Sony Pictures
Brightburn asks the question: What if a being from another planet, like Superman, was evil instead of good? Clark Kent’s classic tale of arriving on Earth, discovering his powers, and helping the world has brought many different interpretations to the big screen, small screen, and comics as well. Sony’s latest horror flick takes that story and reverses it and makes the young boy, similar to Clark Kent, into a villain, rather than a hero.
The James Gunn-produced horror film follows the same storyline as Superman’s with an opening of a couple who are trying to start a family. They witness what they believe to be a meteorite of some sort, but it ends up being a child who crash landed on Earth. The couple takes the child in as their own, but the secrets of the young boy’s past starts to take over and he discovers that he may be something different than what his parents told him.
I was anticipating Brightburn since I like new twists on classic superhero storylines. Even though Brightburn wasn’t connected to DC’s Superman, plenty of elements were borrowed from his story. Brandon’s upbringing was similar to Clark Kent’s. Brandon has always known that he was special, but he never knew to what extent. After aggressively trying to start a lawn mower and throwing it almost a mile away, he starts to experiment more with his abilities. Kent would try to use his powers for good, but Brandon uses his to break a girl’s hand and terrorize her mother for not letting him see the young girl. Brandon’s abilities progressed rather fast, which didn’t allow for much exploration of his powers. After he threw the lawn mower, he immediately put his hand in the blades of the mower, which is the obvious decision to make when you discover that you can throw a lawn mower across your field.
Brandon has a Kryptonite, much like Clark, but instead of weakening him, it makes him strong. He has a strong connection to an object that was locked away when he crashed on Earth. At night, he is drawn to it and will stop at nothing to get what is locked away. Most of the time he doesn’t even realize that he is trying to bust down the doors to get inside. The object is clearly controlling Brandon’s mind and when he gets inside, it tells him to take over the world, which prompts Brandon to go on a killing spree. He starts off small by targeting people he knows and who have upset him recently. This is where things turn violent. The film does a good job at building suspense and adding gory moments to accompany it. The film utilized Brandon’s abilities to create different action scenes that were both entertaining and thrilling.
Brightburn felt really quick. Brandon discovered his abilities fairly early and he turned evil right after his newfound powers. I would have liked to see Brandon have an inner battle between good and evil. I think the film would have been more impactful if Brandon wanted to become good, but the evil powers he was experiencing ended up taking over.
Jackson A. Dunn plays Brandon and he succeeds in creating a creepy performance. Everything about Brandon was disturbing from the way he acted to the way he talked to people. Dunn hasn’t been in much, but if this is his breakout role, it was a great performance. Elizabeth Banks and David Denman are good in their roles, but Banks gives the realistic performance as a mother who has a hard time dealing with the fact that her son is turning evil and killing people.
Brightburn was entertaining enough for a watch. The movie wasn’t afraid to embrace the fact that it was a Superman story done in a different direction. The film was shot well and I think the acting was decent. I wanted the film to handle Brandon in a different way, but I think it was still a fun story to tell.
Brightburn has a run time of 1 hour 30 minute and is rated R for horror violence/bloody images, and language.
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