Every now and then, a film comes along that flips the familiar on its head and takes a swift left turn – Brightburn is one such film.
Rating
3.5 out of 5
Entertaining with some quality scares and eye-popping action 😉
Brightburn Review
We’ve been waiting for this film for almost half a year, after early teasers suggested it was going to be something unique. Imagine an alien child (that conveniently looks perfectly human) crash landed in the barn of a couple – The Breyers – unable to have kids and grew up to be anything other than a super hero…Well Brightburn takes the Clark Kent fable and makes its alien child, “Brandon”, something that superman would be at pains to save the world from.
Part action, part horror, part family drama, Brightburn lulls viewers into a sense of security, just to tear it away when Brandon starts acting up. There’s hints of humour as his family tries to put his mood swings and biting through steel forks down to puberty. But this film is at its best during its set piece action/horror sequences, of which we do wish there were more to enjoy. We enjoyed the performances across the board, Elizabeth Banks is always a joy on screen and Jackson A. Dunn is sinister asf as Brandon – he’s got a bright future ahead of him.
All that said, we can’t help but feel like this film could have done with some better direction as it never fully commits to what it is, with too much downtime between its most entertaining bits. David Yarovesky also worked on Guardians of the Galaxy, so we were expecting a little more ambition than he delivered this time around.
Overall, Brightburn is an enjoyable movie if you take it for what it is: a fun, surprisingly gory and creepy take on a typical hero-origin story. We like that it sticks its fingers up at the traditional and it has some truly brilliant moments that even the toughest horror fan will wince at.
Movie Info
Release date: 19 June 2019 (United Kingdom)
Budget: 6 million USD
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