Brightburn (2019) aka What If Superboy Were A Cunt?

[Small Man Big Horse]

So one night a spaceship crash lands in a field in Kansas and a couple who can't have kids discover him and claim he's their own. Skip forward twelve years and he hits puberty and starts getting all creepy, stalking a young girl by floating about her room and then breaking her hand when she's freaked out by him. That's just for starters too, as he quickly turns evil and soon enough all rather murderous. I was in the mood for something dumb but fun, and I guess it kind of delivers, the horror aspect is pretty grim but effective, and though "Superman but evil" has been done countless times before "Superboy but evil" has only been done a few times (to my knowledge) and the kid is suitably creepy. My only real complaint is that it comes to an end too quickly (at 85 minutes discounting credits) and though we get to see some crazy stuff as the credits roll I'd have liked the film to cover this in much more detail. 7.1/10

[timebug]

I watched it, sort of enjoyed it,and found it a 'so what?' kind of film. Yes, it was a twist on 'Superboy as a a baddie' but...so what?
Probably watch it again sometime, but not in a rush to do so. An okay film, nothing special (To me)

[Small Man Big Horse]

I watched it, sort of enjoyed it,and found it a 'so what?' kind of film. Yes, it was a twist on 'Superboy as a a baddie' but...so what?
Probably watch it again sometime, but not in a rush to do so. An okay film, nothing special (To me)

That's pretty much how I felt about it, except I was in the mood for some mindless entertainment and it delivered on that front, so I think I liked it a bit more. But yeah, there's no real point to it except it working as a daft horror kind of thing.

[SavageHedgehog]

I agree; a very well made but ultimately pretty generic slasher which ultimately feels like a waste of its premise.

[SteveDave]

It's got the second best realisation of what someone being killed by having someone else run through them that I've seen this year.

[brat-sampson]

It's got the second best realisation of what someone being killed by having someone else run through them that I've seen this year.

I was going to mention, I think The Boys kinda ate this movie's lunch, what with Homelander et Al being supercunts but on a much grander and cleverer scale.

[DukeDeMondo]

I enjoyed it well enough. Sort of B-movie halfways splatter picture spin on We Need To Talk About Kevin. Fun for a while. Like some sort of parallel universe Superman 4 in which Superman transforms into Nuclear Man in his early adolescence.

Saying that, for all the Superman smoke*, it reminded me more of the likes of Critters and Arachnophobia and what have you not. Rural location, big stakes but low key, huge barn with a load of Don't Go Near hidden away deep down in its guts, 

Big nostalgia glow going on.

I did think the timing was a bit odd. Maybe that's why it took a minute to find its feet, far as the Box Office goes. These sorts of pedophobic narratives tend to emerge at times when The Youngsters are changing the world and the Old Guard don't know what the fuck to do about it. Seems a quaint sort of a notion now, what with The Youngsters contracted to a handful of self-perpetuating social media squabbles and the Old Guard propelling us shrieking and wailing towards guaranteed 100% Total Fucking Annihilation.

What's a wreck of blonde haired bright eyed thrumming in the garden in the face of that?

Anyway, it was alright, I thought. Alright. The jump scare stuff was a load of turnip, but still. Alright, so, overall.

*I wonder was "Brandon" a wee nod to our man Routh? I like to think it was. Criminally under-appreciated, our man Routh's big hearted turn as The Flying Superbman.

[Rev+]

Not fully understanding the concept going in, I'd expected this to move on from his childhood at some point, with there being a jump to him as an adult.  As it stands it's pretty much the Omen in modern colours.  Not bad, not particularly good, and begging for a sequel that will probably not happen.

[garbed_attic]

dammit got this confused with Bright and so mistakenly believed it was written by John Landis' asshole kid

and instead he produced Channel Zero, which I bloody loved. ERG

[Famous Mortimer]

Might as well bump this as add a post to the "non-new movies" thread - I just watched it this afternoon and thought it was great. Nice tight 90 minutes, bits and pieces of Gunn humour throughout, and delivered pretty well on its premise. I liked the evil Aquaman and evil Wonder Woman mentions at the end, too - and apparently they filmed an alternate ending where the girl whose hand he crushes bolts on a cyber-arm too. But that might just be bollocks.

I hope they do a sequel, although with James Gunn going straight from Suicide Squad to GOTG 3, I suspect his involvement will be very minimal (but his clout in Hollywood could get something done).

[dead-ced-dead]

So one night a spaceship crash lands in a field in Kansas and a couple who can't have kids discover him and claim he's their own. Skip forward twelve years and he hits puberty and starts getting all creepy, stalking a young girl by floating about her room and then breaking her hand when she's freaked out by him. That's just for starters too, as he quickly turns evil and soon enough all rather murderous. I was in the mood for something dumb but fun, and I guess it kind of delivers, the horror aspect is pretty grim but effective, and though "Superman but evil" has been done countless times before "Superboy but evil" has only been done a few times (to my knowledge) and the kid is suitably creepy. My only real complaint is that it comes to an end too quickly (at 85 minutes discounting credits) and though we get to see some crazy stuff as the credits roll I'd have liked the film to cover this in much more detail. 7.1/10

I kinda feel the same. It doesn't have the teeth of producer James Gunn's own Slither, which did the whole B-movie-but-sort-of-tongue-in-cheek thing a whole lot better and has the delightful Nathan Fillion in it.

[C_Larence]

Don't remember much about it except the end credits music being laughably on the nose. Thought it had the funny one from the recent IT movies, but I'm conflating it with Shazam. I do remember thinking there was one nice bit of gore with some guy in a car, but can't really picture it.

[frajer]

I was well up for this but was disappointed as it wasn't what I was expecting from the premise.

It was more of a slasher-stalker horror, except the Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers little boy is so absurdly superpowered that you know for certain his victims have no chance of fighting back or getting away[nb]Except for a few minutes at the end with the mum[/nb]. No tension at all, just (admittedly well-done) kill after kill. All felt a bit pointless.

[wooders1978]

Release the Snyder cut!!

[Famous Mortimer]

It was more of a slasher-stalker horror, except the Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers little boy is so absurdly superpowered that you know for certain his victims have no chance of fighting back or getting away[nb]Except for a few minutes at the end with the mum[/nb]. No tension at all, just (admittedly well-done) kill after kill. All felt a bit pointless.

Voorhees and Myers have survived 20 movies between them without a scratch, and have a pretty good average in terms of people not getting away from them (every survivor usually gets offed in the first half hour of the sequel).

[frajer]

Voorhees and Myers have survived 20 movies between them without a scratch, and have a pretty good average in terms of people not getting away from them (every survivor usually gets offed in the first half hour of the sequel).

Yeah fair point. I think the difference for me is that with those maniacs there's at least the illusion of the victims getting away, and a bit of cat and mouse occurs. Whereas Superboy is so powerful that once he decides you're a goner, there is literally nothing you can do to escape or fend him off. (Although there was a hint of this with the spaceship shard, it never came to anything.) It all just felt like a series of admittedly cool death scenes without any tension.

It's a shame as going in I did really want to like it, but it all felt very flat and a wasted opportunity.

[Famous Mortimer]

Also a fair point. I think part of the reason slasher films tend to bore me as much as they do is that I know any victory will, depending on the success of the movie and the desire for a sequel, be temporary. So perhaps that's why those things didn't bother me as much as they might have. I did think that Elizabeth Banks, being a fairly big name, might have survived, and certainly had more of a chance than whatever no-name Final Girl might have showed up in your average slasher.

I thought the rest of it was really interesting too. Like, what if Superman's parents hadn't been the perfect Martha and Jonathan Kent, but had just been an ordinary couple? What if he'd actually paid attention to the real world around him? I mean, Clark Kent grew up during the Great Depression, so Superman should have been turning banks and seats of government into piles of ash for what they did to the people of the Dust Bowl.

But that's all subtext, or just my leftie reading of the myth, or whatever. I'll stop banging on about it now.

[frajer]

But that's all subtext, or just my leftie reading of the myth, or whatever. I'll stop banging on about it now.

Not at all, it's interesting to read your thoughts. Yeah, there's definitely rich subtext there to be mined in the concept. I think that's partly why I was surprised the film seemed so rote, at least on the surface. Haven't seen it since it came out so I'll give it another try.

I did think that Elizabeth Banks, being a fairly big name, might have survived, and certainly had more of a chance than whatever no-name Final Girl might have showed up in your average slasher.

Same, I liked her character too. Definitely a more interesting dynamic to have a mother having the dawning realisation that her son's a We Need To Talk About Superboy psycho than than the usual stalker/final girl dynamic. And yeah, how she wound up was a shock.