Blue Beetle, which adapts the DC Comics character, is not a particularly ambitious film. It hews extremely close to the archetypal model for superhero movies: young bright-eyed protagonist falls into circumstances that grant them super-human powers, drawing the attention of some villainous criminal figure and leading to a climax fighting an evil version of their own super-powered identity. It is a model that has sustained Iron Man, Ant-Man, Blade, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and any number of other adaptations over the past quarter-century. To be honest it is also a model that sustains Blue Beetle. It is a simple film, with an overly familiar story structure, but it is also bright, uncomplicated, funny, and entertaining. This is not an innovative production, but if we go by the Howard Hawks rule of quality cinema – “three good scenes and no bad ones” – then it is definitely worth the audience’s time.

College graduate Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns home to Palmera City to find his family facing eviction and his father’s auto business closed down. Through a series of misadventures involving the powerful Kord Industries, Jaime comes into possession of an alien scarab – one that proceeds to merge with his own body and grant him super powers.

Of late the broader DC franchise has been staggering beneath the weight of overly long and complicated titles like Black Adam and The Flash – heavy on universe-building but light on entertainment value – and a relentless bleak tone that sits at odds with DC’s traditional lightness of touch. It is a situation seemingly sparked by the 2008 success of The Dark Knight versus the failure of Green Lantern. One film was a bona fide masterpiece, the other a creative disaster, and yet overlying studio Warner Bros seemed to mistake the bleakness of the former and the levity of the latter as the real reason for their mixed fortunes. Since then DC-adapted films have been primarily miserable affairs, featuring a Superman that kills, a Batman that literally brands criminals, and a Wonder Woman more at home in the trenches of World War I than the bright lights of an American city.

In the broader context of the so-named DC Extended Universe, Blue Beetle feels incredibly refreshing. While it is not very clever, it is an awful lot of fun. There is a breezy honesty to the film, which stems from director Ángel Manuel Soto’s lightness of touch. Soto also brings a strong sense of Latin American culture. It is cast appropriately, including appealing work from Damián Alcázar, Elpidia Carrillo, and Belissa Escobedo as members of Jaime’s family. Susan Sarandon plays things broad and hissable as antagonist Victoria Kord, while Adriana Barraza uses force of personality to transform the tired cliché of ‘unexpectedly bad-assed grandmother’ into something quite delightful. George Lopez, I suspect, will be divisive as anti-establishment hippy uncle Rudy Reyes. For my own part, I found him a genuinely funny and integral part of the film’s naïve populist charm.

Something particularly welcome for fans of the comic book Blue Beetle is the natural and effective manner in which the comic book back-story is incorporated into the story. While the original Charlton Comics iteration of Blue Beetle does not appear in the film, his presence and history is keenly felt. Not only does it give the film some valuable texture, it also shows off respect. If this is indeed the first instalment of a new and revised DC Universe for film and television, it bodes well for what is to come. Writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer is well deserving of praise for what he has done here.

Blue Beetle is charming, disposable pop entertainment. Not every film needs to be a apocalyptic spectacle. Some times it is okay to just spend two hours in a darkened cinema having a good time.