BrightBurn Bright Ideas, Burned by Under Development Grade: C-

Source: IMDB

Have you ever wondered, if Superman came down to our planet, as his powers were meant for evil?! BrightBurn introduces that idea in 2019, in this horror super villain origin story. The Cinematography was fine, nothing spectacular shown here, felt like a generic horror film from the looks of it. The Score was fine as well. The cast was fine for the most part. Jackson A. Dunn playing our super villain character Brandon Breyer t’was good, could’ve been better as far as creepiness and disturbing, but I felt he did a good enough job with this performance. The character Brandon has a couple flaws, as for the character itself and as well as how this character was written, which will get into later. Elizabeth Banks gave the best performance of this entire film, as Brandon’s mother, t’was a solid performance. Truly captures the denial of a parent perfectly, towards how as parents we never see our child do no wrong, no matter how it’s clear as day, we see only pure innocence for our child. David Denman was fine as Brandon’s dad, struggled in line delivery at times. BrightBurn has been a roller coaster for me, as far as anticipation. At first I thought this doesn’t look good, as time went on the concept grew on me so I was interested to see what could come up with this sort of concept. Over the last two weeks... I botched down my anticipation for two reasons. My friend Mihran, whom happens to enjoy super hero flicks, did not care for this at all. Plus I went ahead and took a look at the director of BrightBurn first film The Hive... I couldn’t watch passed the thirty minute mark, it was TERRIBLE. BrightBurn was just alright, a couple positives to give but I have several complaints. The best thing going for this film is the slasher portion of this film, I thought all the death scenes were good. I enjoyed them all, quite disturbing in one particular death scene which I give props for going all out. If you’re going to make a super villain film, makes the deaths highly gruesome and gory, well done. Like I said the concept itself is very cool, I felt they did a couple things right. So I didn’t care for the horror portion of this film, I felt it made the film extremely lame at times. The typical jump scare crap we see in each and everyone of these horror movies, like why even put this in your film?! This film felt very rushed, not enough thought was put into this clever concept, our main character is extremely under developed. So our main character in the end says “I want to do good mother”... But really?! Do you really want to do good? There’s no point in the entire film, where you ever expect there could be some good in Brandon, because he doesn’t do a SINGLE THING GOOD. A similarity I can bring up would be one of my favorite horror films: Orphan. You can see early on, we assume Ester is a good little girl. She paints lovely pictures, sings a nice song about love, and plays nicely with the adopted parents daughter. You can actually sense that “Hey, Ester seems like a nice normal little girl, look how innocent she is, as she plays nice.” This is where you need cliche moments, to give better sense of this character, going through a struggle between good and bad. Have Brandon finding out his powers and doing something good or cool with them?! Have a cliche moment, where Brandon plays volleyball with friends, he jumps up higher than the average human being, spikes the ball extremely hard where the ball is completely flat. It’s a nice fun little cliche, but his powers are used like any normal good kid would do if they discovered that they have powers. You can have Brandon being confused with being good or evil, by him using his powers for good to help someone. Like have a character verbally abusive to a woman, when Brandon helps the woman... She becomes disappointed in Brandon, because the one being verbally abusive didn’t deserve Brandon’s ass whooping, so Brandon doesn’t understand if he’s good or just a monster. You gotta give some struggle for this character, you can’t just write in that he wants to do good, but it’s been clear as day that’s he wants to be evil. If it’s clear he wants to be evil, then clarify his idea of him “Doing good” by claiming society is evil as it is, so he wants to destroy the world. That way you can still keep the idea of him wanting to be evil, as he has a logical reason towards being diabolical for his idea of doing good, that makes sense however you don’t do both as it looks pretty dumb. This film early on has a scene explaining how Brandon has never been cut, had a bruise, or a broken bone ever in his life. Why don’t you show scenes, instead of just telling us?! How about showing a scene, where Brandon goes to the doctor, to get shots because kids are required to get vaccinated. When Brandon gets the shots... The needle either doesn’t go through or the needle breaks, as Brandon and one of his parents rush out of the hospital. That would be a cool scene, but nope let’s just have a scene of exposition, because that’s fun. See as a director, when you’re reading the script, you gotta take charge as a director, have a vision, and make these decisions that’ll give the film it’s full potential that it deserves. Instead he rather step back and watch a cool concept just fall flat from it’s potential of being great. I liked Brandon’s goofy costume, however would like to see a scene of him making it. I didn’t care for the story, felt it was a cool concept, but a lousy generic horror film script. Characters do the stupidest things, where it doesn’t quite make any logical sense. Just feels like potential being flushed down the drain, bright ideas but nothing about to be praise upon it’s existence. Overall, BrightBurn is a mediocre disappointment. I’d wait till rental to see this film, worth feeding your curiosity but not worth emptying your pockets for. -Mitch Smietana