Rate BRIGHTBURN (2019)

7/10

Honestly it seemed like there were two clashing ideas here.

On the one hand, I get the impression that the movie wanted to play with the idea that Brandon could have been redeemed, or turned out better, if his parents had just loved him more. Like he seems to be bonding with his dad, until his dad turns on him - and he seems genuinely upset that his dad did turn on him. Likewise he seemed to be coming around with his mum at the end, but then she turns on him too and again, he seems genuinely upset. It's like the move wants to play the idea that Brandon could turn out either way, and it's only because we didn't trust him that he turned out as he did.

But then we have the spaceship beaming bad guy thoughts into his head, so it's as if he's just plain evil and only waiting for the ship to trigger him.

So which is it? And yeah, I get that those two things aren't necessarily contradictory, but they felt like they were in this case, at least to me.

Also, it seemed like Brandon turned evil awful quickly and easily. Like, he just gets pushed over and suddenly he's crushing the hand of some girl that he supposedly likes. And her mom doesn't like him... so he straight up murders her. And not even in a "oh crap, what did I just do" way... he carries out a premeditated, sadistic, deliberately cruel act of torture and death.

It's like, if you're telling the story of a kid who grew up to be a serial killer, you start with him acting weird, then he tortured animals, then he hurts somebody, then he kills and feels guilty, then he goes full psycho. But Brandon goes from zero to full psycho at the drop of a hat. Which makes sense if it's just the ship flipping his "evil switch", but if that's the case then all the angst his parents display is kind of pointless.

The gore level surprised me, too. Not saying that as a negative, just didn't expect to see the eye scene and the jaw scene in the movie.

All in all I did enjoy it. I've long toyed with the idea of a supervillain who exists in a world without superheroes in my head (though I took it in a waaay different direction), so I was intrigued to see it done on the big screen. I wouldn't call it a great movie or anything, but I'm glad I watched it. I'd watch a sequel.

6.

7

3/10