BRIGHTBURN

D.C. Comics had a line of books called Elseworlds, where one change in a superhero's life would send them on a completely different trajectory.  This idea applies to Brightburn, a superhero horror movie that follows a simple idea: What if young Superman was evil?

In the small town of Brightburn, Kansas, farmers Tori and Kyle Breyer (Elizabeth Banks, David Denman) have been trying to have a child unsuccessfully when the answer literally falls out of the sky.  Twelve years later, their son Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is going through puberty.  But it's very different for him.

Brandon's growing up is accompanies by super powers: super strength, toughness, flight, heat vision, super speed, and more.  Unfortunately, Brandon is hearing voices from the alien ship he arrived in; he wears a creepy homemade mask; and he feels no guilt when he hurts people -- and he does a lot more than just hurt anyone who he thinks is getting in his way.  When people start vanishing and dying, Kyle becomes very suspicious of his son; but his mother insists that Brandon is a good boy and that there's got to be some other explanation.

Produced by Peter Gunn, Brightburn really doesn't do anything interesting with its premise.  Jackson A. Dunn is suitably creepy as the sociopath with the power to do pretty much whatever he wants to anyone he wants -- but we don't get beneath his surface, except for seeing him as a literal alien invader.  Banks and Denman play the doting mother and stern father, parental archetypes often seen in movies.  And there are moments of brief but extreme gore, plus an ever-growing body count.  Brightburn is a superficial approach to a radical  change in an iconic superhero.

Overall grade: C+
Reviewed by James Lynch