Before becoming the overlord of DC Studios (joint…joint overlord as we must remember it is not all about him) James Gunn brought his own twisted version of Superman to life as the producer of a superhero horror movie that probably didn’t hurt in getting him his current role within Warner Bros. That 2019 movie was Brightburn, and it has just soared back into the streaming charts, this time in the Peacock Top 10.
Dumbed down to the simple premise of “what if Superman was evil?” Gunn’s love of R-rated horror combined with the superhero genre he was by then well integrated with thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, and created a movie that had a lot of potential but seemed to be buried by its own ambition and lack of execution for both critics and audiences. The plot of Brightburn is as follows:
“After a difficult struggle with fertility, Tori Breyer’s dreams of motherhood come true with the arrival of a mysterious baby boy. Brandon appears to be everything Tori and her husband, Kyle, ever wanted — bright, talented and curious about the world. But as Brandon nears puberty, powerful darkness manifests within him, and Tori becomes consumed by terrible doubts about her son. Once Brandon begins to act on his twisted urges, those closest to him find themselves in grave danger.”
Starring Elizabeth Banks and David Denman as the parents of Brandon, played by Jackson A. Dunn), with a script by Gunn’s brother Brian and cousin Mark, the film doesn’t hang around in setting up its story and bringing it to a conclusion in just over 90 minutes. While superhero movies have become large and bloated with heroes and villains and runtimes that need your bladder to be the real hero, Brightburn’s slim runtime and lack of character development let it down for many, who found the whole thing little more than a movie that played in a toybox of superheroes with the intention of just making it gory.
‘Brightburn’ Is James Gunn’s DC Dream on a Budget
While Brightburn became a hugely divisive movie, with Rotten Tomatoes critics giving it a 57% score, while audiences were almost just as conflicted with their 67% rating. While there was praise for Gunn’s use of his small $6 million budget (which was turned into a successful $33 million box office haul) and for his ability to subvert the superhero genre into something different, it was ultimately the missed opportunities that became the biggest gripe. As Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent put it:
“Despite its simplicity, Brightburn’s premise is filled with potential, but it struggles to find anything meaningful to say.”
That being said, Brightburn was still a success. It provided fans of Gunn’s early horror work to see his R-rated potential working in the superhero genre – which he had been unable to do while confined to Marvel Studios’ PG-13 Infinity Saga. The blood and gore of Brightburn is fully realized in practical effects, and the film deftly answers the question of what kind of chaos would ensue if Superman was evil. Just don’t watch it with the idea it spends as much time world-building as Gunn has done in his first DCU projects.
Since the release of Superman, Gunn’s first movie of the DCU has come under similar criticism from a certain group of fans, with some claiming that this summer’s blockbuster doesn’t scratch the surface of any kind of real depth and character development in favor of having multiple heroes, and bright, fractured storylines that all just happen to take place in the same part of Metropolis. Or to put it another way, pretty much like an old school comic book.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
