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Brightburn will be released digitally on August 6 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on August 20 via Sony Pictures. The superhero horror movie is produced by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy).

David Yarovesky (The Hive) directs from a script written by Brian and Mark Gunn (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island). Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner, and Gregory Alan Williams star.

Special features are listed below.

#brightburn #james gunn #elizabeth banks #david denman #jackson a. dunn #matt jones #meredith hagner #dvd #gift #david yarovesky #michael rooker #steve agee #emmie hunter #gregory alan williams #bright burn

A Viewer’s Review of...

One of the biggest complaints that people have against Superman is that he's overpowered. I'm no comicbook expert but based on what I've heard from comicbook analysts, the fact that he is overpowered can be an issue with bad writers; however, the best stories turn that "flaw" into a feature, by focusing on the conflict others face by having to confront the a perfect, powerful hero. So, with such an all-powerful good guy, it practically begs the question... What if Superman was evil? For legal reasons, this Sony movie can't just outright admit that their main character is based on Superman™ (since the movie rights still belong to Warner Brothers despite how much they've been abusing it), so instead of “Clark Kent”, Brandon Breyer is a child with an alliterative name who is completely invulnerable to harm, possesses astonishing strength, develops the ability to fly as fast as a speeding bullet and can fire lasers from his eyes. This guy is Superman in all but name and, of course, personality, since he turns out to not exactly be a "good guy". And, rather than being from Smallville, this kid's alien pod crash-landed in Brightburn, Kansas - hence the title. See, this isn't just an evil superman, but an evil Superman origin story...

And to be honest, and that's the first mistake. Don't get me wrong, piecemeal revelations regarding this kid's powers are cool, but this movie doesn't really dwell on that. Instead, we're given one or two creepy scenes where the kid learns about his powers (and his origins not long after). But, he basically learns his abilities through the course of a single day, and can use them with great skill and accuracy from then on out. The only reason I can think of as to why they fast-forward through these is because the writer didn’t know how to make an immortal, unstoppable child scary unless he had all of superman’s powers, so they wrote him to have his full loadout from the offset.

Sure, the way those scenes are shot are very effective, and the music swells appropriately - but you probably already knew that since they were all in the trailer. In fact, everything original in this movie shows up in the trailer - the first few "kills", the creepy outfit, his interaction with fellow kids and even some of the scenes from the third act (although, in the movie the gore isn't censored). To be frank, this whole movie feels like it was shot for the trailer. Each scene feels like it was designed to be cut up and edited into a cool scene for the trailer, to advertise the "evil superman" gimmick. So, despite the fact that this has good cinematography and editing, it feels like it was wasted.

Part of the reason why it feels that way is because there aren't really any characters in this movie, they don’t act like normal people, but rather they need to act in a contrived way to take us from one horror set-piece to another. So, there's not so much character growth and development, as instead there are a series of character actions, to keep the plot going. The kid dresses up in a creepy cape and hood for no explained reason - and at one point he actually flies away in the middle of a scene just so that he can make a costume change and return wearing the creepy hood. The mother keeps secrets, for no explained reason, only to reveal them at the most dramatic moment. The kid goes from an all-powerful tyrannical psycho back to pretending to be a regular boy as easily as the flick of a lightswitch, whenever the plot requires it. The local police somehow intuits that the most likely killer in the town is an eleven year old child, simply because of a tag at the crime scene which looks like his initials, despite the fact that they have no reason to believe that this kid is capable of the such superhuman acts. The kid himself also decides to draw detailed sketches of all of his crimes, for no explicable reason other than so that someone can find it later in the movie. And worst of all, there are some really effective scenes in this movie which I thought were interesting, but each time those subplots were quickly dropped.

One subplot was based around Caitlyn, a local schoolgirl played wonderfully by Emmie Hunter that the superpowered kid seems to find cute, but when he discovers his powers he starts to stalk, abuse and harass her. In each scene she acts the hell out of it, making you feel terrified for her, since she looks so scared and vulnerable, but there’s a total of two, maybe two-and-a-half scenes where this happens, only to then move on to more horror set-pieces. There are also a few scenes where Mr Breyer, the father played with convincing fear and anger by David Denman starts to suspect that his “son” is even more alien than he first thought, but this whole subplot seems to occupy a little over five minutes of screentime. I also want to praise the work of Duncan A. Dunn, who portrays Brandon Breyer the main “evil superhero” character, because although he sometimes seems kinda dull, I know that this isn't bad kid acting. In the earliest scenes we get to see him emote, and when he resorts to intimidation in one scene, he is scary even without the mask on, so I know for a fact that this this kid can act very well, which means it has to be the direction making him to act so unnaturally.

See, the absolute worst part of this movie is that this kid isn't a real character. Sure, he is an “evil superman”, but the thing is, the kid never chooses to be evil, there’s not actually a character-driven reason behind it. What makes him evil is that a creepy voice from his birth-pod tells him to be evil. In fact, by the way that he’s forced to repeat the alien words, and even slowly understands what they mean, it seems to be implying that it’s compelling him to be evil. Sure, there is a scene or two where he acts uncaring, and he outright says that he's superior to other people, but there's no reason to believe that he chose to believe that, or was raised to have these evil feelings. Instead, he might as well have got an "evil" software update when he synced with his birth-pod...

You might be thinking that I'm being a spoilsport - that it's not about the story but the horror and death scenes. Well maybe, but they're not done very well either. Okay, that's not fair, they are done as well as any other horror these days... there is pretty convincing blood and gore, and they take advantage of that R-rating. The kid’s victims experience very explicit trauma and it’s not discreet - it’s often framed centre-screen for us to see in explicit detail. Although one or two scenes made me question the director’s understanding of biology, it wasn’t blatant enough to detract from the effect they were going for, so if you’re squeamish, this is not the film for you. This is your standard gory R-rated Horror. And that’s my problem here - they don’t really seem to do anything interesting with the evil superman concept. Sure, he wears a spooky mask, but other than that, there’s nothing that gives this monster any personality. For instance, Brandon (for reasons that aren't really explained) seems to makes electronics malfunction and lights flicker when he's angry; but the only reason for this is so that they can play into the spooky flickering lights trope. He also has the ability to move at superhuman speed which he uses effectively - in one scene (which, again, we saw in the trailer); but the main reason for this power is either so that they can justify the offscreen teleportation trope, or simply to make him pop up in a few dozen jump-scares, like every other teleporting ghost or demon in horror films since the early 2000s. The kid also has laser vision, which he does use for just one interesting scene; but, the main reason he has it seems to be so that they can make his eyes glow red against his dark silhouette when he's chasing people in the scary scenes.

The part that annoys me the most is that he keeps playing hide-and-seek with his victims (often using superspeed) during the scary scenes, and will even slip away before he's caught, which doesn't make any sense. To me the scariest part about an evil superman would be that he's invincible - he’s literally an unstoppable monster - but even if you don't agree, you can't deny that this kid has no reason to run away, since literally nothing can hurt him. Rather than playing peekaboo, he could simply stalk them like Terminator, or maybe even like the succubus from It Follows, and just tear through anything that tries to stop them. This might make sense if he was doing these things in secret, but the story seems to go out of its way to debunk that theory, since it is both heavily implied and explicitly stated that he sees human beings as inferior and worthless, so why does he keep lying to appease “inferior” human beings? It’s not even like there appears to be some conflict within him about whether he should be evil or not because as I mentioned there’s no character growth, he’s just suddenly evil because alien technology told him to be.

Now, if they did some of this stuff to pay homage to the horror tropes that inspired this, but also did something new and original as well to really take advantage of the fact that they have an evil superman on their hands, then I would be rejoicing instead of ranting, but they don't do that. You could easily rewrite this so that the kid is possessed by a demon, or being haunted by a killer ghost, and the movie could be identical. I think you'd only have to rewrite the end, and that's just because they saved one of their iconic "evil superman" moments for the end, but it’s not enough to give this film a personality of its own - this kid may be superman in all but name, but this film is just a generic, modern horror movie in all but marketing.

So, at the end of the day (and the film) the best part of this movie appears to have been the pitch: What if Superman was evil? Yeah, it's a great question, but so far we haven't gotten a very good answer. The best that this movie can come up with is "well, if he was evil, then he'd probably kill a bunch of people" ... yeah that's true, but whilst they're not wrong, I don't think that's the same thing as being right.

Death, Bloodlust and the Hollywood Way... 6.0 ⁄₁₀