What if Superman was evil?
It’s a concept that’s been explored in comics plenty of times, and to
a lesser extent in film. There have been some efforts like Akira and Chronicle, both
of which understood that giving superpowers to an angst-ridden teen with a
crappy life and a chip on his shoulder is a recipe for disaster, but the most
famous (or rather, infamous) attempt is Man
of Steel. And I say “attempt” because Zack Snyder intended his version to
be a complicated soul torn by the morality of his own being and not just a
cold-blooded psychopath, but whether he succeeded at conveying that is highly
debatable. Brightburn seems like an
attempt to chuck all pretensions out the window and go with the latter by
reframing Superman’s origin story as a straight-up horror movie.
If you know Superman’s origin
story, then you know how this plays out, so sing along if you know the words. A
young couple (Elizbeth Banks and David Denman) finds a spacecraft that
crash-lands in the woods near their farm. They find a baby inside and decide to
raise him as their own. By age 12, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) starts
experiencing strange developments. First, he develops incredible powers (super
strength, invincibility, flight, and heat vision). Then he develops odd
behavior, drawing weird symbols everywhere, speaking in tongues and sleepwalking.
But when he discovers his true origins, his entire personality changes,
becoming a cold, short tempered psychopath. Now his parents must reconcile the
boy they raised with the monster he is.
The most frustrating thing
about this movie is that it has an incredible premise but does virtually
nothing new with it, feelings that are compounded by the fact that it was
produced by James Gunn and written by his brother and cousin. The bones of
something more substantial are certainly there, and while it doesn’t waste any
time getting to the gory details, it felt like it skipped a few stops that
would’ve given them more weight. Aesthetically it copies the drab cinematography
and shaky camera work from the early scenes of Man of Steel, which, for all of its numerous faults, had most of
its heart in those scenes of Clark’s upbringing. Brightburn is so eager to get to the evil Superman part that the
path to getting there feels less like a story and more like a series of plot
points with no connective tissue to give this transformation any weight.
For one, the jump from Brandon
the shy farm kid to Brandon the superpowered sociopath isn’t so much a jump as
it is a step over a crack. As soon as he discovers he can fling a lawnmower
across a field and stick his hand in the spinning blades without so much as a
scratch, his capacity for empathy and remorse is immediately switched off, making
his graduation from slaughtering chickens to people is even more abrupt.
There’s suggestion that he’s influenced by the animalistic nature of whatever
he really is, especially after he comes into contact with the spacecraft he
arrived in hidden under the family barn, but there’s just as much suggestion
that this is all because he’s a twelve-year-old boy on the onset of adolescence
and power fantasies just come with package, only now he has the ability to enact
them. It’s certainly not his upbringing, since his parents (who both give performances
above and beyond what this movie deserves) raised him well enough, and even
then, their story arc is telegraphed pretty much from the first shot. We know
from the get-go that the mom will defend her baby boy tooth and nail even as
the bodies pile up, and we know that the dad will be less hesitant to put him
down when he sees what he’s truly capable of. No points for guessing their
fate.
As a stand-alone horror film, it’s
enjoyably passable, especially if you’re a fan of gory kills. There were two
death scenes in particular that don’t skimp on the blood splatter, but conjure
two different but equally visceral reactions. One is extremely squeamish, drawn
out and uncomfortable in its real-life plausibility, especially if you have a
fear of being around broken glass, while the other was an over the top
evisceration straight out of an early Sam Raimi movie. And if the Snyder
parallels weren’t blatant enough, there’s a mid-credit scene of Brandon’s path
of destruction that’s a direct copy of a scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is undercut by matching
it with one of the most comically on-the-nose musical choices that dates it
pretty instantly. At least it has a Michael Rooker cameo.
Although Brightburn is fun as quick little horror film, it had the makings
of something more subversive or substantial, but doesn’t really go for the
jugular. As far as films about bad seed children go, it’s no The Omen or We Need to Talk About Kevin, and as far as movies about superhuman
kids going on a power trip goes, it’s no Akira
or Chronicle. Perhaps this is another
case of me judging a movie for what I wanted it to be rather than what it is,
but considering the talent behind it, I expected better.
5/10
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