Though Blue Beetle is a relatively light-hearted adventure, for the most part, it does contain its share of dramatic scenes, and the movie's most emotional moment involves the surprising death of a principal character.
If you haven't seen Blue Beetle yet, major spoilers follow.
When Victoria Lord (Susan Sarandon) tracks down the Scarab and sends her forces to retrieve it from the Reyes household, Jaime's father Alberto (Damián Alcázar) suffers a fatal heart attack.
While speaking to Collider, director Ángel Manuel Soto revealed that the original plan was for “nobody” to die, but the studio was adamant that the movie include "an emotional death" in order to make things personal for Jaime.
“’How can we create the lowest of lows with the family member? And how that low is not just another death in the superhero genre, but how that low actually ends up being a power for him? At the end of the day, what is that push that this reluctant hero needs at the end of the day for him to embrace his destiny?’ When we started to understand that, we were like, ‘This could be maybe a good opportunity to explore magic realism in this sequence where Jaime is about to die.’”
Killing off Jaime's dad also provided Soto with an opportunity to explore Latin American culture as it relates to death and spirituality, as father and son share a moment in their version of the afterlife.
Have you been to see Blue Beetle? If so, what did you make of the big death scene? Drop us a comment down below.
"Recent college grad Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena) returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it," reads the synopsis. "As he searches to find his purpose in the world, fate intervenes when Jaime unexpectedly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology: the Scarab."
"When the Scarab suddenly chooses Jaime to be its symbiotic host, he is bestowed with an incredible suit of armour capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the Super Hero Blue Beetle."
The cast also includes Bruna Marquezine, Belissa Escobedo, Adriana Barraza, Elpidia Carrillo, Damián Alcázar, and Raoul Max Trujillo.
Blue Beetle is now in theaters.