Post by StevePulaski on May 26, 2019 17:10:12 GMT -5
Brightburn (2019)
Directed by: David Yarovesky
Directed by: David Yarovesky
Jackson A. Dunn in Brightburn.
Rating: ★★★
I'm sure some passionate comic book fans have wondered themselves what if those selfless individuals who nurtured characters like Superman and Hellboy failed, or what if those heroes' sinister instincts had taken over. Brightburn is a horror movie first, but it doubles as a light deconstruction of the superhero genre by showing a boy consumed by his evil roots despite having loving caregivers and all the good faith in the world.
As much as I'd love to view Brightburn as producer James Gunn's cinematic "diss song" to Marvel, so to speak, in response to his unfair firing back in July 2018, the fact of the matter is the film was conceived and announced in 2017. However, there's still an intriguing subversion of the superhero genre at hand here, and it's cloaked in a Bad Seed/Omen-esque film. One could call it a loose adaptation of "Ultraman" — a series of evil counterparts of Superman from alternate universes that appeared in a plethora of comic books — but that would be a bit disingenuous as well. Brightburn keenly reminds (or maybe informs) those that Gunn is a crafty satirist at heart, and his cheeky nihilism in humor and tone prevail in a satisfying chiller.
Set in the titular, sleepy (fictional) rural town of Kansas, we follow Kyle (David Denman) and Tori Breyer (Elizabeth Banks) as they try and raise their adopted son, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn). Brandon is a bright boy, but he's a loner with mysterious, supernatural quirks that permit him to chew on a metal fork, be impossible to cut or injure, and even stop sharp spinning lawnmower blades with his bare hand. Overtime, however, Brandon begins to be a danger to everyone around him. It starts with breaking a girl's hand at school, and continues forth to family members. When it comes to confronting their son's potential connection to mysterious events that happen all over town, Kyle is more vigilant and willing to interrogate his son, while Tori is almost blind to the mother-son connection she believes she has with Brandon and refuses to meaningfully address his actions. Much of Brandon's anger starts when he himself learns he's adopted, and such news brings out psychopathic rage and a sociopathic calmness to all the mayhem he proceeds to cause.
Writers Brian and Mark Gunn (the brother and cousin of James, respectively) disappointingly don't give us any inclination of where exactly Brandon came from or why his instincts compel him to cause undue injury and even death to those closest to him. It's a rather frustrating trope of the new century's onslaught of supernatural horror films where writers ostensibly see revealing backstory or justifying plot-points is an affront to some virtue of minimalism in their narratives. But what the writing team and director David Yarovesky (a collaborator of James Gunn's on Guardians of the Galaxy) manage to do in the meantime is fuel Brightburn with a lot of mystery and disquieting sequences that effectively cater to the horror ambiance, even if a rationale is mere wishful thinking.
A lion's weight of this wouldn't work if the nuclear family wasn't so interesting, and that's a credit to the three leads, particularly Banks. Tori is the emotional core of the story, and her trying to be a good parent who "gives a s***," as she puts it, despite someone who is faced with incalculable trauma is a touchingly human aspect — something I'm sure Jonathan and Martha Kent battled, albeit in a far less extreme manner, in a trying way themselves. Banks might not be as memorable as Toni Collette was in Hereditary last year, but the film wouldn't work without an emotional glue and that's what she provides this film.
Other intriguing elements within Brightburn touch on the toxic masculinity of superhero films, such as a moment when Brandon seems to pursue the aforementioned classmate in a very one-sided manner, in addition to the unchecked delusion some people like Kyle and Tori have that they can change something they don't entirely understand. That's the satire in a film Gunn likes to play with, as he did in both Slither and Super. The horror elements in Brightburn work because they're set up in such a manner that keep you interested, such as a scene in a fast-food restaurant I'll be honest and say I could barely watch due to my own squeamishness. When it comes to fully embracing their own created mythology, Brian and Mark Gunn unfortunately remain passive, but there is enough to chew on here that makes this is a fascinating, subtle critique of a ubiquitous genre that, in a few short years, has gone on to rule the multiplex and stomp everything in its path.
Starring: Jackson A. Dunn, David Denman, Elizabeth Banks, Meredith Hagner, and Matt Jones. Directed by: David Yarovesky.