Blue Beetle deserves better than a lacklustre release at the arse end of a dying franchise. This hugely likeable super romp will play to the dust balls. A minimalist promotional programme from Warner Bros. says it all. Flash bombed and word on the streets has it that audiences just don’t care anymore. All executive eyes are instead on next year’s James Gunn franchise reboot. Expect, maybe they should care about this little try hard. Forget the wider world for one moment and embrace Blue Beetle as the most heartfelt, charming and unselfconsciously funny film the DCEU has produced in…well, perhaps ever. Sure, the bar’s low but don’t let that put you off either.
The intensity of your love for Theater Camp – and you will love it – is likely to depend on the degree to which you are immersed in the chorus line. The Broadway inoculated may, for instance, find themselves with a mouthful of glitter. They can admire the craft no less. Adoration must, however, grow exponentially with increasing involvement. A lowly film critic can but imagine the viewing joy felt by the graduates of actual, real world theatre camps. The in-jokes run riot. That’s no bad thing. Think of Theater Camp as your initiation. By the final note, all outsiders are welcome.
A background in rap and grime music videos, made on the cheap in a late noughties Islington, informs Charlotte Regan’s impressive directorial debut. It’s experience that floods a tale of social hyper realism with emotional intelligence and a street smart awareness that stories can find their true awakening through visual expression. Words alone are only one part of the equation. Certainly, there’s extraordinary lyrical beauty behind Scrapper, which is itself defiantly atypical. Having nailed over two hundred shorts across her teens – before graduating to bigger collaborations with Mumford & Sons, Wretch 32 and Stereophonics – Regan is no newcomer. That doesn’t stop her first feature from feeling outrageously assured.
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