Brightburn isn't a terrible good movie, although it does feature some well-staged action scenes. It's about a strange boy 'adopted' by a couple trying to have a baby. Of course, as anyone would know by looking at the trailers or even just guessing a few minutes in, this is no ordinary boy, 'born' on the same night that an apparent meteor strikes the small town of Brightburn, Kansas, USA. Fast forward to the kid's 12th birthday party, and he's beginning to really show signs of otherness, which adults chalk up to puberty and growing pains and the like. But Mom and Dad know differently, and although they've long warned young Brandon to stay out of the locked-tight trapdoor in their barn...well, I think we all know that all of us, especially Brandon, will find out what's behind that door, and it ain't gonna be a good thing. It's certainly not a good thing when people die grisly deaths, and somehow they each have a connection to Brandon. Coincidence? One issue I had with this movie was that the plot doesn't really explore in any depth the ramifications of Brandon's finding out his origins, other than to wow us with some amazing effects. Another issue is that none of the cast (even Elizabeth Banks, as the always-supportive mom) doesn't acquit itself very well. The adult actors show a lack of range, for the most part, and the kid playing poor Brandon is just kind of dull - a problem not helped by the scattershot plot. Some of these characters, by the way, make some astoundingly dumb decisions, and I don't mean in the horror-movie sense. Sometimes horror-movie characters will do something stupid, but you can chalk it up to their being terrified, in a panic, etc. But here, you'll see people doing things that just don't make sense, and it hurts the film.
Review of Brightburn
