Brightburn

I was very intrigued by the premise of Brightburn so I went to see it last night.  Tori and Kevin Breyer (Elizabeth Banks and David Denman, respectively) have been hoping, in vain, for a child when an alien space craft containing a baby boy crash lands on their Kansas farm.  They decide to take the baby in and raise him as their own.  They are a loving family and Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is a devoted son until he reaches puberty.  At this point the alien space craft hidden in the barn begins calling to him and he discovers that he has extraordinary strength as well as other powers, such as the ability to fly and shoot lasers from his eyes.  Because he is different, he is teased at school and his crush rejects him so he decides to retaliate.  Soon he is terrorizing the entire community and, while Kyle begins to suspect his son, Tori steadfastly defends him.  It is an interesting take on the Superman mythology but this movie does not live up the the promise of such a great premise. Despite solid performances by Banks and Dunn, the script doesn't give them a lot to work with.  All of the characters are very thinly drawn and they often make very questionable choices just for the sake of advancing the plot.  I was especially disappointed in the character of Brandon because there is very little motivation for his behavior.  Once he discovers his powers, he becomes evil almost immediately without any kind of internal struggle that would have made him more compelling.  All of this could be forgiven if it was a good horror movie but it quickly becomes a third rate slasher film with scenes that are gory rather than scary.  I didn’t find it suspenseful because there are so many cheap jump scares and obvious musical cues.  Finally, the ambiguous ending, with the sole intention of setting up a sequel, is incredibly unsatisfying. I found it to be very disappointing and I recommend giving it a miss.