What I'm Watching: Agent Beetle
Since I looked at one awesome superhero movie last week, let's stick with the divergence and talk about another superhero movie I watched.
Is this one awesome too?
Pffffahahahaha, not really.
Agent Beetle is...special.
It is a very independent, very low budget movie, and almost every frame of film shows that to its fullest. The plot revolves around a cop who goes undercover as a criminal so he can be injected with a serum that gives people insect-like abilities.
Just how insect-like those abilities are can be highly questionable, but eh, whatever. I can roll along with the plot device.
Dan Garret runs around...wait, what? Dan freakin' Garret? So, Agent Beetle is THE GOLDEN AGE BLUE BEETLE!?
What the what??
Yep, they've adapted the golden age Blue Beetle into a modern story told on the cheap. The plot is simple and straightforward, it does nothing original, and is so simple that the 80 minute run time is highly padded.
Long scenes of people walking around, extended fight scenes I can forgive because of the content, but then there's a nearly five minute scene of a bikini pagent that is there for no purpose, other than to drag things out, and boobs. One of our villains walks into the club, watches the thing, then leaves. No real point, no real dialogue. Whatever.
The sets are downright laughable, if they can be called sets. Half the movie takes place clearly backstage at a theater. I recognise those curtain setups all too well from my days in drama clubs. Seriously, the evil mastermind scientist's office has black curtain walls? Yeah, no.
When they're not backstage at the Apollo, I'm pretty sure the rest of the sets are just various other rooms in the theatre. They have that distinct blandness of no set dressing and waiting for the cast of Cats to walk in at any time.
Much like you would expect from a movie that LOOKS like it was filmed by the crew of a college film project, the acting is about on the same level. Everyone is stiff with little emotion, going through the motions, and with such bland, unoriginal dialogue, it's no surprise.
Uninspired is the watchword for Agent Beetle. The best thing I can say about the movie is that the opening credits look bloody amazing. They blew their effects budget on those, I suppose.
But since this is Trisk, being a bad movie does not mean it's not a fun movie, and this movie is just so crazy, so silly, it is mindnumbingly fun. It is a blast watching this silly, pointless plot wind down every cliche path you'd expect, the actors stumble through their scenes, and how the lack of sets is like something right out of a Rob Liefeld background.
Agent Beetle may be a bad, dumb movie, but...we kinda love you anyways. I had a blast watching it, even if I shook my head the entire time.
