Brightburn is a movie set in a world where all DC Comics’ heroes are evil, and this particular movie focuses on Superman. It stars Elizabeth Banks and The Office’s David Denman as his loving, adoptive parents who are divided on whether or not their son is a problem and how to handle it.
Brightburn is a sci fi horror movie, an excellent excuse to eat popcorn and talk smack with your friends. You either watch it at home or go to a serious matinee when you don’t have to pay too much otherwise you may be more critical than you should be. The highest praise that I can give it is if you are always imagined the ways that Clark Kent could casually kill you, this movie delivers and really goes for the gross out factor without flinching. I’m thrilled that a movie about an evil kid did not pull punches because of his age.
I would suggest that the best horror taps into a visceral societal fear, and it doesn’t quite succeed on that front. I’m not sure whether or not adopted children will feel offended by the following suggestion, but it is not my intention. I would have loved if it tapped into a general fear of parenthood and instead of making it be a positive experience, the person is right, and parenthood was an awful choice even though the parent loves and has a responsibility to his or her kid. Brightburn’s major mistake is dividing the focus by shifting between the parents’ perspective. It should have focused on the dad from the beginning maybe a little earlier before their son’s ship landed to show his doubts about having kids at all, but going along with it for his wife so there could be a theme throughout the movie that he isn’t a selfish jerk, but by expressing early honest concerns about whether or not they should have children that later get validated, I’m sure a lot of his concerns with resonate with the viewers with and without children. It was one of the few horror films that could have worked better with a man as the protagonist over a woman because of the societal assumption that men do not make as good parents. Horror films are secretly subversive so making society wrong and not being pro kid would have been thrilling. Kids can be nightmares, and they don’t have to be evil aliens to wreak havoc. The movie visits this theme too late in the film, and it was the strongest.
I noticed that a lot of viewers and critics had a problem with why everyone did not do something sooner. I could be mistaken, but Brightburn only occurs over a week or two. I thought that they responded kind of rapidly. Do I watch the same news that everyone else does? How many stalkers or rapists get slaps on the wrists? Did Robert Durst only start beheading buddies late in life? People not only get away with stuff all the time. Their closest friends and family rarely believe that their loved one is evil. One critic asked why no one called the police earlier. Um, what are the police going to do with an impervious, flying evil kid with laser eyes? This problem is above their pay grade. Y’all are just screwed. Don’t call anyone if you want fewer lives killed, and probably that won’t work either. This situation is a Children of the Corn situation. Pray that he never gets wanderlust.
I felt like the mom was definitely in the 52%. To the public, her sweet boy would not do anything, and she would defend Roy Moore, but secretly she would be freaking out about what to do. While they made Banks’ character a little too privately dumb, I did like the idea that moms can be villains albeit sympathetic and for valid reasons. Horrible mother in laws didn’t become like that when their sons got married. They were like that when they were kids too. I don’t think that people are comfortable feeling this way, which is why I think using the father’s perspective would have made it land right. People need help getting there and wouldn’t comfortably come to this realization on their own.
I also think that good horror has familiar tracks that it follows, but Brightburn straddled the line too long regarding whether or not to think of the child as a budding serial killer or sci-fi possessed (as opposed to supernatural by demons, a scientific explanation). I loved that it showed all the tropes that are usually considered romantic in movies like Twilight and showed them as genuinely creepy. I enjoyed that he had a modus operandi and enjoyed psychologically terrifying people before killing them. They clearly should have chosen budding serial killer, but then his discovery about his origins would have to be completely rewritten, and the parents’ initial reluctance to believe the change in their son would have been even harder to stomach. Also no offense to Jackson A Dunn, but the kid never seemed sweet. I have no idea who they were talking about. If he was supposed to show a transformation, someone screwed up.
My major problem in Brightburn was one victim’s reaction to discovering that their relative was evil. Why would you drive away instead of locking yourself inside? I know that would be redundant for viewers, but it made no sense to me that you wouldn’t run back inside, especially since your loved ones are unprotected and unaware at home. It was a flimsy excuse for another excellent death scene, and I can’t quite sign a waiver. I did enjoy that the movie often had victims do everything reasonable considering the circumstances, and they were still screwed.
While I thought that the mask was evocative and effective, I think that it was a weird creative choice since Superman never wore a mask. It later made sense towards the end. Occasionally Brightburn’s CGI was shoddy, especially in the denouement when we can see Dunn flying. It clearly is CGI, uncanny valley Dunn, not the actor, but the movie more than makes up for it with a clever post credits scene that begs for a sequel. I enjoyed the soundtrack. Despise jumpscares, which are used often early in the film, but are fortunately dropped later on. Dear filmmakers, jump scares should be used judiciously and infrequently or else your movie is weak. I love the lesson in the classroom is the lesson of the movie trope so I’m sorry that the movie did not hit that harder and more frequently. Brightburn has lots of black people, but I do think that we need clarification whether they’re closer to David A Clarke or The Wire’s Clarke Peters in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Just because you’re black, doesn’t mean that we should automatically root for them. Deputy Aryes went to work. I would have quit like Bronn when he saw those dragons.
If Brightburn has a lesson, it is that couples need to communicate with each other more, and it is really unfair to everyone to impose your earnest and sincere desires on someone even if they seem objectively good. Children are generally a blessing, but not always. Either way, you can’t return them.