Black Adam

I hoped "Black Adam" would be a decent entry in DC's recent output as its linked with "Shazam" which might be their best recent movie. But nope. Its another CGI filled dud.

On the plus side there is an effort put into the story and Dwayne Johnson and his rediculusly strong shoulders buldging from his costume are 100 percent real amongst all the boring CGI. But all the team building with rubbish characters no one cares about has already been DC's downfall with the justice league, Suicide squad and even that Harley Quinn movie. And it's takes up too much time here too.

There's not enough time dedicated to making us care about any of these minor characters and their random powers. Just action, action, action that doesn't matter when you don't care about anyone in the movie.

There's some decent gags in the movie I suppose. But overall its just alot of green screen and feels like your watching a computer game instead of a movie. It's more "Aquaman" than "Shazam." So if you liked that one you'll probably like this.

Black Adam certainly has its problems, from it's generic third act (are we really still doing sky beams), terrible villain and very hit and miss humour, however it's still a really fun superhero film thanks to some solid explorations of morality, brief deeper meaning and some ridiculously entertaining superhero fights.

Dwayne Johnson gives a great lead performance, restraining his trademark charisma to give a more sombre performance that works. Quintessa Swindell and Noah Centineo have charming chemistry and are both likeable which makes up for their characters lack of depth or development.

However, it's Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate who is definitely the standout with superb dry wit and suave screen presence as well as a surprisingly earnest bond with Aldis Hodge's Hawkman whose stoic and commanding performance makes him inspired casting.

Juame Collet-Serra's direction is really good, it lacks an overall voice but makes up for it with plenty of stylish slow motion, needle drops and dynamic camera work. The CG is mostly solid with a fair few weak spots and the music by Lorne Balfe is also really good, extremely epic and operatic in the ways that make everything way more enjoyable.

While Black Adam isn't a groundbreaking top-tier superhero film, it is an entertaining superhero movie that makes it up with the charm from star Dwayne Johnson as an anti-hero and guilty pleasures including non-stop action, irreverent humor and a high kill count.

Dwayne Johnson carves out his own superhero niche with his anti-hero, a concept which the film wholeheartedly commits to. People die in this movie. My mouth dropped at Black Adam's kill count. As the numbers increased, the movie set itself in a tonal sweet spot that Marvel won't go near and Sony hasn't quite achieved with its Spider-Man villain films. What Black Adam does is downright wrong, but it's entertaining as heck to watch it play out.

The current culture has become so comic book literate where the story can just introduce a superhero team, the Justice Society of America, without any introduction. You get to know this team in the midst of the action, wondering about their origin stories or how they got their powers. It works, despite being overly stuffed.

Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate is quite the scene-stealer, providing gravitas that grounds the conflict at hand and adds another level of seriousness. He's a fascinating character. I hope for a Doctor Fate solo movie with Pierce Brosnan.

Aldis Hodge's Hawkman is a great straight man to Dwayne's Black Adam. The heart of the movie comes from the moral argument between them. One character wholeheartedly believes in killing and the other is completely opposed to it. To quote the Dark Knight, this battle of wills is an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object.

In essence, Hawkman sets up for Dwayne Johnson to be Black Adam. The character doesn't want to back one step from his principles and just doesn't give a rats. It's the best part of the film and often hilarious.

The villain was not memorable and was just a big baddie for The Rock to fight in the climax. That said, this villain is no worse than the standard Marvel villain in an origin story.

In conclusion, Black Adam is a fun movie for a one-time watch. I enjoyed it with my inner Simpsons Comic Book Guy turned off and had a good time.

I suspect I won't have the first time experience on a second watch. The seams would crack. I would see that the young JSA members were cast to appeal to the teen demographic and a boy was placed at the center of the story to appeal to children, and the fact that the same boy does a voice-over in the opening credits is odd. On a second watch, I would realize it was all a bit silly.

Dwayne Johnson claims Black Adam as the mark of a new era for DC. The film does feel like a rechristening of the DC universe in a soft reboot type way. Now, the plan seems to be moving away from the Walter Hamada era. It always seemed weird to me how Hamada diverted from Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman stories and just focused on side characters and Elseworld projects.

I am glad plans are being made to get the DCEU going again. Dwayne Johnson bringing back Henry Cavill's Superman back to the DCEU is a great marketing idea that will guarantee butts in seats, even though it's hard to picture Dwayne Johnson as a star and producer willingly losing the fight.

While Dr Fate may have been introduced first in print, for those of us who aren't followers of the comics, Dr Strange is the sorcerer that we identify more with, simply because we got to see him first and certainly with more depth. Everything about Black Adam felt like a low budget remake of Marvel characters. Hawkman even looked similar to Anthony Mackey. Atom Smasher was far too much like Ant Man. Hawkman's compound might as well been Dr Xavier's home for the X Men, complete with the aircraft rising from the front lawn.

Like so many others have reviewed, the Justice Society was simply thrown at us as if we were to already understand who they were. There was no character building whatsoever, other than a one or two sentence dialog that tried to briefly explain how they came to be superheroes. It was extremely rushed.

As for Black Adam...I usually like Dwayne Johnson's films, but in this one, he was stiff and wooden. The other characters...of course Dr Fate was a standout, but it was as if the writers purposefully wanted us to hate Hawkman. His attitude and cockiness were unbearable, knowing that he would be easily defeated by the likes of Black Adam. Perhaps in my mind, I was comparing him to Marvel's Falcon and his much more personable and likable demeanor. Either way, I just wanted to see him get his ass kicked.

All things considered, I was simply underwhelmed. 2022 was not a good year for the superhero genre.

No, the hierarchy of power in the DC universe did not change with the introduction of "Black Adam". This was a very mediocre film, and felt like a very colour by numbers superhero film, designed and tested to please as many audiences as possible. Meaning it plays it safe and doesn't take any risks. But I enjoyed it, it's a very entertaining watch with lots of huge setpieces! In fact, once it gets going it doesn't stop... it's a non-stop, action-packed thrill ride! It's only problem - it's so average; something we've seen a million times before. It almost left me feeling a bit of superhero fatigue, as everything just felt recycled. I kept waiting for it to do something fresh and new, and while there were a few good moments, overall the movie was incredibly predictable. I even had moments wishing the action would slow down so we could get another dialogue scene or something that would flesh out the characters more. The script just isn't great, frankly. But it's still a good time. I think of it like this; Black Adam is a bad movie held together by some AWESOME moments!

So let's get these negatives out of the way. The script is extremely weak and very predictable, heck the trailers even spoiled a "twist" near the middle of the film. It's not hard to figure out what the movie is doing, especially for those of us who've seen a lot of these superhero movies over the years. It doesn't try all that hard to keep eventual reveals hidden, as it's more focused on giving its protagonist the flashiest, most murder-filled debut in the DCEU (even though I would look to "The Suicide Squad" for that). It really felt like the creative team saw Black Adam being an anti-hero as an excuse to let them have the character kill everyone. It felt so overplayed and obnoxious, like they were trying to say "see look how brutal we can make this" without actually earning the audience's investment. The scenes where Black Adam just goes around dominating everyone just felt empty, like sure it was cool to see him be so powerful and instantly kill people, but it took all the tension out of the scenes. It felt like they were beating me over the head with "look how powerful and ruthless he is". The novelty of it wore off very quickly too, so thank god the film introduces the Justice Society pretty quick! They did make the smart choice of making this equal parts a Justice Society film as they did a Black Adam film, and I gotta say while I did find the character of Black Adam quite interesting, it was the Justice Society (mainly Hawkman and Doctor Fate) that I loved!

It's when the Justice Society comes in that the movie remembers how fun exciting superhero stories can be. I enjoyed their part in the story the most, and instantly loved the characters. Pierce Brosnan's Doctor Fate was awesome, it was so cool to see Brosnan in a superhero role. He did feel a little reminiscent of a certain Marvel Doctor, but that's okay because they both have some COOL scenes; Fate had some of the most memorable in the film! Hawkman was also pretty badass, I really hope to see these characters again! And I gotta say, I did love Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam. He suits the role very well and I'd love to see this iteration of the character return. I'm just not sure how I feel about him in this movie. It makes him look cool and all, and Johnson's physique is perfect for the character, but he had almost no story. Like they introduced his backstory and everything, but once the movie got going it never stopped to examine his character; we never understood how he felt about anything, which made him just come across as an uncharming sociopath. This is especially unusual for Johnson, as we all know how undeniably charismatic he can be, and he just isn't here. But damn he sure is magnetic and does command the screen with his hulking form and brooding looks. The only cast members I didn't like, and this was more because of the way their characters were written, were Adrianna and her son. They really did not work for me and made some really dumb decisions throughout the movie, and had some very cringey scenes. But luckily that was only a minor part! There was some cool cameos too, surprisingly from James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" and of course a certain cast member from "Shazam!". I did love these little connections- it's nice to see the DCEU try to be interconnected again! And the "Shazam!" stuff was awesome, it showed some things I wished we got to see in that movie! And how could I forget... There was one other cameo I did really love. It's definitely the worst kept secret in Hollywood... but made for an awesome end credit scene and made this fan very happy!

The filmmaking here is abysmal. Jaume Collet-Serra has never made a great movie, instead making B-level movies at the studio level... and this might just be proof he is not capable of directing films of this scale. He makes every moment feel mundane; from Black Adam going on a killing spree to the big fight between the JSA and Black Adam, these moments should feel engaging and cool, but instead just bored me, frankly. It feels like he is trying so hard to show spectacle, but he ultimately fails, making it all feel cheap and generic. I also couldn't stand the cinematography. It seems like they shot the film to look like Zack Snyder's "300", with bland colours and lots and lots of annoying slo-mo. At least the CGI was good! There were some moments that had their flaws, but overall this movie has some awesome CGI (and a seemingly obligatory CGI filled 3rd act). Don't even get me started on the truly awful sound mix, it just felt like sound was being blared in my face for 2 hours and I couldn't discern what I was hearing. It just sounded messy. The score isn't memorable, instead it just sounds like a jumble of notes and digital instrumentation, it has no emotional core to the music and it is just noise. Even the dialogue is not mixed well, but that's okay because the dialogue is horrendous anyways.

So why, after all that complaining, did I ultimately enjoy myself while watching? Well, because it has enough cool moments that I came out satisfied. I have never seen a movie so bad that I still enjoyed this much. It's remarkable how well a few moments and ideas can make for an enjoyable viewing experience. The disappointing part of this is, if only they put the good moments together in better ways this could have been an awesome film, but instead it misses so many opportunities. There was one moment that really stands out to me because it made me want to cheer however, and that was the awesome reference to "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly", I feel like many superhero fans will miss that reference, but for me as a cinephile that scene quickly became my favourite in the film! The film felt like it was made in the 90s, before the MCU, before X-Men, before superhero flicks became popular back when they were still trying to figure them out, it was just all over the place. And it also happened to be pretty derivative of other films- "Avatar", "Black Panther" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" especially. But despite all my issues I have with this film - and I have many - it somehow still managed to entertain me and leave me satisfied by the time it was over (possibly because of the awesome end-credit scene). It was kind of like "Venom"... just some mindless superhero fun! I wish it was a better movie because it did have some awesome elements, but as a film it ultimately fails. I would like to see more of Dwayne Johnson's "Black Adam", especially in a potential "Black Adam v. Superman" movie he keeps talking about! With some improvements, it could be a much better movie than this, while still being entertaining!