Brightburn (2019)

Brightburn tells a story that is all too familiar to parents: one day our sweet little buddy has grown to become a complete stranger much to our dismay and disappointment.  Except it is much worse in the case as depicted in Brightburn.  Brendon Breyer is a foundling, just like Clark Kent aka Superman, who is literally an illegal alien or in modern parlance an undocumented immigrant, from outer space.  Both have loving American parents and possess preternatural powers.  However, the similarities end there.  Clark Kent has successfully assimilated to be a full blown American hero while Brendan Breyer, when hit by puberty, his deep seated alien traits manifest themselves as behaviors that are at odds with anybody or anything that is moral, legal or simply wholesome.  He has no qualms lying, hurting and killing people.  On-screen pint-sized hero or villain is not new but still very much a novelty and mildly disturbing and potentially entertaining, especially in R rated features saturated with gruesome violence.  Brendon Breyer, played by Jackson Dunn, has a physiognomy that is as American as white bread or in other words he could just be any other young male shooters in rural America.  His psychosis oscillates between quietly apathetic and aggressively belligerent.  The young Dunn pretty very much nailed the character as an alienated youngster who are fast becoming and has indeed become a mass murderer.  I enjoy this movie for its everted Superman mythology and the restrained storytelling and its rather limited and yet effective gory scenes.