Post the Bollywood ban, Pakistani cinemas have been dominated by one superhero flick after the other. Apparently, that’s the only kind of Hollywood flicks that can lower the losses that the multiplexes have endured in the absence of Indian movies, and often in the presence of Pakistani offerings. Indeed, by the time you read this, local Eid releases would have taken over.
Over the past couple of months, the local offerings have ranged from Laal Kabootar to Junoon-e-Ishq. Meanwhile, the above mentioned superhero extravaganza has ranged from Avengers: Endgame to Hellboy.
Brightburn, the last of the Hollywood flicks to squeeze into a few screens in the country before Eid, falls closer to the latter.
Granted, the buffs would say that you can never have enough superheroes – or supervillains – but for many, the burnout is quite evident in Brightburn. And while superhero flicks do deserve certain considerations before anyone can take a shot at any commentary, when the crossover in play is actually involving genres, one of which is horror, one gradually runs out of concessions.
That just about anybody can have superpowers is a theme done to death – which has resulted in many hoping for a new superhero who isn’t ‘anybody’ for a change. In this superhero horror movie, which is a Gunn family venture – having been produced by James Gunn and written by Mark and Brian Gunn – those hopes aren’t particularly catered to.
Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman) have wanted a child for a long time. Years of disappointment are overcome as they get their son Brandon.
Fast forward, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is turning 12 and clearly struggling with the tweens. Kyle tries to help him deal with the prepubescent troubles. But, of course, what is about to hit Brandon is much more transformative than puberty.
Brandon gradually realizes he has super-strength, super-speed and heat vision as well. And like anyone else he starts to use them – only that it eventually evolves into killing. Thence, it grows into a spree.
This family-produced film clearly has a family theme beyond the core of the storyline. What happens if Superman is adopted by the wrong family? It’s the philosophical question of morality packaged in yet another superhero flick, where the answers are of a more Hobbesian nature.
Brightburn is one long, often uneventful, attempt to answer that basic question in a setting where rules of physics have been transformed, even if the inquisitiveness of philosophy remains the same. Keeping up with the merger of science fiction with political science, the film also takes it upon itself to battle the growing right-wing in the US.
But when gore meets horror meets slasher meets superhero, Brightburn ends up providing simplistic answers to the questions that it asks itself.
Make no mistake, all those elements work pretty well individually. The film definitely is gory and will give you the scares as well. The problem lies in how director David Yarovesky and the writers bring all the genres together. That is what results in a hotchpotch that is neither well-paced nor convincing in a single package.
The acting is absolutely in place, and similarly the direction and writing largely cannot be faulted. But the film ends up being a product whose whole is clearly less than the sum of its parts.
Brightburn hops on the proverbial edge of the knife, one which it also idiomatically uses in its slash-fest and also to mould the ideological position that it wants to flaunt. It voluntarily stands on the tip where it could attract the fans of the many genres that it encompasses, but that is simultaneously a position wherein the slightest displacement could be fatal.
Over the past couple of months, the local offerings have ranged from Laal Kabootar to Junoon-e-Ishq. Meanwhile, the above mentioned superhero extravaganza has ranged from Avengers: Endgame to Hellboy.
Brightburn, the last of the Hollywood flicks to squeeze into a few screens in the country before Eid, falls closer to the latter.
Granted, the buffs would say that you can never have enough superheroes – or supervillains – but for many, the burnout is quite evident in Brightburn. And while superhero flicks do deserve certain considerations before anyone can take a shot at any commentary, when the crossover in play is actually involving genres, one of which is horror, one gradually runs out of concessions.
That just about anybody can have superpowers is a theme done to death – which has resulted in many hoping for a new superhero who isn’t ‘anybody’ for a change. In this superhero horror movie, which is a Gunn family venture – having been produced by James Gunn and written by Mark and Brian Gunn – those hopes aren’t particularly catered to.
Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman) have wanted a child for a long time. Years of disappointment are overcome as they get their son Brandon.
But when gore meets horror meets slasher meets superhero, Brightburn ends up providing simplistic answers to the questions that it asks itself
Fast forward, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is turning 12 and clearly struggling with the tweens. Kyle tries to help him deal with the prepubescent troubles. But, of course, what is about to hit Brandon is much more transformative than puberty.
Brandon gradually realizes he has super-strength, super-speed and heat vision as well. And like anyone else he starts to use them – only that it eventually evolves into killing. Thence, it grows into a spree.
This family-produced film clearly has a family theme beyond the core of the storyline. What happens if Superman is adopted by the wrong family? It’s the philosophical question of morality packaged in yet another superhero flick, where the answers are of a more Hobbesian nature.
Brightburn is one long, often uneventful, attempt to answer that basic question in a setting where rules of physics have been transformed, even if the inquisitiveness of philosophy remains the same. Keeping up with the merger of science fiction with political science, the film also takes it upon itself to battle the growing right-wing in the US.
But when gore meets horror meets slasher meets superhero, Brightburn ends up providing simplistic answers to the questions that it asks itself.
Make no mistake, all those elements work pretty well individually. The film definitely is gory and will give you the scares as well. The problem lies in how director David Yarovesky and the writers bring all the genres together. That is what results in a hotchpotch that is neither well-paced nor convincing in a single package.
The acting is absolutely in place, and similarly the direction and writing largely cannot be faulted. But the film ends up being a product whose whole is clearly less than the sum of its parts.
Brightburn hops on the proverbial edge of the knife, one which it also idiomatically uses in its slash-fest and also to mould the ideological position that it wants to flaunt. It voluntarily stands on the tip where it could attract the fans of the many genres that it encompasses, but that is simultaneously a position wherein the slightest displacement could be fatal.