Xolo Maridueña is a likeable lead whose alarm is often funnier than the dialogue. We rate his physical comedy and ease within a family ensemble, though Blue Beetle gives him too little beyond the familiar superhero duties.
Fi1m perspective
In Blue Beetle (2023), Xolo Maridueña goes through the kitchen ceiling looking quite reasonably alarmed. As Jaime Reyes, he has opened a box at the family dinner table and found himself being turned into a weapon. We laughed at his panic; his face does more comic work than most of the written jokes. He lets the hero look ridiculous without making him seem foolish. He is an appealing lead in a rather ordinary superhero film.
His work has grown out of ensembles rather than solitary heroics. He played Victor Graham in Parenthood (2012–2015), then found wider recognition as Miguel Diaz in Cobra Kai (2018–2025). The latter's mentor–mentee pairing with William Zabka gives him a relationship to play alongside the martial arts. That matters to our view of him, because the family scenes in Blue Beetle give its young lead people worth caring about. We would not be in a hurry to separate him from an ensemble.
Ángel Manuel Soto places Jaime in a Mexican-American household facing the loss of its home, and Maridueña's approach suits the scale of that worry. Jaime returns from college with a degree, then takes cleaning work with his sister Milagros, played by Belissa Escobedo. There is enough in that predicament to make Jaime worth following before he acquires powers. Maridueña's approachable manner helps keep those everyday concerns in view, even when the superhero plot grows routine. We would happily have spent longer with the Reyes household and less time on the business of becoming a weapon.
The reservation is that the lively family ensemble sometimes overshadows Jaime, and the formulaic plotting gives Maridueña little help. Being personable cannot make another superhero origin feel fresh. His ability to handle action is useful, but it does not distinguish him as clearly as his physical comedy, and we would be wary of treating this role as proof that he needs to keep doing the same thing. We would like to see him in a comedy that did not keep interrupting him with superhero duties.
Biography
Xolo Maridueña is an American actor. Born on 9 June 2001 in Los Angeles, California, he began acting professionally as a child and trained with the CASA 0101 theatre company.
He is known for playing Victor Graham in the NBC series Parenthood (2012–2015) and Miguel Diaz in the Netflix series Cobra Kai (2018–2025). Maridueña portrayed Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle in the 2023 DC film Blue Beetle.
