Movie review: Horror sci-fi tale fueled by nature vs. nurture premise

“Brightburn” - ★ ★ ½

The science-fiction/horror tale/superhero fantasy “Brightburn” feels like the overextended opening act of a much more promising movie glimpsed in a series of quick news reports at the end.

You could call “Brightburn” an extra-terrestrial “Bad Seed,” or the Mr. Hyde version of Superman.

But the best comparison would be 2011's tragic drama “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” starring Tilda Swinton as a guilt-and-grief-stricken mother whose son grows up to become a sociopathic mass murderer despite years of pouring her unwavering maternal love and support into his empty human vessel.

The vessel here isn't so human to begin with.

“Did you feel that?” Tori Breyer (Elizabeth Banks) asks her husband Kyle (David Denman) late one night at their farm home in rural Brightburn, Kansas.

We don't see the crash-landing of an alien spacecraft, or the sweet-looking infant inside.

But the home movies of the little guy tell us all we need to know about how much Tori loves little Brandon, a literal gift from heaven for a woman unable to bear her own child. The Breyers tell people they adopted Brandon.

We pick up little pieces of information from Kyle and Tori, how Brandon never gets sick, or cut, or bruised. And how scarily smart he seems.

As not-so-little Brandon (now chillingly underplayed by Jackson A. Dunn) turns 12 and is about to collide with adolescence, strange stuff begins to happen.

That old spacecraft the Breyers buried under the horse barn suddenly sparks to life, sending out WI-FI waves of instructions to Brandon's super brain.

He begins to change, not in a good way.

The Breyers put this change down to puberty. But slowly, Brandon's increasing feelings of superiority to humans manifests itself in ghastly, horrific ways as he develops super strength and the abilities to fly and move with the speed of the Flash.

Soon, “Brightburn” begins to resemble a science-fiction version of Stephen King's “Carrie,” with a hormonal young person lashing out against real and perceived slights with unrelenting cruelty and several industrial-strength “quality kills.”

But the core of “Brightburn,” directed with perfunctory efficiency by David “The Hive” Yarovesky, is a parable about testing a mother's love for her son going through the nightmare of adolescence.

This nature vs. nurture movie belongs to Banks, a gifted actress capable of swinging from different levels of comedy into subtle nuances of emotional devastation.

Mostly known for her role as Effie Trinket ­- the eternally chirpy government flack in “The Hunger Games” franchise­­ - Banks anchors this horror story with a committed performance rivaling those receiving Oscar nominations during the awards season.

Nonetheless, “Brightburn” still feels like an incomplete movie, or one big setup for the real movie “Brightburn” wants to be.

<b>Starring:</b> Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunne, Gregory Alan Williams

<b>Directed by:</b> David Yarovesky

<b>Other:</b> A Screen Gems release. Rated R for language, violence. 91 minutes