Brightburn: A Film Review

A Very Intriguing Trailer to A Befuddling Film

Director: David Yarovesky

Writers: Brian Gunn, Mark Gunn

Cast:

Elizabeth Banks … Tori Breyer

Jackson A. Dunn … Brandon Breyer

David Denman … Kyle Breyer

Gregory Alan Williams… Chief Deputy Deever

What if, in some alternate universe, existed an Earth where an alien humanoid baby crash lands on this Earth in a rural part of the country and is found by a childless couple and they raise this baby as their own. Sounds familiar? Sure does except this isn’t Kansas and this isn’t Superman. This movie is called Brightburn, and I would describe it as the anti-superhero movie. The Breyers, Toni, and Kyle, played by Elizabeth Banks and David Denman respectively, are the childless couple who finds this infant alien child after it crashed lands outside of their farmland. In a page torn right out of the Martha and Jonathan Kent manual, they don’t report the finding to the authority and accept this as a divine calling for them to keep the child. Can anyone say privilege and arrogance and also dumber than a donkey playing bingo.

They take this alien baby home and they raise him as their own. We fast forward a few years. The kid, Brandon, is around 12 years old and is in school. He’s, by outward appearances, seems normal and exhibits normal traits for a kid his age. He’s smarter than some of his peers and he has a girl crush on one of his classmates. Again, nothing out of the ordinary but then he gets picked own by the hackneyed and derivative bullies that is a typical trope because writers box themselves in a corner and they don’t know what to write when it comes to prepubescent kids.

As the storytelling continues, Brandon is sleeping one night and without explanation, a spacecraft flies over him stealthily and as it does, Brandon begins to shake violently and we have to assume that he’s going through some metamorphic change. The spacecraft flies off in an unceremonious way. We get no explanation as to why the ship was there in the first place. No alien presented itself as to why they were there. No alien came to collect the kid. We are just left to our own reasons as we are abandoned by the writers for us to come up with our own explanation.

The next morning, there is a change with Brandon. He’s a degree or more aggressive. It seems as if, and again, since the writers abandon any explanation, let’s just say that Brandon is going through alien puberty. Brandon creeps over to his girl crush classmate’s house one night and peeps into her bedroom window. She catches him but her claims are dismissed because she’s on the second floor and the possibility of that happening in far fetched. Still, the next day she outs Brandon as a perv and that doesn’t go down well for a hormonal alien. In a class exercise dealing with trust in gym class, Brandon is in the circle being passed back and forth and one of his classmates don’t catch him and he falls flat on his ass. The girl crush is ordered to pick him up but she is hesitant because he peeped on her. She’s pressured to help him up and when she does, he crushes her hand.

Brandon becomes more and more aggressive to the point where Toni and Kyle are in arguments over him. Kyle sees the behavior for what it is and comes to the realization that the alien baby that they took from the field is now a problem child. He is quick to give up on the child and disavow the boy as his. Brandon’s new powers have manifested and he is killing those who oppose his maniacal tirades.

Kyle has come to the realization that Brandon is a threat and he must do what is necessary to make things safe for everyone. He convinces Brandon to go with him to hunt game. While out hunting, Kyle aims the rifle and shoots Brandon to the back of the head. No joy. Brandon turns and Kyle finds himself the target of Brandon’s wrath. In a horrific scene that was surprising, Brandon unleashes his laser eyes on Kyle and you see Kyle’s face turn into a hole that went straight to the back of his head. Was this to show the viciousness to what Brandon has become, a sociopath?

Brandon comes back home and targets Toni. She finds that her motherly instincts have failed her if she had any at all. No amount of platitudes to Brandon will dissuade his murderous intent. The local sheriff had suspected something with Brandon but had no proof. Brandon is not only violent but is sadistically cruel. The manner in which he kills his mother is disturbing and the way he covers up the crime by destroying a passing airline only adds to the sadistic levels. There is nobody to root for in this film. There are no redeeming values to have as well. There was a movie called The Bad Seed that came out in 1956 about a seemingly nice 8-year-old girl who pretended to be angelic but in truth, she was a killer. On some levels, these two kids share a personality disorder. The only difference is that one has superpowers and can’t be killed. I would describe this as an empty calorie film, you get filled up with nothing. The movie trailer for this film was interesting but the reality is that this is a flawed uneven movie.

Film Score: C minus