds dear - one of whom is abruptly and prematurely extinguished from his life. And for this, the perpetrators will pay the ultimate price! And they do, spilling their precious crimson stuff all over the place. If you're a die-hard fan of the Rambo franchise and like your body count high and delivered graphically, then this film is for you, but if you're not, then you're best off steering clear. At the tender rage of 73 Stallone still proves that he's got what it takes in the action genre to pack a punch and wield a knife, and thankfully this time around he keeps his shirt on, and his bandanna off, but don't expect too much smart dialogue or stirring emotion.

'Rambo : Last Blood' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-