Director: David Yarovesky
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 90 minutes
Brightburn (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
There are a lot of horror stories out there, and it often feels like new movies have already been ‘done’ before. It’s quite hard to come up with something new, but the creators of Brightburn tried something different, and while the concept sounded great on paper, the execution left a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, we were ready for Brightburn, an origin story of a superhero, albeit one with a dark side.
The movie begins with a seemingly happy couple that is trying to conceive a child. It’s clear that there are fertility problems, but still, the couple is happy to keep on ‘trying’. The scene gets interrupted with an explosion in the backyard, which is clearly a crashed entity from outer space. We then fast-forward for over a decade and see Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman) coping with a young son, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn), who is just hitting puberty. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the son is actually an alien that arrived at just the right time. Especially when you hear that Brandon is ‘adopted’. While this family has had a happy decade behind them, Brandon’s behavior is starting to change, and he is being allured by the capsule that brought him to our planet. It doesn’t take too long before violence and death are being conjured by the young boy, who is learning that he has superpowers. He finds himself quite superior and with a mantra of ‘taking over the world’, the shit has finally hit the fan.
Brightburn’s flow is somewhat slow and it feels like the film can’t properly find its footing. The topic of the movie is actually very original and has a lot of possibilities, but the slow flow and lack of proper character development make this movie a bland mantelpiece. The movie lacks something that we can’t properly place our finger on. On the one side, you have a very good concept of making a superhero that does all his deeds for the sake of evil, but on the other hand, you have a poor execution that makes the movie boring to watch. You have a decent amount of gore scenes that propel the movie forward, but once again, many boring and useless scenes that hamper the flow and the story of the film.
The main cast members of the movie are Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, and Jackson A. Dunn, who do a fairly good job of bringing this movie to life. Elizabeth Banks will be the most recognizable of the cast, as she has played in many movies over the years and she adapts well to the role of a blessed mother. David Denman feels a bit bland and boring when it comes to character design and evolution. Jackson A. Dunn does a formidable job at playing the devil’s child of this movie, and seemingly handles the adult topic of the film quite well.
There isn’t that much extra content to explore on the Blu-ray edition of Brightburn. You’ll get some making-of-sequences of where they talk about turning a superhero movie into a horror film. These snippets are interesting but don’t add that much to the package. Other than these features there is an audio commentary function and previews of other Sony releases. It would have been nice to see how some of the brutal scenes were created and executed.
Conclusion
Brightburn is a fun take on the origin story of an (anti-)hero. The gore is certainly on point and when there is action, the movie tends to be interesting. Sadly, the outcome of the movie gets spoiled by a very predictable ending. Add the fact that the action scenes are only about 5% of the movie, and you’ll be in for a rather bland ride. This movie is a fun try out for the genre, and it does some things well, but sadly most of it falls flat. Worth a watch when it reaches the sales bin.
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