Blue Beetle has never been well-marketed – Ted Cord and later Jaime Reyes have never become household names like Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne but that hasn’t stopped DC from continuing to expand storylines for Blue Beetle and miraculously, a movie was greenlighted. But don’t roll your eyes just yet. Forget what you’ve heard about Blue Beetle entirely because this is one excellent popcorn flick!
Blue Beetle covers Jamie Reyes, a Latino-American living in Palmera City, one of the fictional DC cities that exist alongside all the real ones. He ends up running into the daughter of Ted Kord, the original DC Blue Beetle and becomes embroiled in some family politics and host to a techno-symbiote which turns him into the Blue Beetle. Yeah, there are some spoilers in there, but if you’re buying the movie on 4K, chances are you’ve already seen it and you’ know exactly what you’re getting into. Tossing in a modified version of Jack Kirby’s OMAC was a neat touch too (even if OMAC is nothing like the original comics) and made for some pretty fantastic combat scenes too.
For some reason, Blue Beetle slipped out of the theaters without much fanfare though. Sure, it’s got a heavily Latino focus which is both awesome and interesting, but the reactions seemed to give the movie a hard time for focusing on family connections and typical superhero movie fights and issues, but to be honest, it’s hard to see what the difference is between Blue Beetle and any given major Marvel movie. In comparison to Spider-Man: No Way Home for example, Blue Beetle’s characters are more realistic and the dialogue and scripting is much better overall (settle down, fanboys).
That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of tropes here. There are plenty, and some of the solutions that characters miraculously come up with out of the blue are ludicrous, but it doesn’t really matter. Half the point here is the suspension of disbelief. We don’t watch superhero movies to analyze the physics or debate the finer points of various imaginary technologies. We watch them for fun. As superhero movies go, this is a return to form for DC after some truly abysmal movies (Justice League, Wonder Woman 1984, Shazam! Fury of the Gods) and Blue Beetle easily stands with some of the DCU’s better movies. Jaime Reyes is going to be featured in James Gunn’s reboot of the DCU as well, so expect these characters to have places in future movies!
In addition to being a solid movie, Blue Beetle is absolutely gorgeous in 4K UHD. Unfortunately, this release is not accompanied by a Blu-Ray disc and is solely the 4K version but that seems to be becoming more common. Blue Beetle was shot on digital in HD and with the vibrant color patterns and science fiction theme, the visuals really pop throughout the movie. Fonts and colors are crisp and clear and there is no artifacting to be seen anywhere. If you’ve previously seen a Blu-Ray or theatrical release of the movie, the difference in 4K viewing almost makes this seem like a different movie. There’s a scene near the beginning of the movie when a man on an escalator is talking to Jaime and it seemed like an entirely fluffy joke about student debt. In 4K however, it’s clear that the man is using some sort of Tinder analogue on his phone and it adds that extra little bit of background information that improves the movie immeasurably. Details matter and the level of detail in Blue Beetle is genuinely excellent.
Looking at the technical specs of the 4K Blu-Ray, it’s clear why Blue Beetle looks so good. The transfer is in native 4K using the HEVC H.265 codec which makes everything look fantastic. It’s genuinely surprising that every single release including 1080p ones aren’t using H.265 now, between the excellent compression and the clear, high quality video. The original aspect ratio is preserved, meaning that you’ll see some bars on a standard 4K TV, but honestly after a few minutes, you won’t even notice them anymore. It might be a cheese, formulaic super-hero movie but Blue Beetle is fun and full of heart and that counts for a lot. It also doesn’t hurt that the HDR uses Dolby Vision and HDR10 to really increase detail levels. Naturally, that depends on your TV but either way, it leads to those impressive visuals we already mentioned. All in all, this is an outstanding movie visually and it’s hard to imagine it looking any better than it does.
Naturally sound quality is equal to the video here with Dolby Atmos, Dolby True HD 7.1, and Dolby Digital 5.1 all featuring excellent sound mixing with clearly distinguishable dialogue and excellent music mixing throughout the movie. Even if you don’t have a fancy sound setup, the quieter chatter and effects are easy to separate and heavier combat sequences don’t overpower the soundscape. There’s a fair amount of Spanish being spoken in the movie as well and the hardcoded subtitles match up perfectly with the dialogue being spoken. English, French, and Spanish audio tracks are also available as are subtitles in each language.
There are several extras featured on the disc as well, adding over an hour of additional material to the main movie. There are featurettes about Jaime’s grandma, development, art, music, and cinematography information, and even a couple of scene breakdowns. If you’re a hardcore features fan, there might not be enough here for you but for the casual viewer that just enjoyed the movie, there’s more than enough supplementary material and the overall presentation of it all is quite good. In addition to the supplementary material, the 4K release of Blue Beetle also comes with a digital copy of the movie which can be redeemed through Movies Anywhere. Sadly for those of you buying Region 1 movies outside the US, these codes do not work elsewhere, so bear that in mind if digital copies are important to you.
If you’re looking for a fun, family friendly (with a bit of mild swearing and some light sexual innuendo) movie that will let you kick back, enjoy some popcorn and have some fun, Blue Beetle is an excellent movie and the 4K UHD version is significantly more impressive technically than you might expect. If you’re looking for a deep, philosophical superhero character study, lighten up or look elsewhere because you’re not getting that here. Regardless of your preferences, Blue Beetle is not only fun but also incredibly well-made and worth picking up. If you’ve got a superhero fan in the family, this would be an excellent holiday gift for them so make sure to put Blue Beetle on your list!
This review is based on a physical copy of Blue Beetle 4K UHD provided by the publisher. It was viewed on a 65” Sony 4K TV. Blue Beetle is also available physically in 1080p and is available digitally on a variety of marketplaces. All images are captured from the 1080p version of Blue Beetle, not the 4K release.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.