Brightburn received criticism for not having a complex backdrop to its evil Superman, but that’s exactly the point. A dark satire on Clark Kent, specifically the portrayal of the character in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, the film focuses on the ultimate hypothetical scenario of the superhero genre: What if Superman became evil?
The answer to that question is, naturally, a grim one, as Brightburn sees Kal-El’s evil counterpart develop a massive superiority complex and horrifically murder anyone who stands in his way. As much as it canonized Snyder’s vision, it highlighted how spiritually accurate his deconstruction really was.
Upon its release in May 2019, Brightburn received a decidedly mixed critical reception. While its subversion of the Superman origin story through the prism of a horror film received praise, many critics felt that it didn’t dive deep enough into the complexities of its premise. However, this analysis of the film both misunderstands and undersells what Brightburn does with its darker rendition of the Last Son of Krypton.
What Brightburn’s Critics Say About The Film’s Handling Of Superman
A wide swath of the critical community, while praising Brightburn‘s reinterpretation of the Superman origin into a horror movie, have raised issues with the film’s perceived failure to take that premise beyond that of the Man of Steel becoming an emotionless killing machine. The film currently holds a 57% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading “Although Brightburn doesn’t fully deliver on the pitch-black promise of its setup, it’s still enough to offer a diverting subversion of the superhero genre.” Screen Rant‘s own Sandy Schaefer, while giving the film a relatively positive review, described Brightburn as “A creepy, bloody genre mashup that fails to fully explore the fascinating questions it raises about the dark side of being a superhero.” That sentiment is indicative of much of the rest of the critical community’s feelings towards Brightburn and they felt it didn’t work as well.
The Observer‘s Oliver Jones criticized the film as squandering the potential of a superhero horror film in his review, while Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times stated, “The premise is intriguing, but this gruesome origin story plays like just another slasher film with idiots for victims” in his review. Even many of the more explicitly positive reviews tend to take Brightburn to task for shortchanging its satirical angle on Superman. In a review for Time Out, Helen O’Hara praised the film for offering “effective scares“, despite feeling the execution was “muddled at times“, while James Luxford of Metro felt the film had an “exquisite setup” while calling the execution “a little disappointing” and the ending “slightly underwhelming“.
Clearly, the ostensible failure of Brightburn to deliver one of the best superhero movie concepts to its full potential is the element of the film that has seen the most criticism, even within positive reviews. However, it appears that much of that criticism also stems from a misinterpretation of what Brightburn is aiming for in its evil Superman story and the fact that the film is one that, by the very nature of its premise, neither strives nor needs to be terribly complex.
Brightburn Isn’t Man Of Steel
A key point missed by criticisms directed at Brightburn is that the film has a fundamentally different set of goals than Man of Steel. While both films take the approach of grounding and reframing Superman, the thesis of Man of Steel was that of Kal-El as an alien finding his place in a world that is alien to him. Warned by his adoptive father Jonathan Kent of the perils of revealing himself to humanity too swiftly, Zack Snyder’s Superman went to great lengths to fly under the radar. With every rescue he made, the Clark Kent seen in Man of Steel would immediately disappear, knowing that the discovery of his existence alone would mark a radical turning point in human history. It’s only with the arrival of General Zod that Clark finally chooses to reveal himself to the world, because the situation demands that finally becomes Superman – whether he or the world is ready or not. Considering the world’s polarizing response to a near-invulnerable alien living among them seen in Batman v Superman, it’s hard to argue that Jonathan’s trepidation was unfounded.
All of that is the inverse of how Superman is deconstructed in Brightburn. The film is concerned specifically with the idea of an evil Superman living among us and therefore requires a much simpler setup to get there than the problematically paced Superman movie Man of Steel. For Brightburn, Brandon’s descent into evil comes from being left to his own devices after the discovery of his abilities and his alien origins. By stripping away Jonathan’s warning that his adopted son be mature enough to stand before a world that will inevitably fear his godlike power, Brightburn takes the position that Superman would almost certainly have become a monster without being properly steered as a child. Furthermore, Brightburn makes the point that the path for Superman to become a hero would always have a straight descent into evil awaiting him if he lacked the perfect guidance.
Brightburn’s Superman Handling Makes A Better Point
Bearing in mind the importance of the Kents to Clark’s upbringing (and the mentoring he later receives from his Kryptonian father, Jor-El), Brightburn‘s notion is that Kal-El’s ability to feel empathy is the deciding factor in what makes him a hero. Brandon, the young, twisted Superman in Brightburn, while being raised by clearly loving adoptive parents, discovers his abilities without their guidance and falls under the influence of a voice from his alien ship pushing him to conquer the Earth. As the people around Brandon slowly begin to grasp that there’s something different about him, he grows more distant from humanity as he senses their lingering fear. Brandon soon comes to view himself as superior to the very humans he’s seen as his family and friends, and by the midpoint of the film, he’s become a complete sociopath.
The Superman story Brightburn tells is a simple one because the entire point of the film is that the removal of Kal-El’s connection to humanity would leave him to see mankind as less than nothing. This Superman allows himself to burn people alive with his heat vision like a kid with a magnifying glass because there’s nothing left to tether him to the human race. As far as Brandon is concerned, he’s a God among insects, and the loss of his ability to care about the people of Earth makes him unstoppable.
While Brightburn tells a much simpler story of an evil, Elseworlds version of Superman, that’s clearly by design. In contrast to its deconstruction of Superman’s journey in Man of Steel, the entire concept of Brightburn is that the Last Son of Krypton would be a plague upon mankind if his ability to see himself as an adopted member of the human race were removed. The criticism that the film fails to fully explore its premise misses Brightburn‘s actual premise: without the capacity to feel empathy with humanity, a being with the powers of Superman would have no reason to become anything but a villain.
How Brightburn Is Different Than Injustice’s Evil Superman
Evil Superman has been used as a concept in several DC Comics projects. For example, the evil Communist Superman was the eventual protagonist of the Superman: Red Son book, and Ultraman is the morally inverted Kal-El who leads Earth-3’s Crime Syndicate of America in a world where the villains and heroes have switched roles. The best example of an Evil Superman is from the Injustice series of comics and animated movies, all based on the NetherRealms Studio’s beat-em-up game, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and the sequel. In this timeline, the Joker tricks Superman into beating Lois Lane to death and detonating a nuclear device in Metropolis. Kal, who believed he was fighting Doomsday, goes mad and kills the Joker. He then decides the only way to keep the world safe is with him in charge, and the rest of the Injustice arc details how heroes and villains switch sides, battling to try and help or hinder the Kryptonian Tyrant.
Brightburn is different than Injustice Superman, though, despite sharing the same God-tier powers and protagonist status. Brightburn is a lost, angry child who doesn’t really care if he’s doing right or wrong. He doesn’t have a moral compass and is more a force of nature than a villain with goals and motivations (at least in the first movie, although a future Brightburn 2 might change this). Injustice Superman, as well as being an adult, genuinely believes himself to be in the moral right. He’s not the bad guy in his own head — he just understands that humanity creates monsters like The Joker when left to its own devices so needs someone to take control and enforce order. Brightburn is a superpowered serial killer who lacks any apparent interest in ruling Humanity, much less saving it from itself.
The age difference between Superman and Brightburn also matters: Brightburn is an impulsive child, whereas Superman is an experienced adult who is much more calculating (even if he is emotionally unable to come to terms with killing Lois). However, with the season 3 developments of Ryan and Homelander in Amazon’s The Boys, it’s possible that the next season of the MA-rated superhero drama will provide a better Evil Superman/Brightburn proxy that critics appreciate more than the oft-misunderstood Brightburn.
