Brightburn

Vampire Owl: Do you know that Superman is originally an evil entity from space?

Vampire Bat: Yes, I know that aliens are mostly bad, and this one also had to be evil.

Vampire Owl: Well, this movie seems to establish him as pure evil.

Vampire Bat: The movie of the usual alien invasion is to conquer or destroy Earth, and so we cannot be surprised about it.

Vampire Owl: I used to wonder how evil an alien can be. Can they be more evil than humans?

Vampire Bat: Why not? It is exactly why there are no vampire aliens. They are incapable of bringing the balance like the Earthlings.

Vampire Owl: I think that some aliens are immortal, like those myths.

Vampire Bat: They exhibit fake immortality, and will die soon enough.

Vampire Owl: Do you remember the portal which Doctor Frankenstein opened, so that we could cross over to the other planets and galaxies.

Vampire Bat: Yes, silly humans are still using those outdated spaceships. They will never learn, even after the lock-down. Let them walk through some tall grass to have sense.

[Gets a masala dosa and three glasses of mango juice].

What is the movie about? :: Tori Breyer (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman) do not have a child, and they are hoping for one, or at least adopt someone. It is then that the house shakes and they see a spaceship crashlanding in their yard. They find a child in the spaceship, and adopts him as their own son, without letting anyone else know. They hide the spaceship, locking it down in the barn so that nobody including the child finds it, letting this to be their own secret to keep for life. The couple just tells others that they had adopted a child, and everyone including the family and people of the small town of Brightburn accept him as their own. Everything goes smoothly for years, but it changes for a twelve year old Brandon Breyer (Jackson A Dunn) who are no longer the same, innocent child as he used to be – he is no longer the beloved son who loves his parents and obeys them, as he is called by the spaceship.

So, what happens with the events here? :: The spaceship which is locked inside a door within the barn keeps calling for him, and sends signals to him. Soon, he ends up finding his superhuman strength as he ends up throwing the lawnmower a long time away, while trying to start it, and finds his superhuman endurance as the motorized blades of the machine destroyed are by his hands which are not affected at all. His classmate Caitlyn Connor (Emmie Hunter) is the only who remains somewhat friendly to him, as everyone in the class and the whole school despised him due to his show of over-intelligence. But when he tries to enter her house at night, it causes a rift which leads to him breaking her hand, and also leading to Tori telling him the truth. This causes him to develop his next superpower, heat vision, and understands the message of the spaceship loud and clear while understanding the fact that he is special unlike the weaklings around him. Now, what will he do?

The defence of Brightburn:: There are some good scenes of horror in this movie, and the idea that Superman can be evil, always gets to scare us – especially when there is no Kryptonite to exploit his weakness. It uses some jump scares and there is that feeling of fear which is always there, as we are having an alien entity which cannot be stopped by anything that humans have. The idea of an evil child always works well enough, and we have inherent evil here, which is not of this world, but from another planet, from a far away galaxy. The child here becomes pure evil after the call of the spaceship, and there is not stopping this danger which is horrifyingly real. The superhero genre has its other dimensions here, and sets up for a sequel with what would have happened if Superman was really a threat in Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, or how he was after he woke up from death as a different person.

The claws of flaw :: There is too much of blood and gore associated with Brightburn, and one often thinks if it was what required the focus around here. The focus should have been on the main character, the alien child’s character development, but the same is not there, as we see him change to become the slave of the spaceship, listening to all which is murmured to him. Even though the development of his superpowers can be seen, there is not much of a development in him as a person. There is that predictability which runs through the movie all the time. We know what is to happen next with this so called alien child from outer space, and in showing the same, the flick uses brutality the most, and depends on it rather than anything else, as if it is a certain kind of weakness it possesses. Within its short run-time, it shows very less of everything else.

Performers of the soul :: Jackson A Dunn plays the alien child, and he seems to be pretty good at it – the evil look comes to him well, and it will be interesting to see how he can work in a possible sequel, as this movie doesn’t explore his character that much expect for the being that evil alien child. Elizabeth Banks stays at the core of this movie, and she plays the lady with an extra dose of motherly love, which prevents her from understanding what kind of an evil demon her son was becoming. Even after so many years, she is someone whom we can always trust as long as horror movies are concerned – well, she was also there in The Hunger Games and its sequels and most of you do know her. David Denman is also pretty good as the husband and father. Emmie Hunter who plays the girl at school is also to be noted, as she has that Eva Mendez look, and does a good job.

How it finishes :: The idea of the alien who became the savior of Earth ending up bringing another idea that he became the exact opposite, is something worth thinking about. It is an interesting concept with the ant-superman super-villain finding his superpowers and using them against humanity, which has no defence against him at all. There are no superheroes, and only one terrifying villain who has not even grown up yet. The ending of this movie has enough to set up a sequel, and as of now, the movie works pretty well with its idea to set things for whatever is to come next. There is enough in this movie to keep the audience interested, as violent horror gets a thumbs up. Just like Corona virus these days, you know that evil always finds a way, and this alien creature does find the evil within, and maybe it is an advanced form of inherent evil in the child.

Release date: 24th May 2019
Running time: 90 minutes
Directed by: David Yarovesky
Starring: Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A Dunn, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner, Emmie Hunter, Jennifer Holland, Christian Finlayson, Abraham Clinkscales, Becky Wahlstrom, Anne Humphrey, Steve Agee, Gregory Alan Williams, Stephen Blackehart