Lost in translametion.

Brightburn is a movie that could have been a lot more, like director David Yarovesky got a prime cut of mid-grade wagyu beef and decided to replicate a Big Mac with it. Which isn’t to say it’s inedible, but you’re kinda hitting a low ceiling there by burning thin patties to a crisp and then throwing on some thousand island dressing and crappy shredded lettuce and onions. I’m gonna hit McDonald’s up real quick, I’ll be right back.

What was I saying? I keep seeing people talk about how Brightburn is an homage to Superman because it’s about a superpower alien kid who crash lands in Kansas near Metropolis and the kid’s outfits are clearly color coded to Superman and it’s very obviously a Superman homage. But hear me out. Brightburn is the start of what might have happened if Goku hadn’t conked his noggin and retained his evil programming. This is an alternate Dragon Ball story told to not infringe on copyright and also made to look like Superman because more people are going to watch it if there’s no weeb shit.

I guess this is the point where I say that Brightburn has an important lesson; if a spaceship crash lands in your yard and it has a human-looking baby in it, you are obligated to cremate that baby, throw its ashes into a lead-lined sealed box, and throw that box into the middle of the ocean that’s nowhere near inhabited land. That way if the baby alien inexplicably turns into a Ju-on spirit, they’ll only be able to curse a nearby uninhabited island. Basically we’re risking a future potential problem to solve a definite now problem.

But film has taught me nothing good ever comes from human-esque things being birthed or appearing. See Lamb for more details. I don’t care how sad and desperate you are that you are unable to conceive a child, or your kid died, or you miss your dead kid. If something supernatural comes into your life that emotionally replaces said dead/nonexistent child, it will never lead to good things. Probably just you and your spouse being brutally murdered.

Brightburn stars some of my favorite people in the world. Elizabeth Banks who I had no clue was Effie Trinket in Hungy Games plays Tori Breyer, a woman unable to conceive despite what must be really frequent sex with her husband Kyle played by David Denman. They’d be carting my dehydrated corpse out on a stretcher if it was me. Jackson A. Dunn plays Brandon, the alien kid who is adopted and if anything set this kid up to become a sociopathic serial killer, it’s probably naming him Brandon. Oh and the whole fact that the ship keeps talking to him and making him think evil thoughts.

Meredith Hagner is here as Merilee, Tori’s sister and Brandon’s aunt. Matt Jones plays Noah, Brandon’s uncle. To bring the superhero collection together, Jennifer Holland is in this movie as is Steve Agee. Michael Rooker is in this movie in a small role. They even got Stephen Blackehart who has played numerous characters in Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad, and some really shitty Asylum films. Rainn Wilson has a cameo role as his character from Super, because James Gunn is involved in this and he loves reminding us of his films.

There’s some good ideas in Brightburn. How does a parent deal with their adopted child going through puberty and its related problems when he is also superpowered and can fly and break shit and do laser beam eyes? What can you do with an unstoppable force when he’s a kinda sociopathic young boy who is discovering hormones and is being fed murmurings from a space ship that nobody can stop him? And what about when the kid starts getting bullied by other students who he can easily turn into a pile of pulp and gore in a manner of .002 seconds.

Brightburn feels like a superhero movie ala A24, by which I mean it’s a slow burn and ultimately nothing big comes of it. There’s a few gross-out scenes like a guy getting his jaw ripped off or a woman pulling a hunk of glass out of her eye. But like an A24 film the movie feels like it’s constantly leading up to something that never happens. In my perfect world the first half of the movie would be Brandon’s transformation into villain, and then the second half would be from the perspective of normal humans trying to figure out a way to take him down and probably succeeding at doing so.

At an hour and a half, Brightburn feels like it needed another hour. Like the directors suddenly realized they were out of film footage and had to cut to credits. You could have had more time with characters trying to teach Brandon to be good, like not stalking the one girl who was nice to him in school.

My recommendation for Brightburn is to sit on it. It’s a film I would recommend watching were there a sequel available or in development, but we know at this point that a sequel is likely never coming out due to copyright issues with the IP. James Gunn told us as much, also he’s not going to be involved anyway since he’s locked in to DC until at least 2026. Maybe we’ll get a Boyhood style sequel with the kid actor all grown up to reprise his own role in 10 years. The cinematography is good though.

Rating: B-