Blue Beetle cast, plot and how to watch the DC movie at home
Who is the new superhero on the DC block?
With a universe in chaos and a regime in flux, there's a new DC hero taking flight: Blue Beetle.
The superhero blockbuster, helmed by Puerto Rican director Angel Manuel Soto, is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray now.
Here is everything you need to know before watching Blue Beetle, including its cast, plot, reviews and trailer details.
Read more: Blue Beetle post-credits scene explained
How to watch Blue Beetle
Blue Beetle is available to buy or rent from Prime Video, Apple TV+ and other digital retailers from 25 September. It arrived on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on on 13 November.
The DC film was originally released in UK cinemas on 18 August.
Blue Beetle cast
Despite being in the DCEU, Blue Beetle is a fresh cast of characters for audiences to come to know. It also looks to promise a Latin-American superhero in the same vein that Shang-Chi offered an Asian superhero film, or Black Panther a Black superhero film.
Xolo Maridueña, best known for starring role as Miguel Diaz in Netflix series Cobra Kai makes his film debut as Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle a teenager who gains superpowers from an alien scarab.
Read more: The best Easter eggs and cameos in Blue Beetle
Around him are a great supporting cast including Bruna Marquezine (Maldivas) as Reyes’ love interest Penny, Belissa Escobedo (Hocus Pocus 2) as his sister Milagros and Harvey Guillén (What We Do In The Shadows) as scientist Dr. Sanchez.
Academy Award nominee Adriana Barraza (Babel) plays Reyes’ grandmother, and TV legend George Lopez features as his uncle. Elipidia Carrillo, best known for 80s classic Predator, features alongside Narcos: Mexico star Damián Alcázar and Raoul Trujillo as Carapax the Indestructible Man.
Most interesting is the inclusion of screen legend Susan Sarandon as the sinister antagonist figure Victoria Kord.
Blue Beetle plot
Blue Beetle charts the origin of superhero Blue Beetle, a Mexican teenager called Jaime Reyes who is granted superhero armour when an alien scarab beetle grafts itself to him.
The choice to go for a smaller scale is wise given that this could also be a film easily added to the new universe Gunn is crafting and having it less connected to what came before might mean that audiences are more open to it.
During a recent visit to the Michael Rosenbaum podcast, Gunn confirmed that Blue Beetle will indeed mark the start of his newly-revamped DCU, with the hero being the universe's first new character.
“I mean the first DCU character, for sure, is Blue Beetle, and the first full DCU movie is Superman,” he told Rosenbaum, clarifying the order of things.
Blue Beetle reviews
Our own write-up calls it a "throwback to the superhero movies of the noughties, for better and worse." So if you missed that type of glossy action, you're in luck. Meanwhile, Digital Spy highlighted the film's family-led heart before suggesting that its "set pieces are mostly just two powerful people in suits bashing each other in murky night-time settings."
Unfortunately, The Telegraph wasn't quite as subtle, calling Blue Beetle "powerfully boring." Read our full review round-up below for a more well-rounded view of DC's latest.
Yahoo Movies UK: Family-driven superhero movie has heart (3-min read)
Digital Spy: Blue Beetle is an entertaining debut for DC's newest superhero (4-min read)
The Telegraph: DC’s Iron Man with a spray-paint job is powerfully boring (2-min read)
The Guardian: Perky superhero caper offers more of the same (4-min read)
The Independent: A superhero movie that doesn’t involve time travel or multiverses – thank god (4-min read)
Blue Beetle trailer
The second Blue Beetle trailer landed online in mid-July and it arrived with a bang, showing us exactly what our hero Jaime Reyes’ new Blue Beetle mecha-suit can do.
Throughout the three-minute-long trailer, we see Jaime try to grapple with his newfound powers whilst coming to terms with his heroic responsibilities and the impact they have on his close-knit family.
Meanwhile, we get to glimpse one of the movie’s big bads, Susan Sarandon’s Victoria Kord, who wants to use the power of the scarab for her own nefarious ends.
Oh yeah, did we mention the bit where Jaime’s nana lets loose with a suped-up machine gun? That happens too. Watch it below.
The first Blue Beetle trailer was released on 3 April.
It gave us our first look at Jaime's journey to becoming Blue Beetle, showing the teenager being taken over by the alien scarab that gives off serious Venom vibes.
The scarab gives him an Iron Man-like suit with Green Lantern-style powers that enable him to conjure up objects and weapons. The trailer shows him blasting into space too.
Blue Beetle is available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD now.
