Blue Beetle

image for Blue Beetle

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Not suitable under 12; parental guidance to 13 (violence, scary and disturbing scenes and themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Blue Beetle
  • a review of Blue Beetle completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 14 September 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 12 Not suitable due to high level of violence, scary scenes and disturbing themes.
Children aged 12–13 Parental guidance recommended due to high level of violence.
Children aged 14 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Blue Beetle
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Mature themes and violence
Length: 128 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena) has just graduated from university and returned home to his very proud family of Mum (Elpidia Carrillo), Dad (Damian Alcazar), sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), Uncle Rudy (George Lopez) and Nana (Adriana Barraza). Jaime soon learns that his family is to be evicted from their home and so agrees to work with his sister, cleaning the mansion of Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), CEO of Kord Industries. However, when Jaime sees Victoria abusing her niece Jenny (Bruna Marquezine), he intervenes, causing him to lose his job. Jenny promises Jaime a new job and arranges to meet him at the head office of Kord Industries the following day. It transpires that Victoria has discovered an ancient alien creature called the Scarab. Victoria is plotting to use the Scarab to boost her One Man Army Corps (OMAC) to take over the world. Jenny is determined to prevent her and breaks into her office to steal the Scarab. While being chased, Jenny hands the Scarab, hidden in a box, to Jaime for safe keeping.

On returning home, Jaime is persuaded by his family to open the box. The Scarab leaps out of the box and enters his body, covering him in an armoured exoskeleton with great powers. As the ‘Blue Beetle’, Jaime now has the power to battle Victoria’s army, which is also armed with exoskeletons. They are led by Victoria’s lieutenant, Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), a formidable foe. In the ensuing battles, Jaime’s house is destroyed, causing his father to die from a heart attack. Jaime is captured by Carapax while distracted and taken to Victoria’s Island and laboratory where she plans to transfer the Scarab’s code from Jaime to Carapax. Jaime must summon all his courage to prevent this happening and to continue the war against Kord and OMAC.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Science Fiction; Superheroes; World Dominion; Action Adventure; Separation of children from parents; Loss of a parent.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of stylised comic style violence with little blood or gore in this movie, including:

  • Lots of explosions; fighting between armed combatants using various weapons, such as knives, swords, automatic rifles, axes, etc; and hand-to-hand fighting, including punching, kicking and throwing opponents long distances.
  • Carapax and Blue Beetle fight on several occasions in prolonged fight sequences using their super powers.
  • Other violence includes Blue Beetle flying across the ocean, into a city and up buildings. He crashes on to a bus, splitting it in two.
  • Soldiers arrest Jaime’s family – they take them out of their house forcibly and make them kneel on the ground. Blue Beetle arrives and starts firing at the soldiers. Victoria tells the soldiers to target the family as the bullets don’t affect Blue Beetle. The soldiers kick Jaime’s dad to the ground. He is seen with blood on his mouth. He then suffers a heart attack and dies. The soldiers blow up the house. Jaime is trapped by a huge weapon and dragged along the ground by ropes.
  • Victoria orders Carapax to kill Jaime who’s screaming in pain.
  • Jenny is trapped under rubble after an explosion.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Lots of visually scary scenes and loud noises of military bases, armed soldiers, helicopters whirring overhead, explosions, etc.
  • Carapax is a scary-looking character with a scarred face, an object implanted in his neck and metal claws for hands.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Towns are destroyed to clear the way for mines and several houses are seen on fire.
  • The robotic army look scary in their exoskeletons.
  • The Scarab entering Jaime’s body is quite scary – it locks on to his face and then crawls all over him. Everyone screams. Electrical impulses come out of Jaime which send his uncle flying. Jaime turns into a huge blue beetle with glowing eyes and flies up through the roof of his house into space. He falls back to Earth and is on fire for a while. He lands just above the sea.
  • Jaime’s family is cowering in their house as a helicopter whirrs overhead. Soldiers surround the house.
  • Jenny and Jaime’s family take off in an old space craft. They all scream. The space craft is in the shape of a beetle which, when it lands, has legs that help it walk up walls and stomp over soldiers. It drops one soldier from its foot.
  • Nana is seen with a huge weapon in her hand.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Jenny tells Jaime how her Mum died when she was six and her father didn’t get over it, and he eventually abandons her. She cries while telling the story.
  • Jaime is captured by Carapax while distracted by his family’s peril. Milagro starts to cry for her mother.
  • An ambulance is seen taking away their father but they soon learn that he couldn’t be resuscitated. They all cry and hug each other.
  • Jaime is seen trapped in a wheel, strapped by his hands and feet. Huge tubes are attached to him and Carapax.
  • Carapax is seen glowing all red with tentacles and red eyes. He screams in pain. He transforms into an even bigger character in a red and black glowing exoskeleton.
  • The laboratory is seen on fire with blood spatter on the windows.
  • After a prolonged fight sequence between Blue Beetle and Carapax, Blue Beetle is rendered powerless. The Scarab says it’s sorry it can’t protect him anymore.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • While Jaime is in great pain, he sees himself surrounded by candles and with his father. They walk a while together, then his father says it’s not his time and he has to go back. His father says he will always be with him, then he disintegrates.
  • A disturbing scene shown in fast flashback, shows a young boy whose mother is killed by Victoria’s army when a bomb drops on her. Victoria rescues the boy and trains him up to be her soldier. He is seen as a boy with a rifle in his hands. He goes on to be Victoria’s lieutenant but he is painfully aware of what she has done to him and what she has turned him into.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Starbucks.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Milagro says that Jenny Kord has a sexy walk, like the Kardashians.
  • Uncle Rudy talks about his testicle being 7 times bigger than normal.
  • Jenny and Jaime are about to kiss a few times, when they are interrupted. They eventually do kiss.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • When the Blue Beetle returns as Jaime, he is naked. Nothing is shown but he’s seen trying to hide his private parts.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Drinking of alcohol in several scenes, including from bottles and cans.
  • Some guys are sitting around saying, “How long ago did we take it?” When the Blue Beetle splits a bus in two, they say, “It just hit me”.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • What the hell?
  • Oh my God
  • Bullshit
  • Dump break
  • Shit
  • Dick
  • Arse
  • Arsehole
  • Piss
  • Holy shit
  • Moron
  • Kick their arses
  • Goddammit.

In a nutshell

Blue Beetle is a science fiction movie, based on the Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle DC character. The film is fast moving and full of action and comic-style violence. There are some disturbing themes, however, concerning abandoned children and their fate in comparison to the stability of a loving family. It is also quite intense in parts and is, therefore, not suitable for children under 12 and best suited to teens and up.

The main messages from this movie are the importance of a supporting, loving family; and that good triumphs over evil.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Bravery and courage
  • Heroism
  • Everyone has a purpose in life
  • Community support
  • Putting people before profits.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • How superheroes are quite unrealistic and that the actions they take would be very harmful in real life.