Genre:
Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Produced by:
James Gunn, Simon Hatt, Brian Gunn, Mark Gunn, Dan Clifton, Nic Crawley
Directed by:
David Yarovesky
Written by:
Mark
Gunn, Brian Gunn
Production Company: Screen Gems
Starring: Elizabeth
Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner
Runtime: 90 minutes
SYNOPSIS:
An alien boy crash-lands onto planet
Earth. The boy is discovered by Kyle (David
Denman) and Tori (Elizabeth Banks)
Breyer, who decide to raise him like he’s their own. Soon, the alien boy grows
up to be Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn),
the everyday 12 year old on the cusp of adolescence. All seems well until
Brandon starts discovering that he has superpowers. At the same time, Brandon’s
discovery coincides with a dark temptation brewing inside him, which, if
unleashed, will put those around him in great danger.
REVIEW:
For many filmgoers, the name James Gunn and the superhero genre are
inextricably linked. Gunn is a
filmmaker who has made other movies besides superhero movies, but still, he is
widely remembered as the creative mind behind the popular superhero movie franchise
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014 &
2017). It doesn’t help though that, anytime the genre is under fire, he is always the quickest to defend it.
As big-budget as the Guardians movies
were, they’re in essence a labor of his love towards the genre. Love alone puts
James Gunn’s name on the map as the
foremost storyteller in modern superhero filmmaking. A decade ago, he was a
struggling, up-and-coming indie artist trying to get his low-budget superhero movie
Super (2010) over the line, and in
2019, he is busy working on two high-profile superhero movies in the Suicide Squad (2021) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 almost
simultaneously.
Fortunately though, Gunn’s fans will not have to wait until 2021 to see his latest
crack at the superhero genre. Two years after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Brightburn
marks not just the filmmaker’s return to the aforementioned genre, but also,
with its $7 million budget, a return to the small-scale filmmaking of his Super days. However, here, Gunn serves only as a producer, with
directing duty being given to relative unknown David Yarovesky
and screenwriting duty to his brothers Mark
and Brian Gunn. But for profitability sake, the movie is
still sold as a James Gunn production.
On a superhero movie standpoint, it is sold as an evil Superman movie. In a
time when it is difficult to sell original horror movie, especially one with
very few star power, Brightburn is probably
the easiest sell of the bunch. But then again, it’s only a trailer, especially a
horror movie trailer which often has the tendency to mislead. In the end, the
sole concern for Brightburn is
whether the whole evil Superman premise is the truth or just misdirection.
Thankfully, Brightburn is a case of marketing delivering as it promises. This
movie is exactly what everyone thinks it is: a revisionist angle on the
Superman mythology that fully commits to its wildly revisionist premise, no
more no less. Mark and Brian Gunn are so transparent about the
movie’s strong Superman influence that quite literally every scene here feels
like a shot-for-shot recreation of every Superman
movie from bygone era.
It walks the audience through the same
exact steps: an alien boy crash-lands onto planet Earth, a middle-aged couple
discovers the boy and decides to raise him as their own, the boy finds out that
he has superpowers, the parents tell the boy the truth about his superpowers
and its relation to his alien upbringings and ending with how that truth
influences the way the boy embraces his superpowers. Without spoiling anything,
that’s the basic plot of Brightburn,
which also happens to be the basic plot of Superman’s origin story.
Because it’s so similar to Superman in
many ways, there’s going to be a handful who might accuse Brightburn of being a rip-off. At the same time, that’s kind of the
Gunn brothers’ plan all along. Akin
to DC’s darker take on their famous superheroes under the Elseworlds banner, Brightburn operates similarly in the
sense that it is more of a genre deconstruction than it is the traditional
superhero/supervillain origin story. Like it or not, if a movie has any desire
to deconstruct a certain genre’s tropes, it has to play along with the clichés.
Here, the Gunn brothers purposely copies the Superman origin story and pastes
it onto Brandon Breyer a.k.a. Brightburn’s origin story to help ease the audience
into a world that looks and feels familiar, containing the things people can
identify with the Superman lore: the Smallville-like countryside idyll of
Brightburn, Kansas, the Kent-like familial warmth of the Breyers, the Clark
Kent-like child-like innocence of Brandon Breyer. Once they go deeper though, the
movie then pulls the rug from underneath them when they’re forced to witness a
version of Superman that’s killing people for sport. Its shock value lies from
the fact that it’s the same old story, only with a different, twisted meaning. It
takes the whole “what if Superman has a bad day” concept to its most extremes and
never holds back even one iota.
Still, as far as genre goes, Brightburn is a horror movie first and
superhero movie second. In a style similar to suspense-driven horror, the first
half of this movie draws strength from its remarkable restraint. Gunn’s script takes its time in setting
up how destructive Brandon Breyer’s Brightburn persona can be, which is quite surprising
for a movie that is only 90 minutes-long.
Brightburn’s early
proceedings evoke the kind of (no pun intended) slow-burn approach to the
horror genre that mostly concentrates on eerie atmosphere and gradually
escalating tension in suggesting that the series of events unraveling before
its audience’s eyes are unsettling. Far from the word “fun” or “awesome”, this superhero
tale paints the comic book Eureka moment of a superpower discovery in a more
frightening light.
In fact, it throws a unique spin on that
moment. In this movie, the villain doesn’t use his power to kill or hurt people
right away. Basically the first time Brandon ever uses his superpower, he is
sending a lawnmower twice his size flying out of frustration. As meaningless as
this set-piece might appear to be, it is probably the most fitting way the
movie could hint at the type of villain Brightburn can become. Brandon Breyer/Brightburn
is a supervillain whose emotions are rooted in unpredictability. In certain days,
he might seem like the regular kid who’s willing to take a hit and stay calm,
but in others, he’s a volcano waiting to erupt. When the latter happens, it’s
practically doomsday.
If the outcome of a lawnmower
frustrating Brandon compels him to send it flying, imagine what would happen if
it’s a human being that’s frustrating him. And Brightburn’s second half realizes that in the goriest of ways.
If the first half of Brightburn is building up towards an
evil Superman movie, then the second half is the evil Superman movie, as messed-up and brutal as it can be. It’s got everything a splatter horror
enthusiast can ever wish for: a shard of glass in an eyeball (probably the most
never-shredding moment to watch in the movie), ripped jaw, blown-out brains. Yarovesky goes all out with the evil
Superman movie premise, setting the stage for a consistent string of creepy horror
sequences that effectively blends the spectacle of its superhero action, the
shocks of its unapologetic gore and the chills of its suspenseful build-up. It’s hard to look at the power of flight,
superhuman strength and heat vision the same way again after this movie.
At the center of the carnage is evil
Superman himself Brightburn, an entertaining and ruthless villain that deftly combine
efficiency with a flair for theatrics. As much as Brightburn likes to kill, he
is still the kind who would take time to leave his calling card behind at the
scene of the crime. He is also the kind who would give its would-be victim a head
start. Where is the fun in watching a horror movie sequence if the bad guy
doesn’t give the victim at least the faintest hope of surviving? But
eventually, like every ruthless killer, Brightburn gets his job done. As far as superhero action, gore and suspense
go, the movie itself gets the job done.
Brightburn is more than
just a horror movie though. It is also in essence a domestic drama, centering on
a family whose lives are turned upside down by its child’s transition towards
adolescence. In that respect, it tugs at the heartstrings. It gives valid
emotional reasons to sympathize with what the parents and the child are going through,
as dark as it may be.
Through the eyes of Kyle and Tori
Breyer, the movie explores parenthood struggles in a way that’s so grounded in
realism, both with its relationships and conflicts. It gets deep into the psychology
of a parent trying to raise a boy who is biologically not their own as well as
species-wise different from them. And it’s a journey with its fair share of
good days and bad. On the one hand, they manage to provide Brandon with the normal,
everyday human life, which paves the way to the smart, good-natured boy he is
today. On the other, they are also tormented by this uneasy feeling of having
to cover up the truth to give Brandon the life he deserves, despite the fact
that it makes sense. Who wants their kid to come close to the truth if it has a
bad influence on him? But love cannot last long without the truth, thus leading
to the core parental dilemma: whether to love without speaking the truth or speak
the truth but risk not being loved. It couldn’t come at the most inconvenient
of time when Brandon is on the cusp of adolescence, when he’s at his most
rebellious. It doesn’t help that this adolescent has superpowers, the kind
capable of causing mass destruction if he’s mad.
Since this is a supervillain origin
story, Brandon is no Clark Kent. The Breyers’ honesty instead sets Brandon’s
killing spree as Brightburn into motion. As all good citizens are, they are
eager to stop him, but that also provides them with another dilemma: whether to
try to lead Brandon back towards the good or, if it’s not possible, kill him. It
serves as a chilling metaphor for a parent’s dilemma at a child’s growth: whether
to shackle a child with one’s own expectations or let him be who he wants to be.
It’s the many hard choices thrown in the Breyers’ way that lends nuance to
their characters.
By the same token, Brightburn also lends some nuance to its titular main antagonist. It
is a movie that provides as strong of a reason to be scared of the things Brightburn
can do as it is to understand emotionally what leads to its creation. In fact, as
Brightburn’s back story unravels, it gives an even stronger reason to feel bad
for the antagonist. After all, the person behind this cold-blooded supervillain
is Brandon Breyer, an ordinary preadolescent. Like any preadolescents, he is at
a stage when he is easily influenced by the things around him, sometimes things
that he has yet to have a full understanding of. In many cases, this kind of unknown
is a bad influence, like in the most persuasively dark, all-consuming way.
Brandon’s fear, inability to escape that fear and eventual acceptance of such unknown
helps lay the foundation to Brightburn’s origin story. Gunn’s script manages to beautifully tie Brandon’s struggle against
the unknown with puberty. Puberty is in a way similar to this dark entity Brandon
is dealing with, a thing that causes a kind of changes in one’s body that’s
just unexplainable.
Besides exploring one’s fear of the unknown,
the movie also uses Brandon’s character to ponder the tough choices between avoiding
and embracing one’s destiny. Which is the better of the two? Avoiding one’s
destiny grants Brandon a life where he is the son of a loving family while
embracing it grants him a life where he is an alien with supervillain intention.
In theory, avoiding one’s destiny is the easy, most obvious choice. But then
again, destiny is there for a reason. For all the happiness, Brandon still
feels unfulfilled, like he should have lived a different life that’s better in
a way than the one he’s living now. Ultimately, his whole arc revolves around
him deciding between those two choices, even if he has to go through a lot or
even incite tragedy to get there.
Not all the Superman elements in Brightburn work though. Like Clark’s
relationship with his parents, his romantic relationship with Lois Lane/Lana
Lang is similarly important in the mythology, something that this movie
couldn’t quite replicate. That is not to say that the screenwriters don’t have
anything compelling to say about Brandon’s relationship with his high school
crush Caitlyn (Emmie Hunter) a.k.a. this
movie’s version of Lois Lane/Lana Lang. The
Gunn brothers use this arc to emphasize Caitlyn’s importance in Brandon’s inevitable
turn towards the dark side, but the screenplay never finds a way to thread that
gently into the bigger narrative.
It doesn’t help though that their arc is
often let down by its rushed execution. In terms of character motives, it makes
sense. Brandon has a crush on Caitlyn but Caitlyn doesn’t feel the same way. Brandon
then takes the whole crush thing a bit too far, like in the most stalker,
perverted kind of fashion, which cost him his friendship with Caitlyn. Hurt by
the rejection, Brandon turns to villainy for comfort. In terms of the silver
screen translation though, how they present the emotional progression makes no
sense.
The movie never shows Brandon actually
stalking Caitlyn or acting in a way that can be considered perverted towards
her. If there is ever a moment that implies so, it’s through the pornographic magazines
that Brandon’s parents discover under his bed. As far as the audience is
concerned, only Brandon’s parents have this knowledge. But somehow, without the
audience ever experiencing Caitlyn learn about Brandon’s stalker, perverted
personality, she just knows. In fact, the narrative makes the most drastic jump
with her character, from being the sweetest girl in the world who encourages
Brandon by saying, “smart kids always win” in one scene, and a completely different
person who accuses him of disturbing her one night at her house in the next.
Because of the missing information, Caitlyn’s
character development seems strange. Her personality changes so abruptly
without any clarity, and like a psychic, she can magically know things that she
should not have known yet at that point. Because of the same reason, the movie
doesn’t allow the audience to understand her side of the story. Instead, it
keeps finding ways to make her more and more unlikeable. In a movie that
clearly roots for the bad guy, it is as if the writers are banking on the
audience to feel that way, so that when Brandon accidentally broke her arm,
people will be fine by it.
After the whole arm-breaking incident,
Caitlyn eventually makes one more appearance, setting up the possibility of her
importance in the movie’s latter stages. But no, after that scene, she just vanishes
from the narrative altogether, never referenced again even once by Brandon in
the movie. And that sums up Caitlyn’s arc, a pointless presence whose purpose
is to just be a body to scare or a bridge towards another body to scare.
In a movie that hinges quite a lot on
family chemistry, Brightburn’s emotional
beats are impactful thanks to the three main stars playing the Breyers. David Denman plays Brandon’s father
Kyle with such easy, workmanlike charm, inconspicuously asserting himself as a strong
figure of authority and a man with the few odd wisdom left whenever necessary.
As far as the parents goes, Elizabeth
Banks easily overshadows Denman’s
performance as Brandon’s loving mother Tori. Banks’ effortlessness and sincerity beautifully captures Tori’s
unconditional love towards Brandon and great pain at her son’s suffering.
But there’s no doubt that the movie’s true
star is none other than Jackson A. Dunn as Brandon Breyer/Brightburn. Dunn is still a novice in the film
industry, with only one role before Brightburn
(albeit a very big one as young Scott Lang in Avengers Endgame (2019)), but already he displays remarkable range.
His mature understanding of the character’s duality sets the wheels rolling on
a rollercoaster journey into his many personas, comfortably lurching from his sweet
childlike innocence of the everyday kid Brandon Breyer to the harrowing pain of
a kid tortured by an all-consuming darkness to the coldblooded ruthlessness of
the caped, masked supervillain Brightburn.
CONCLUSION:
Brightburn takes all the
familiar beats of the Superman mythology and turns it on its head in this
satisfyingly dark, twisted and relentlessly brutal mash-up of horror and
supervillain origin story filled with genuine scares, suspense and a few heart
to spare.
Score: 9/10
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