Budget: 7million
Directed By: James Gunn
There's been many times that superman has been portrayed as evil, bad or just not caring. Bright burn shows us just what could seriously go wrong if he truly did go right off the rails.
I'm not talking anything we've previously seen either, this film takes the premise and runs with it. Whatever you think about a bad superman x100 for this movie.
It's written and directed by all the Gunn's, with James directing, the other two writing. I have been comparing it to superman as I think this is as close as you can get without copyright lol.
Though aside from some blatant copies it does have its own differences too. The main difference being is this is a mash up genre horror and comic book, something rarely if ever seen before. This is a gruesome movie in its final act with shocking moments. It does kind of fail on the horror front until the final act, though it's fun from about midway where he starts to discover he does actually have super powers.
It's very slow in the first two acts for which it will lose some score for. Also the story kind of diverges once things take a turn for the worse. Which I'll touch on in the main review, so let's get on with it!
A couple who we see have obviously been having trouble conceiving a child are seemingly blessed when a child falls right out of the sky into their laps. Yes they are an almost cookie copy of John and Martha Kent, yet on closer inspection they are different people just in the same situation.
Plus their names are different Tori and Kyle Breyer! Their farm is in Brightburn, Kansas too so the film isn't named after their last name as thought it might be (don't forget i'm from the UK i don't know everywhere in the US) It's not fully explained where he's from or how he came here but it's not really needed either.
12 years pass where everything seems peachy, they are living as a reasonably normal family they are having a nice time as a family. Then the dreaded puberty hits, Brandon (which the named him, same name as the son I lost several years ago to SIDs that put a smile on my face) starts to develop his powers. Becoming super strong and seemingly invincible.
He starts of by doing things by accident (or seemingly), then moving onto freaking his folks out or just experimenting. like chewing a fork, ramming his hand into a spinning lawnmower blade and possibly killing lots of chickens. He is one night also caught sleep walking by Tori towards the barn where his spaceship is stored. (this happens a few times throughout the film)
Brandon quickly starts to become more rowdy as his powers grow, finding disturbing images under his bed forces Kyle to have the puberty/birds&bees talk with his son. Though he kind of immediately misinterprets this as he can watch whoever he wants.
He goes outside the window of a girl (Caitlyn) he likes at school watching her do things, seemingly uncaring even when she see's him there. Due to this when they do a trust fall exercise in school Caitlyn just lets him fall to the ground. He then proceeds to super strength smoosh her hand which gets him kicked out of school for a few days.
Brandons father is all the while getting more and more suspicious and weary of his son's motives and actions. Tori however seems oblivious to it, well more in denial with love for the son she could not have. It is a bit off putting how quickly Kyle turns to disbelieving of his son, seen a few people complain about that but its not like he's ever portrayed as stupid guy.
The girls mother wants Brandon to be arrested, they settle on him having counseling by the school counselor, who is also his auntie Merilee, to judge his mental state.
This is where the movie really picks up steam as Brandon goes right off the rails. when Brandon goes to his spacecraft, discovering his origins he hurts himself on the metal of it. Tori tries to explain to him and that they will always love him no matter what. He goes mad destroys pictures of him and his family declaring he hates them.
He goes to Caitlyns house and declares his love for her, he says that he will show her sights of the world with his special powers. She explains that he can't see her due her mother Erika banning her. He leaves a flower for her while he flies over to the diner where her mom works.
Brandon tortures her with no remorse before killing her (unfortunately off screen, though this is about the only one off screen every other kill is pretty visceral). He (stupidly) leaves a symbol on the window where he killed her which gets the police more and more involved as he starts to use it more often. In a later session with Merilee it seems like Brandon has no remorse over the people dying or increasingly erratic actions she does decide to report these finding to the police.
Brandon however goes to her to try and get her to stop sending the report. interrupted he hides but is found by his uncle Noah. He berates Brandon then goes to take him home in the car, while driving there Brandon causes a car accident which he walks away from unscathed of course. Brandon uses Noah's blood to draw the symbol once again.
Suffice to say the sheriff, Brandon's dad and the other police quickly come to suspect Brandon and begin to move in on him. It doesn't end well. I wont spoil anymore as compared to a lot of other critics I quite enjoyed this film. Yes it has a lot of slow build up but it's almost worth it for the pay off, is it a true horror film though?
Almost it has gruesome horror like moments, the antagonist is scary when he's bad. It's hard to say as this film didn't scare as such but then hardly any horror film does these days. Now did it shock me?
Certainly which a lot of good horror films certainly do, do.
If i gave half stars this would be a middling ground film, the film certainly isn't a two star film though so even with some minor flaws i will award it a 3 out of 5 stars with a recommendation to watch but may be wait until it's on dvd or Netflix.
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