DC has been trying and failing to make its superhero movies about family for some time now. Evidence: the “Shazam!” films; “The Flash”; “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (“My mom’s named Martha too!”).

Happily, “Blue Beetle” comes closest to cracking the code by grounding its slam-bang sci-fi shenanigans in familia. Based on the third incarnation of a comic book character who’s been in and out of circulation — published by several different companies — since 1939, this movie’s Latin flavor feels fresh, with welcome bits of political bite and funny takes on the genre’s overfamiliar conventions.

Jaime Reyes (“Cobra Kai’s” Xolo Maridueña), the first member of his Mexican American family to graduate from college, returns home to Palmera City, a seaside metropolis done up in “Miami Vice” pastels and hologram-adorned skyscrapers, with a pre-law degree and a lifetime of student loan debt. His demonstrative kin are proud, but facing their own financial setbacks and about to lose their humble home in the low-slung, decidedly not pastel Edge Keys barrio.

Nana (Adriana Barraza), soulful dad Alberto (Damián Alcázar), pragmatic mom Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo) and wacky uncle Rudy (George Lopez) tell Jaime not to worry, they’ll persevere like they always have. Smart-mouthed little sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) isn’t so confident. She gets her brother a menial job at the mansion of awful industrialist Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon, relishing every villainous moment). Victoria is the sister of long-missing inventor Ted Kord, and is eager to harness the powers of an outer space scarab he was working with to build a line of paramilitary police.

Comics fans know that Ted was the previous Blue Beetle, a kind of buggy Batman complete with kooky crime-fighting gadgets and an underground lair. After Ted’s well-meaning, aunt-hating daughter Jenny (Bruna Marquezine) slips the symbiotic scarab to Jaime for safekeeping, it’s just a matter of time before the living alien device digs into the lad’s spine and covers him in the black and blue beetle exoskeleton/uniform.

Called Khaji-Da, the sentient advanced technology bestows the usual superpowers and generates amazing weapons. Jaime, though, is a reluctant host. He’s just as mortified as frightened by his first grotesque transformation in front of his vocal, if somewhat, complacent relatives (hey, they’re immigrants; they’ve seen worse).

Unlike the robotically ruthless Khaji-Da, Jaime doesn’t want to hurt anybody. Victoria makes sure he does, though, with the help of her top henchman Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo). She’s turned that School of the Americas-trained assassin into a cyborg prototype of the robocop that Kord hopes to manufacture.

You know the rest: morphing, flying, fights, near-death experiments, last-minute escapes, climactic showdowns that go on too long.

Except in “Blue Beetle,” the other Reyeses insist on getting in on the action. Nana, the sweet old lady whose worldview seems limited to her beloved telenovelas, turns out to have had quite the past. Rudy is a conspiracy nut who can kick-start anything; he drives Jaime and Jenny to face the bad guys in his souped-up Tacoma, which he calls “the Taco,” complete with a dashboard adorned with vintage Cheech & Chong bobbleheads.

Sporting a cape-like mullet and a goatee down to his pecs, Lopez plays Rudy at maximum comic volume and vulgarity. He somehow also infuses the movie with genuine heart, as do Maridueña and Becky G as the Siri-like voice of Khaji-Da; she lends the killer AI a nice slice of moral intelligence.

“我don’t really like the term alien,” Rudy quips during a discussion of extraterrestrial stuff.

导演天使曼努埃尔·索托(皇帝“魅力之城”)d screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (best known for the U.S. remake of “Miss Bala”) slip in a steady stream of critical jabs at prejudice, income inequality and militarization, as well as a lovely, cosmic moment of magical realism.

The studio is promoting “Blue Beetle” as the first Latino costumed hero feature; Miles Morales and the folks who made the 2018 indie “El Chicano” (which also co-starred Lopez) may like to have a word. But as far as live-action, effects-filled fantasies go, I guess we can cut the DC team some slack. They’ve certainly made one of the more down-to-earth big-screen superhero films this year, and we should all be able to agree that’s a good thing.

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer.