Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Is comic-book movie culture reaching a tipping point…into peak exhaustion? This summer, we’ve seen signs of that in the ho-hum box-office returns for “The Flash” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” To be fair, the mega-success of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
3” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has testified to the genre’s continuing appeal. Still, there are onscreen indicators that the superhero-movie audience, while it remains vast, might be entering the thrill-is-gone zone.
As more and more of these films become cogs in a multiverse, their imaginative appeal tends to get trampled by the dictates of corporate world-building. (That “Ant-Man” sequel was designed to set up a saga of villainy longer than the Ring cycle.) Beyond that, it’s hard to escape the sensation that superhero films have become top-heavy with self-importance.
The fate of the cosmos seems to ride on almost every one of them. In that light, the brisk, cheeky, unabashed gizmo-happy triviality of “Blue Beetle,” a superhero origin story from the DC side of the tracks, is enough to make the film feel like a breath of fresh pulp.
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