If you’ve heard anything about Brightburn it’s probably been that it’s an evil Clark Kent/Superman story. While that simplistic description is true it’s not the full genius of the film. No stranger to the superhero genre, James Gunn served as producer with David Yarovesky as director.
The story starts just like Supermans does, night in a small quiet town, Brightburn, Kansas. Tori Breyer (Elizabeth Banks) & her husband Kyle (David Denman) hear a ruckus outside & upon inspection find a spaceship carrying one tiny passenger. The couple adopt him as their own, naming him Brandon, and hide the crashed spaceship in the cellar of their barn.
The plot begins taking shape twelve years later, as Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) nears puberty, the ship awakens and begins transmitting a strange message in an alien language, which causes a drastic change in Brandon's personality. Hearing the Alien Language in his head, Brandon discovers he is near invincible & has superhuman strength. It’s how he decides to use that & the exertion of various influences that make this more than just a simple superhero flick.
For those that see films as a way to explore humanity there are various themes that underpin the main plot, nature v nurture, pedophobia, teenage angst, patricide, matricide, & even Oedipus complex. Even still, for those that just wanna watch a good movie & be entertained Brightburn delivers. I have a slight feeling it will prove to be another landmark film (like ‘Logan’ or ‘Deadpool’)in the history of the superhero genre that demonstrates how much there is still left to plum with these stories.
