BLUE BEETLE (2023)

Here's the honest weigh-up. This is a genuinely good superhero movie — exciting, full of jeopardy, and driven by something rarer than spectacle: love of family as the hero's real strength. It even carries light Christian references and a pro-life turn. On craft alone, it earns its four stars.

But the good is marred, and the marring matters. There's a lot of foul language here — more than forty obscenities and a strong profanity misusing the Name of God. Layered on top is some false theology about a "living" universe and hints of Marian worship, plus a strain of politically correct, Marxist identity politics.

So this is a film worth appreciating, but not one to take lightly — and not one for children or teens. If you're a discerning adult, watch it at home, where you control the room and can talk back to what it gets wrong. That's our practical answer: wait for home — adults only.

Jaime Reyes, a pre-law college grad from a close-knit Mexican immigrant family, comes home to a hard truth: the diploma doesn't come with a job. He takes cleaning work at the powerful Kord company — and stumbles into the crosshairs of its ambitions.

A self-aware piece of alien technology, shaped like a blue scarab, chooses Jaime as its host, wrapping him in a suit of armor with advanced weapons. Trouble is, a power-mad industrialist wants that same tech to build an army of super-soldiers. Now Jaime must protect the people he loves most — and he won't be doing it alone.

Four stars, and they're deserved. This is an engaging superhero movie with lots of heart — the action scenes are exciting, the stakes feel real, and the jeopardy lands.

Its best trick isn't a fight; it's a family. The story keeps its emotional center on Jaime's love for the people around him, and that gives the spectacle a spine. The pro-family premise isn't decoration — it's the engine.

The one recurring weakness is on-the-nose dialogue: at times the film tells you its meaning outright rather than trusting you to feel it. That's a small flaw in an otherwise well-made picture, and it doesn't sink the fun.

At its core, this film believes something true and worth cheering: that love of family makes you stronger. The villain's henchman sneers that Jaime's love for his family is his weakness — and Jaime proves it's his strength. That's the heart of the movie, and it's a good one.

The good runs deeper still. The story exalts finding a positive purpose, protecting the powerless, helping your community, and defeating evil without killing the bad guys — a pro-life instinct made vivid when Jaime teaches the alien intelligence not to kill his attackers. Faith gets a visible place, too: Jaime's grandmother blesses him with the Sign of the Cross, a picture of faith in the Holy Christian Trinity, and family members repeat that ritual more than once.

But the film muddies its own water. In one conversation, Jaime and his father speak of the universe as if it were a living, conscious thing — but the universe is God's creation, not a person with desires. Two or so shots of a painting of the Virgin Mary hint at worship owed to God alone. And a strain of politically correct, Marxist ideology surfaces: a grandmother hailed as a "revolutionary" who fires on "imperialists," and a flashback framing American forces as the villains behind a Guatemalan tragedy — an apparent subtext of Latino-centric identity politics.

The movie is right that family is a great strength. Scripture roots that strength deeper still, in the God who sets the lonely in families: "God settles the solitary in a home" (Psalm 68:6).

Here's a superhero movie that actually believes family is worth fighting for — and does it with skill and heart. It also carries more foul language than it needed, a strong misuse of God's Name, and some false theology and politics that deserve a discerning eye. For grown-ups who can weigh all that, watch it at home: wait for home — adults only. Looking for something the whole family can enjoy? Try our latest family-friendly picks.