After a year that’s been filled with nothing but losses from Warner and the now finished DCEU franchise, “Blue Beetle” is the win that they sorely needed. Thankfully, I’m very elated to say that Angel Manuel Soto’s adaptation of the acclaimed DC Comic is a great film. It manages to pull off a lot of what “The Flash” and “Fury of the Gods” didn’t by offering a fantastic narrative and some wonderful action, packed with great themes about family, culture, and unity. “Blue Beetle” is teeming with positivity, even when it’s at its darkest, as it promotes a lot of universal ideas of leaning on family, figuring out how to endure through pain, and figuring out your inner power.
Tag Archives: Adaptation
Five Great Minority Movie Heroes, Part VII
This Friday sees the release of “Blue Beetle” one of DC Comics’ most popular teen superheroes who’s garnered much acclaim and fandom over the years. The new vision of the classic DC Comics hero spotlights Jaime Reyes, a young latino teen given an alien technology which grants him a super powered body of armor that allows him to become a powerful superhero. With a great cast, and what looks like excellent action, I’m hoping “Blue Beetle” garners as much success as 2023’s “Spider-Verse” movie. In either case, in anticipation here is the seventh edition of our “Minority Movie Heroes” series.
These are five more minority movie heroes we loved.
Swamp Thing (1982): MVD Rewind LaserVision Collection [4K UHD/Blu-Ray]
It’s too bad that in Wes Craven’s long and storied filmmaking career that “Swamp Thing” is the movie that’s aged the worst. It seemed like a slam dunk for the director, but his approach toward “Swamp Thing” never quite rises above niche horror camp. Even when adapting the source material as straight faced as possible, “Swamp Thing” is really never great as, say, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and that’s probably because the movie itself jumps back and forth in tone and aesthetic. It goes from cheesy monster movie to an attempt at a Beauty and the Beast tale. It garners clear moments of pure camp and then tries to offer allegories on God complex drawing obvious influence from “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”
Five Underappreciated Comic Book Style Movies
There was a weird period in the aughts where movie studios were becoming more and more open to adapting superhero and comic book movies, but weren’t quite committed just yet. Meanwhile they did release some movies that were comic book like in nature and concept, and while they kind of bombed critically and or financially, I enjoyed them quite a bit. A few of them were even ahead of their time in many respects. Here are five that I think are woefully under appreciated, and deserve more notice, even if they aren’t what I’d call flawless or masterpieces.
The Tomb of Dracula (Yami no Teiō: Kyūketsuki Dorakyura) (1985)
DRACULA WEEK
Also known as “Dracula Sovereign of the Damned,” and “The Emperor of Darkness: The Vampire Dracula,” Toei’s “Tomb of Dracula” is loosely adapted from the “The Tomb of Dracula” Marvel Book comic series published from 1972 to 1979. I like to think the Marvel comics are so much better than what Toei has offered fans, as they squeeze in all of those stories in to such a hastily made ninety minute movie. And you can tell there’s so much here added in a rush as the movie is so badly made.
Ranking the Classic Movie Monster Reboots from Best to Worst
DRACULA WEEK
With “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” coming to theaters on Friday, we’re going to see a pretty interesting interpretation of Dracula. I am quite excited to see what it has to offer horror fans and have re-visited a lot of the classic movie monsters and the studios’ efforts to reboot and re-imagine a lot of their classic IP’s. While I’m hoping “The Last Voyage of Demeter” makes Dracula horrifying again, I ranked all of the attempts at Rebooting Classic Movie Monsters from Best to Worst.
Dracula Untold (2014)
DRACULA WEEK
It’s a damn shame that Universal just didn’t have enough confidence in Gary Shore’s treatment of Dracula to warrant it a follow up. “Dracula Untold” is a good enough movie all on its own, but it was also teeming with so much potential for a larger scale sequel that reversed all roles. Where as Dracula is the hero of “Untold” and Dominic Cooper the villain as Mehmed, the Turkish Sultan, it would have been fun to see the descendant of Mehmed, played by Cooper also, as now a law abiding police officer who engages in a new war with the modern version of Dracula. That’s just the writer in me building on head canon, but “Dracula Untold” is a very good interpretation of Bram Stoker’s novel.