Brightburn : L'Enfant du mal

This felt like a stripped down, summarized version of this story. No time is really invested into characters, so you don't really feel anything for them. The concept, while fascinating, is never fully explored. The actors all do their best though and are solid throughout. The film is also surprisingly gore-filled and there were some genuinely queasy moments. Everything just chugs along at a breakneck pace and it plays out as you'd expect. There was an opportunity to take a lot of chances with this story, but it decides to settle for being a mildly entertaining flick.

Tori and Kyle Breyer are a young couple living in Brightburn, a small town in Kansas. They long for a child but are unable to conceive. Then one night a craft crashes in the woods; in it Tori finds a baby boy. They see it as a gift, name him Brandon and raise him as their adopted son. He seems fairly normal apart from being exceptionally intelligent; then, as he reaches puberty he starts to change. He gradually becomes much stronger and develops superpowers; powers which he tries to hide from his parents. Occasionally they become obvious and anybody who crosses him or discovers his secret is in real danger... and if he isn't stopped the rest of the world might be too.

This film is a fun mix of a superhero and horror genres. It starts at a fairly gentle pace but once it becomes apparent that Brandon isn't like other children the horror elements kick in. There aren't a lot of deaths but those that there are, are surprisingly gory. The idea of having somebody with superpowers who has no intention of helping anybody, has zero concern for others and a willingness to kill makes a nice change from those films centred on all the do-gooding superheroes. The way Brandon discovered his powers and quickly started to abuse them was handled well enough although it might have been good to have a couple of off screen incidents before showing us his darker side so it wasn't obvious he was bad so soon... that is a minor quibble though. The special effects are pretty good; making the gory scenes disturbingly impressive. The actors do a fine job bringing their characters to life. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of horror and superheroes... it could almost be an origin story for a new character in TV series 'The Boys'.

Tagline was suggesting it would be an interesting take on the reversal of superman premise. But instead of exploring why and what makes someone a hero or an evildoer, that was completely overridden and it became just a horror movie with gore elements, with "evil superman" being just a wallpaper theme. It's not a bad horror, mind you, but for me it felt like a very interesting opportunity was lost here.

This film has so much promise, it just lacks a special kind of substance. I had rather high hopes for it but it just lacked a killer blow. Maybe they're saving something bigger for a sequel. The biggest moments they saved as a sizzle reel during the credits? I guess they ran out of budget or something. The horror elements were cool, the kid was actually pretty decent. Just wanted more.

There's not much else to say. The concept of this movie is very interesting. Unfortunately, the acting and the story leave much to be desired. I really wanted to like this movie more because the plot descriptions are so cool.

I wish they had put more effort into this movie. It could have been great.