We went and saw Brightburn, and it was as advertised, but even more gory than I expected. It's not a perfect film, there isn't a lot of character development past the perfunctory set up, and there are some plot threads are fully dropped without explanation, but overall it delivers a very good horror film riffing on the superhero genre.
Brightburn Plot Synopsis
The synopsis for Brightburn is very simple. It’s the superman origin story, but instead of him being good, he’s bad. The Breyers are a young couple in Sma... Brightburn, Kansas, that desperately want a baby, but can’t have one of their own. One night, a meteor crashes into the woods near their house. Inside is a little baby that they name Brandon and raise as their own.
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You can find Brightburn in theaters now.
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When Brandon reaches puberty he is awoken and summoned by voices in his head that lead him to the spacecraft he arrived in hidden in the Breyers’ barn. Brandon soon discovers he is completely impervious to harm, has super strength, and can, get this… fly. Brandon does what every good middle american farm boy would do with these new found super powers… He kills and maims anyone that gets in his way towards world domination, including those closest to him.
He's just a good ol' mid-western boy
Brightburn Critique
David is going to complain that this story has been done dozens of times with Superman in the comics. But if you like me aren’t a FUCKING NERD, then this is probably the first depiction of a truly evil superman origin story, at least on film. I think this film accomplished exactly what it set out to do, and was very enjoyable to me. While it is exactly what I expected in terms of plot, it exceeded my expectations with how dark, and especially how gory they went with it.
Brightburn is directed by a relative newcomer
David Yarovesky, but produced by
James Gunn, who is the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies as well as
Super, another anti-superhero movie. It is well cast with
Elizabeth Banks as Tori, the mother in denial, and
David Denman as Kyle, the father that immediately is suspicious. Brandon Breyers, the anti-superman, is played by
Jackson A. Dunn which does a great job of maintaining a steely enigmatic gaze. The script doesn’t delve too deeply into character development, but the characters are three dimensional, and react to the events of the film in natural ways.
SuperBuy or Rent James Gunn's first Anti-Superhero film.