Blue Beetle — 3.5/5
Music and typography and blue and pink stylistic choices give it a superficial air of the 80s, but—also—there's something inherently 80s inside of it. 'The 80s', in movie terms, is I think not so much a decade as it is a style. Not rooted in nostalgia but pointing towards the types of choices that were made in that decade. 'The Cutting Edge', 1992, is an 80s movie. 'Thor: Ragnarok', 2017, is an 80s movie. This movie is an 80s movie. A return to an optimism that was replaced by the 90s' cynicism and irony and subjugating expectations in the pursuit of clever. It's not lightness in the face of heaviness (Joss Whedon, 'The 90s'), but lightness that sells the heaviness when it comes. It's a surprising amount of emotional weight over plot weight. Early Marvel movies carried that well. Though I decried the lack of a good villain at the time, those early Marvel movies (Iron Man 1, Captain America 1—both 80s movies) still work because it's all about the weight our heroes carry, and the choices they may or may not make. They created a world that you want to return to, but also you never needed to return to: what you already have here is fine. The larger world was assumed. The superhero had a cool costume. The characters were likeable. I had fun in a movie theater.
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Sidenote: Die Hard was the first 90s movie. In these next two pages, I will—
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