BRIGHTBURN:
SUPERHERO HORROR FLICK IS CREEPY BUT FLAWED!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: *** out of 4
Something is very wrong with Brandon Breyer in Brightburn
A twelve-year-old boy discovers he has mysterious powers and chooses NOT to become a hero to mankind in Brightburn, a superhero horror movie produced by James Gunn (Scooby-Doo 1 and 2, Super, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2) and directed by David Yarovesky in his directorial debut. The moment I first saw the trailer for this movie I got really excited, a superhero origin story reminiscent of Superman but with one major difference, what if he decided not to use his powers for good and to benefit mankind?
We’ve had superhero movies with creepy and supernatural elements before like Blade, the Shyamalan Eastrail 177 trilogy, and Venom, but never a full-on superhero horror movie. In fact, we were supposed to have a horror movie installment of Fox and Marvel’s X-Men franchise called The New Mutants that was pushed for release dates in 2018 and 2019 but it’s been in development hell with countless delays.
Luckily, James Gunn who had previously won the superhero movie audience over with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies brings a different type of superhero origin story to the screen…and I do mean different. Clearly, he can bring the exact same passion and energy to this horror take on the genre, right? Kind of.
Brightburn delivers exactly what it promises, a superhero horror movie that follows in the footsteps of traditional comic book movies while still being its own unique entity. But as much as I adore the concept of the film, it doesn’t really explore all the possibilities of its premise.
The film follows Tori (Elizabeth Banks-Spider-Man trilogy, The Hunger Games franchise, Power Rangers (2017)) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman-Big Fish, The Office, Logan Lucky), a farm couple in Brightburn, Kansas trying to have a child but failed to conceive. One night in 2006 a meteor falls from the sky near their farm containing a baby, so they decide to take him in as their son and names him Brandon (Newcomer, Jackson A. Dunn).
Flash-forward to the present day and Brandon, now a twelve-year-old boy discovers he has extraordinary powers such as super-strength, super-agility, flight, and heat-vision. Yeah, sounds like the origin of Superman, doesn’t it? Get this.
After discovering he is not of this world and being bullied at school, Brandon decides how he is going to use his superpowers. And he chooses…the path superheroes DON’T take and instead of using them to save the world and benefit mankind, Brandon becomes a superpowered killing machine bent on the destruction of the Earth.
Believing there is still some good in him, Tori must find a way to stop Brandon’s wrath and get her son back before he “Takes the World”.
The film also stars Matt Jones (Breaking Bad, Mom, Cooties) as Noah McNichol, Meredith Hagner (Men at Work, Search Party, Ingrid Goes West) as Merilee McNichol, Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Program, Super, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2) as EJ, Becky Wahlstrom (Star Trek: Enterprise, Mad Men, NCIS) as Erica, Stephen Blackehart (Rush Hour, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2, Annabelle Comes Home) as Travis, Gregory Ann Williams (Baywatch, Necessary Roughness, Terminator: Genisys) as Chief Deputy Deever, and Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2) as The Big T.
Overall, Brightburn is a devilishly fun take on the superhero movie genre and answers the question, what if a superhero chooses the other path, and what the outcome would be? You don’t see this explored that often in other superhero movies and I’ll go on record and say if Venom took a similar approach it would have been a much stronger movie…and unlike Venom go all out with a hard R rating.
While it doesn’t constantly flaunt its R-rated violence like Deadpool, Kick-Ass, or Logan, there is enough blood and slaughtering in Brightburn to warrant its rating. Brandon breaking a classmate’s arm in close-up, picking up and dropping somebody’s car onto the road and the steering wheel snapping the driver’s jaw, and a pretty damn unsettling scene involving a shard of glass and an eyeball, I actually got squeamish in the theater when it came up, I’m not kidding.
Even with all the violence and killing happening, the film remembers to keep its focus on the main characters. Despite all the terrible things Brandon is doing, you understand what his parents are going through and why they wouldn’t jump right into killing him, after all he’s still their son.
The acting is solid with the two standout performances being Elizabeth Banks as the mother and Jackson A. Dunn as Brandon. Banks portrays Tori as a mother who just wants to have a child and has a difficult time coming to grips with the fact her son is an evil entity from another world but she believes the son she loves is still in there and is supportive of him even after he’s done horrific things, it doesn’t mean she is also a villain but it’s the act of a caring mother and Banks portrays her character very well.
Dunn as Brandon on the other hand is legitimately terrifying and a rare instance where a child performance actually gave me the chills. One minute he’s just a normal kid playing video games, getting good grades in school, and learning about puberty, the next he’s breaking a woman’s neck in a diner, I kept thinking back to Haley Joel Osment’s performance from Steven Spielberg’s A.I. where he shifts back and forth from childlike innocence to kinda creepy, I’m hoping Dunn goes places in his career.
There are some narrative issues with Brightburn mainly regarding Brandon’s origin, as previously mentioned I love the film’s story, but I felt there were some key details left out of the finished script that could have been explored. We never see where Brandon came from nor do we really find out why he’s doing these evil things.
As much as I dislike sequel-baiting I actually would have been okay if they teased Brandon’s home world at the end of the movie. The lack of detail doesn’t ruin the movie, but it would have been nice to get a little more of a backstory but still keep things a mystery.
If you want something different in the superhero genre, Brightburn is the film for you, just don’t expect any world saving or fighting for justice. You’ll pretty much get the complete opposite and you know what? I’m okay with that.
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