Tag: Clean Room

Blue Beetle (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Jaime Reyes finds himself the unwilling host of an alien symbiotic host. Why, yes, this is very similar to Venomn, why do you ask?

I am not really a comic book guy. I enjoy them, and I know a little bit about them, but there are just so many of them that I have to be honest, I don’t know where to start. I read the ones I have heard are important, or are super fucked up (Hello Gail Simone’s horror graphic novel Clean Room, you delightfully terrifying bitch. The book is a terrifying bitch, Gail Simone is a treasure who must be protected at all costs). So I’m not that familiar with Blue Beetle as a character. Let’s be honest though; that shouldn’t matter. A lot of people won’t agree with me here but I think the only thing that matters in these films are the movies themselves. If it doesn’t happen in the movies/TV shows, it doesn’t happen. You shouldn’t need to do research to watch a film, it should all make sense in its own universe. “oh, but that plot point is actually easily explained if you read issue 155 of the original comic from 1948”, nope, fuck that.

All of that is my long-winded way of saying I went in relatively blind as to the character. It didn’t matter though, he was written well enough that you knew what he was like very early on, the same goes for the background characters too. The family could be annoying; they’re loud, boisterous, and pushy. But they’re all written and played with just enough warmth and reality that they work. At different points they’re almost all highlights. Belissa Escobedo provides an almost Aubrey Plaza performance in her role as Jaime’s sister Milagro. George Lopez has his moments, giving a lot of the best lines. Adriana Barraza gives a kick-ass performance as Nana, starting off exactly as you expect her to be, but then evolving into a character you want to know more about; if anybody from this series deserves a prequel comic book it’s her; her backstory is rich with possibilities. It’s a shame the future of the DCEU is up in the air because I want to see more from these characters.

So, that’s the characters, but is the film itself any good? It’s…..good. That’s all it is. It’s probably in the top half of the DC films but that’s only because a lot of them have been pretty shit. It faces the problems that a lot of DC films have had lately; it’s just “there”. There’s not much about it that’s new or surprising. Yes, it is important to have a non-white superhero, and the stories involved in that do need telling. But it would be useful if the story being told was being told in a good way. The hints of gentrification etc are great, but it’s never really given enough focus. It’s also quite sad that (just like Green Lantern), when he’s given a power which involves “creating whatever you can think of” the results aren’t more creative. There is also an issue with one character’s geography in the closing third. He seems to change locations quite a lot, randomly going from one set of characters to the next with no indication of how close the two locations are.

Overall though, it is a fun watch, and you will enjoy yourself while watching it. The moment where the scarab enters Jaime contains great body horror moments, and if we were shown more creativity like that it would be incredible. As it is, it’s just good, but a month after you watch it, will you be dying to watch it again? Probably not.

Let’s See You Do Better: Update 3

On By troubledproductionsIn LSYDBLeave a comment

Okay now I’m getting to the fun parts. The best parts of these movies are the deaths. Because they take place in a dream world you really have no limits so you can get as creative as you want. You need them to be creepy and disturbing. Not sure if it’s just me but I like when the deaths link into the persons character. I feel that makes sense as people dream about things that affect them, so it only makes sense that their dream deaths would be linked to them. That’s what I’m attempting to do in this. I’m about to enter the “adding new characters” stage and I know who some of them are already based solely on how I want them to die. That’s probably a backwards way of doing it but it works for me.  Anyway, here’s what the deaths will be like

deaths

A little bit of background on these two characters:

Alex is a wannabe bodybuilder, who in the scene before this we found out has a real complex about his strength, he has the need to always be the toughest guy in the room, that’s why I had his death take place on one of those “test your strength” fairground machines. Originally I was going to have it take place in a gym but realised that had already been done (I think in the fourth one) in a REALLY creepy piece of body horror where a set of weights were pushed down and used to break a characters arms. I wouldn’t be able to top that so I decided to go in a different direction. Plus I figured it wouldn’t be bad enough for him to be outmuscled, the worst thing would be for him to be outmuscled in public so everybody sees. The little girl being the one to do it came about because it’s a good opportunity to use the creepy Freddy girls in this movie. You know, the ones in the blue dress who sing the rhyme? If I dressed the little girl in it similarly it would be a nice way for me to give a shout out to the original series without being distracting. Originally I had the final blow be done by a random bodybuilder, to show him that no matter how hard he works out, there will always be someone better. I then mentioned in passing to someone that I was considering having the small girl do it instead, and that was received much more favourably so I changed it to that. Someone else mentioned having the head hit the bell at the top. Didn’t do that as I wanted the skull to be shattered, but I did like the concept so I modified it slightly and instead had a small segment of the head hit the bell. This had the double advantage of leading to the next scene. The next scene takes place in a class, so I could easily match up the piece of skull hitting the bell, and the bell ringing in the class.

Now, the second one takes place in a swimming pool. I will freely admit this one was inspired heavily by a graphic novel I found called Clean Room by Gail Simone. If you get a chance I highly suggest you read it as it’s incredibly creepy and inspired some imagery which I will use in this. What was most useful to me from it was these two scenes:

I saw that and thought “I could definitely use that”. I named the child Terry in homage to this scene. The challenge with this was making it different enough so that it wasn’t just “me stealing shit from women writers and claiming it as my own”. I wanted to use it as a jumping-off point for something else, and I like to think I did that. It’s why his death ends the way it does; with him being swallowed by the water (and it’s why I had him responsible for his death again in the dream). I might need to change it more but I’m happy with what I did and think I made it different enough from the original to claim it as my own.

So yeah, those are the deaths, let me know what you think of them, whether they worked etc. And then go read Clean Room as it’s f*cking superb.