Brightburn

A meteor falls from the night sky, and crashes down in America’s heartland. Within its fiery heart, a childless couple finds a baby. They decide to take it home, and to raise it with love and affection as if it were their own. That baby grows into a child, who is gifted with incredible powers far beyond that of normal men, and a heart that is tainted by a terrible darkness…

With the new Superman movie on the way, I thought I’d revisit this alternate universe tale of a Superman that broke bad.

I’ve long been a fan of multiverse/alternate dimensions stories, those tales of the slightly, or maybe radically, different paths that known heroes could’ve, or almost did, take. This means that I’m a big fan of What if…? stories. But that’s Marvel. Superman is a DC comics character, and even though this character isn’t officially Superman, and this film isn’t officially from Warner Bros/DC comics, it’s clearly an alternate version of the character, and in DC comics, these kinds of multiversal stories about the roads not taken are called Elseworld Tales.

And there have been many Elseworlds Tales about Superman…

What if Superman was raised by the evil Cosmic God, Darkseid? What if Superman had been adopted by the Waynes instead of the Kents, and then he witnessed their murder? What if baby Superman crash-landed in Soviet Russia? What if the Kents never even found baby Superman? What if Superman had been raised by the Nazis in WW2? What if Superman was a tool of the Reagan administration? What if the violent excesses of the next generation of superhumans forced an older Superman to come out of retirement? What if Superman was a vampire? What if Superman found out he was dying? On and on and on, for the multiverse is infinite.

And now here we are with Brightburn… “What if Superman was a school shooter?”

A spaceship crashes in the small rural community of Brightburn, Kansas.

Tori and Kyle Breyer are a young married couple who are unable to conceive. He’s a farmer, I believe, and she’s a really shitty painter. Interrupted mid-coitus by the fiery crash in the nearby woods, they pull up their sweatpants, and rush out to the crash site. There, they find a spaceship, and inside, a baby boy. He is the answer to their long years of childless prayers. They hide the spaceship beneath the barn and adopt the baby somehow, presumably not mentioning the part where they find him in the woods, and decide to name him Brandon.

We’ve seen this story before…

But then...

Around Brandon's 12th birthday, the spaceship suddenly kicks on late one night, muttering in a strange guttural language that Brandon can hear in his head, while also seemingly downloading information into him, causing him to have a seizure while he sleeps. After that, he starts to get weirder and meaner, discovering that he has super-strength, laser eyes, can seemingly scramble electrical grids, and has the ability to fly. He becomes obsessed with blood, guts, and boobs, and he also draws the same symbol of two Bs back to back, that kind of reminds me of the Stussy S, over and over again in his notebook.

So, not all that abnormal…

But then Brandon starts sticking his hand in lawnmowers, and killing chickens, and also being real creepy around his crush, Caitlyn Connor, even sneaking into her room late one night. Red flag stuff.

But when Caitlyn rebuffs him, he crushes her hand. A giant red flag. But when Caitlyn’s mother, Erika, kicks up a pretty understandable fuss, getting Brandon suspended and also barring Caitlyn from talking to him, he uses his superpowers to kill Erika after her shift closing down the local diner, leaving his Double B sign draw over and over in the diner’s foggy windows. But also, he took Erika’s body, so the police are stymied. From the look of the wrecked diner, there’s definitely been a crime, but what was it? Extreme vandalism? Some of it apparently done with a welding torch?

Each night, the ship’s guttural voice grows more and more insistent, causing Brandon to sleepwalk out to the barn and find it. Tori discovers him, floating and repeating the ship’s weird chant, which he finally translates into "Take the world." When Tori shakes him awake, Brandon falls, and for the first time ever, he gets cut against the ship’s jagged metal. It’s a distressing night that ends with Tori and Kyle finally revealing the truth of Brandon’s origin to him.

He does not take it well.

After failing his school psych evaluation, with the School Counselor, Meri, who is also his aunt, because he is a creepy weirdo, Brandon dons a costume and tries to sneak into his aunt and uncle's house, in order to threaten her to keep quiet, but he is caught by his uncle, Noah. Noah tries to drive Brandon home, threatening to tell Brandon’s parents about his weird outfit and the fact he was hiding in their closet, so Brandon kills him by flipping his truck, making it look like a crash. But again, Brandon leaves his Double B sigil by the wreckage.

The cops are beginning to put two and two together, just as Tori and Kyle finally face the fact that their child is an unstoppable psychotic alien killing machine, and realize that they‘re the ones who must stop Brandon, and that the only way to do that is to kill him, their adopted son.

But how can they, when he’s faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? What could possibly injure a boy who is seemingly made of steel?

Obviously, James Gunn is familiar with Superman, and even though he only produces this film, the Superman touchstones are really cleverly done. From the the kindly couple, and the ship under the barn, to the red baby blanket becoming part of his outfit, and that his kryptonite comes from his home, the film is firmly rooted in that familiar mythos, and uses it very cleverly. And while a lot of people said that Caitlyn Connor was the Lois Lane character of the film, she’s actually the Lana Lang character, Superman’s first girlfriend as a boy in Smallville, although here, their relationship goes a little differently. Maybe most importantly, where Superman gives hope, Brightburn teases that hope, but then it snatches it away.

That was really great.

What was also really great was the gore. This is a horror film, after all, so no big surprise, the filmmakers really lean into that. Glass in the eye! Ah! Jaw falling off! Ah! Laser vision through the head! Ah! High speed impact splatter! Ah!

Good stuff.

As was the main idea of the film, the whole “Superman breaks bad” thing, and how it was rooted in the idea of Brood Parasites. This is what it’s called when an animal will manipulate another animal, either of the same or another species, into raising its young as if it were its own. This is often accomplished by egg mimicry, which is where the brood parasite’s eggs will resemble the host's. And sometimes, the brood parasites offspring will end up killing the host nest-mates during competition for resources. It was a cool idea to have that be why Brandon’s species sent him.

I liked that.

I also really liked how, much like the ending of Deep Rising, the ending of Brightburn teases us with a tantalizing vision of a possible cinematic universe that features a world that is terrorized and ruled by angry Earthbound Gods, who are basically evil versions of the Justice League.

In the end credits, a man known as The Big T, a YouTube conspiracy theorist, amongst his ravings about aliens, time travelers, clones, and parallel dimensions, is tracking the existence of other super-powered beings. He talks about rumors of a half man, half sea creature who is capsizing fishing vessels in the South China Sea, which is obviously an evil Aquaman, and also some kind of witch woman who is apparently choking people with ropes, which is obviously an evil Wonder Woman, and also shows pictures, not just of the mysterious Brightburn, but a drawing of an alien in a cape that is probably an evil version of the Martian Manhunter, and also a picture of The Crimson Bolt from the movie Super. He’s not an evil version of any established character, it’s just an old James Gunn film, so y’know…

Anyway, there was supposedly even an scene that was cut that apparently showed a very pissed off Caitlyn Connor being fitted with a robotic arm, foreshadowing an eventual showdown between her and Brightburn. If you then throw in an obvious nod to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, maybe with a dash of creepy asshole like Bryan Johnson, RFK jr, or Trump, and you could easily cook up some greasy weirdo sociopathic killer douchebag version of Batman too. Then you add a scumbag Ezra Miller-like version of The Flash, zipping around and assaulting people, breaking into houses, and kidnapping young girls… and suddenly you have a reverse Justice League of bad guys, and the idea of a human resistance forming against them too, and that could have been a really fun series.

But sadly, like Deep Rising 2, it will never to be.

Still, I love the idea, and I wish they had done more, but I bet the question of the rights was a nightmare. Maybe they still will, who knows? Or maybe The Boys and Invincible stole their thunder.

Either way, I’m choosing to keep hope alive.

Still, while Brightburn is fun, has some good gore, and does what it should and doesn’t dilly-dally, other than a shallow presentation of the idea of evil Superboy, it’s fair to say that the film doesn’t do much else. In the end, it really does feel like more of a prologue than a main story. Also, the film is a huge fan of the old horror movie trick where we briefly seeing Branden when the lights flicker on, and then the lights flicker off, and when they flicker back on… he’s gone! Gasp! They’re a huge fan of this. Huge. They do this over and over. It is a well that they return to so often for only being a 90 minute movie.

But all things considered, it’s fine. It’s definitely not reinventing any wheels, but it’s still fun, it’s still got some good gore, and it has some nice shocker moments.

I know there were mixed reviews when it originally come out, and yes, it’s a definitely a nepo-film, as it was produced by James Gunn, and features a script by his other brother Brian and his cousin Mark, who are definitely less talented then James, and the whole thing is peppered with a lot of the usual James Gunn Players—Jennifer Holland, Steve Agee, and of course, Michael Rooker, but surprisingly, no Nathan Fillion—but still, as I said, it’s a good time for what it is. Honestly, I’m not sure what it was about this film that pissed off seemingly so many professional film critics. Maybe they’re rabid Zack Snyder fans, who will never give up their weirdo inexplicable grudge against James Gunn, or maybe that day they didn’t get the respect that they feel that they deserve from the movie theatre’s ticket-taker, or maybe their manager at Starbucks cut their hours, or maybe they hit their heads a bunch of times, I don’t know, but whatever it was, angrily claiming this little comic book horror film is terrible and a failure, because it didn’t have “more to say” about society seems like maybe the dumbest response that you could take away from this otherwise run-of-the-mill decent little splatter-fest comic book movie.

Maybe I’m being too mean.

I understand the struggle that art critics can face when they’re trying to find something relevant and insightful to say about every piece of art they see, when the reality is, so much of art simply doesn’t have anything interesting or specific to say, or at least, not in a firm tone of voice, or really, all that much beyond just a blurt of emotion. My point is, I think it's fine to be basic and shallow, if that’s what it was meant to be. That’s really the question. What did this piece of art intend to say, and did it accomplish that? But regardless, of all that, I find the idea of expecting films like this to be deep to be akin to expecting that your McDonalds order will be good. Like, what’s wrong with you, dummy? That shit is just not on the menu.

And that’s not to say that dumb little fun films like this are immune to being rightly called out as bad or stupid, they aren’t, but there’s a difference between a piece of art “not delivering” on what YOU want it to say, and a piece of art failing to impart what it wants to say. And to me, this film meant to do exactly what it did, and it wasn’t trying to accomplish more than that. To me, that’s understanding the assignment, and that’s a victory. Plus, it was fun.

So… thumb’s up. Brightburn is worth checking out, if this is the kind of thing you’re interested in.