Brightburn

This is an interesting idea that I wish they had done more with.

Despite its simplicity, Brightburn's premise is filled with potential, but it struggles to find anything meaningful to say.

Because the film that this broadside of brass describes is ultimately, seriously, "Duuuumb!"

The final effect... is a disheartening vacuum. Having torn down a myth, it leaves little but a dropped mic in its wake.

Director David Yarovesky does the fantasy stuff with flair. And the dafter the plot gets, the better the acting conjured from Elizabeth Banks as foster mom.

This film draws its strength in part from its willingness to be a more humbly scaled operation than the tentpoles weighted down by mandates for billion-dollar grosses.

Much of the credit for the ways in which the film does succeed goes to the sublimely cast Jackson A. Dunn.

Thanks to an impressive array of central performances and some memorable explosions of gore, it does limp across the finishing line with most of its goodwill in tact.

Brightburn is more of a horror film that may appeal to those who are looking for something different than the conventional superhero box despite the issues that pop up.

Brightburn is the ultimate superhero 'What if...?' scenario, taking things to the furthest extremes.