Brightburn (2019)

It's 2006 and Kansas farm couple Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman) Breyer are struggling with infertility. Then one night during a meteor shower it seems as though their prayers have been answered, they discover a baby boy secreted in a space pod of unknown origin that crashes on their property. The couple name the boy Brandon, tell their friends and family that they adopted him and raise him there in Brightburn County, withholding from the child his true origins. Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) turns out to be a nice, extremely bright child, and though socially awkward he seems a good egg, that is up until puberty starts to kick in, and the space pod his parents hid under the barn starts to call out to him. Brandon learns the truth and his behavior starts to change real fast, never sick or injured in his life new abilities starts to manifest and the draw backs of a frustrated adolescent gaining Godlike powers quickly become apparent.

Brightburn quite obviously is a revisionist take on the Super Boy story, only here instead of getting Clark Kent, Ma and Pa end up with something closer to Damion from The Omen. At a nice lean 90 minute running time Brightburn works quite well, its consistently interesting, evenly paced, nicely structured, well acted, and has a couple interesting ideas. The story was written by Brian and Mark Gunn, brother and cousin respectively of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. Already grossing well over twice its modest budget the movie has some real Hollywood muscle behind it and at the end teases potential future films, perhaps even a cinematic universe of its own, not that we need another but I'm sure the studio would be happy to have it. There are some real graphic and disturbing images in this film, it ain't for kids. But smarter then much of the summer fair there is an audience out there to appreciate the creativeness of it's off center sensibilities. I did.  ***1/2