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Description
BLACK ADAM.
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra.
Produced by: Adam Sztykiel.
Starring: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell and Pierce Brosnan.
Based on the somewhat popular character published by: DC Comics.
Rated: 12A (Contains violence, gore and scenes not suitable for children).

I know I give Disney and Marvel so much shit you'd swear they were my personal toilet, but Warner Bros and DC Comics find ways of getting on my bad side from time to time. The main offence they keep making is what I like to call "the vicious cycle of DC Comics."

It begins with them producing a movie based on a relatively C-List character from their expansive library (that isn't Batman or Superman related) which naturally causes the average moviegoer to be confused and ask: "Are they Batman or Superman related?" So the movie either bombs or underperforms; prompting Warner Bros to go: "Urgh! What were we thinking? Make a new Batman or Superman related movie to win the audience back!" Proving the real killer of DC's potential is people's refusal to leave their Bat-Security Blankets.

You occasionally get a deviation to this trend, such as Wonder Woman, Aquaman or Shazam, but it doesn't take long for either a Green Lantern or a Suicide Squad to cause Warner Bros to panic and light the Bat-Signal. The non-comic reading audience get the only two characters they care about, while people like me piss and moan at another 3 Batman movies on the goddamn horizon.

Take a guess where Black Adam falls into that example?

Before I go on, I do want to say I highly enjoyed this movie as it feels like a nice throwback to comicbook movies of the 2000s. What I mean by that is this is a stand alone movie that anyone can view and not feel like they need to have read the comics its based on, nor do to they have to watch three or nineteen movies prior to its release. It's very newbie friendly, if you get what I'm saying.

It also contains a lot of that mid-2000s charm of stupid jokes (but not quips) and a lot of liscened music to help sell paticular gags.

The movie understands not many people know who Black Adam is, but also doesn't want to waste time going into his origin in great detail. Just a simple flashback intro that we'll occassionally cut back to when we need to give the titular character some emotional depth.

I'm somewhat familar with his origin story so the only real "change" to it is instead of killing his nephew for the godly power, he was gifted the power by his son. This was changed to make the character more sympathetic instead of a full blown villain; kind of similar to how the movie versions of Venom, Morbius and The Joker were altered to make them more sort of anti-heroes than villains.

Not sure why we can't have villains being villains in movies to be honest, for I'm fine with a story about a character's soul motivation being a dick (It's why I love The Grinch so much).

Naturally I would have liked a sequel, but that's looking doubtful thanks to WB's shoddy new management. "I've sat through enough mediocre and terrible DC films!" bellows James Gunn. Well, motherfucker, I sat through three of your mediocre movies (one of which being a DC film) so I believe you're in no position to talk.

I wonder if people are coming down hard on this movie because The Rock once said: "I smell a lot of Marvel bitches up in here", at some award show in the past. Who knew a lot of those 'Marvel bitches' were film critics?

I'm going to do something a little bit different with this review. I'm only going to talk about the things I didn't like about the movie, so presume anything I don't mention here is either fine, OK or I just didn't have a problem with it.

Off the top of my head - and get this ball rolling - the whole kid appeal character shit has to stop. Why does Black Adam need an irritating little hype kid that's eerily reminiscent of John Connor from Terminator 2? It was bad enough you did the same thing with Shazam, but the difference is this kid can't act and is more like that annoying child from Superman 3.

And then there's Black Adam himself. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but he's really a poor choice for this character. I know people will point to his contributions to the Fast & the Furious franchise, but there's always been something odd to me about casting him in these SUPER SERIOUS roles. It's hard for me to explain, but the best I can say is "imagine Jim Carrey or Lee Evans being cast to play the T800 in the Terminator series." You could, but it just looks wrong.

Maybe it's because I knew him best from his WWE days, but watching him play this emotionless godlike character seems almost counter to what he's good at. I would love to see a movie where Black Adam is telling the main villain to "know his role and shut his mouth!"

Black Adam: What is your name?
Superman: I'm Su...
Black Adam: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!!!

Speaking of the main villain, I can't even remember a single thing about him besides looking like a Poundland version of Hellboy. Besides him, the movie tries to throw in Intergang, The Justice Society of America and Amanda Waller, but they all feel like "we have to have action scenes" rather than substance. In fact, Intergang kinda disappeared after the first act of this movie; to the point I was wondering what was even the point of having them here at all. Yes, they're the lead in to the crown macguffin Poundland Hellboy needs, but you could replace Intergang with girl scouts or the fucking Teletubbies and it would have changed nothing.

Personally, I would have written them out entirely and gave the Justice Society more screen time. Atom Smasher certainly needed it. I honestly thought he was just The Atom at first but they changed his name for some legal reason. Nope, just some bumbling kid character with similar powers but trying too hard to be funny.

But my biggest complaint with the movie is the final act itself. The whole 'two armies fighting each other as the main hero fights the big bad, while a big sky beam is in the background' need to stop being happening because it's a concept that's been done to death at this point! Is there no other way to cap off these movies now? No wonder this genre is dying a slow and painful death, because you keep doing the same shit over and over again.

She-Hulk: I made that point you know!
Me: Sit your poorly rendered CGI ass down, before I ask for a directors cut!

I personally would have ended the movie with Black Adam's incarceration in Waller's prison, as a very poignant message to the audience that violence and rage are never the answer, but trying to communicate with those who oppose us could lead to more diplomatic solutions. But, you know, third act's gotta third act I suppose.

Besides all that, I loved it. Pierce Brosnan being the fucking show stealer and it's nice to see he's still got it after all these years. He carries a certain charm and smarmyness to him that sold a lot of the movie's humour. His friendship with Hawkman was amusing for you could tell these were old friends who have a very butting heads friendship (would have been nice to have seen more of this in the movie).

while I enjoyed Quintessa Swindell's brief contribution; she really reminded me of my character, Maia De Campo. The visual effects of how she commands the wind via slow-mo had a very trippy look to it that gave the movie some visual flair to help it stand out.

Oh, one last complaint: The use of Kayne West's "Power".... You know why.

As I mentioned at the beginning, none of these issues will be worked out because Warner Brothers, David Zaslav and James Gunn have decided there won't be a sequel to Black Adam. I am saddened to hear that, because there's tons of potential for DC Movies to finally move on from the same two characters that have been done to death at this point (mainly looking at Batman on that one).

I think what's depressing about this whole thing is that overlooked or unknown comic characters can produce crowd pleasing movies. Look over at Marvel and how many characters have gone from D-List, to household names thanks to the MCU. Meanwhile, WB's big solution to fight movie stagnation is with more stagnation!

Now to be fair, we haven't had a proper solo Superman movie since Man of Steel back in 2013, but I really don't trust these absolute wankers with a property like Superman. Hell, I'd trust Michael Bay with this character if I'm being perfectly honest wih you, before I'd let Gunn make a movie about "whiny emo teenage Superman!"

As for the caped crusader, we recently got The Batman this year and it's one of the most ridiculous comedies I’ve ever seen in my entire life; to the point it makes Batman & Robin look like Hamlet. I don’t think we need any more movies for Batman until 2030, but we're gonna get them anyway.

I naively believed DC and Warner Brothers were finally going to give us some more obscure characters like Black Adam, Booster Gold or god forbid a Blue Beetle movie. "Nah, fam, here's more Bats and Supes movies!" I'm honestly surprised they're not making "BATMAN V BATMAN: DAWN OF BATMAN (Featuring Batman from the Batman Franchise)" as their next big summer blockbuster.

(Bottom line)
Black Adam isn't the worst superhero origin movie I've ever seen, but it could have been better. It's about on the same level as the likes of X-Men: Apocalypse, Venom and Deadpool if you wanted a comparison. I do recommend you check it out because it may have something to keep you interested in the slowly dying comic book movie genre.

It's not like you'll be getting anything like this from DC going forward ever again.

Description
BLACK ADAM.
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra.
Produced by: Adam Sztykiel.
Starring: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell and Pierce Brosnan.
Based on the somewhat popular character published by: DC Comics.
Rated: 12A (Contains violence, gore and scenes not suitable for children).

I know I give Disney and Marvel so much shit you'd swear they were my personal toilet, but Warner Bros and DC Comics find ways of getting on my bad side from time to time. The main offence they keep making is what I like to call "the vicious cycle of DC Comics."

It begins with them producing a movie based on a relatively C-List character from their expansive library (that isn't Batman or Superman related) which naturally causes the average moviegoer to be confused and ask: "Are they Batman or Superman related?" So the movie either bombs or underperforms; prompting Warner Bros to go: "Urgh! What were we thinking? Make a new Batman or Superman related movie to win the audience back!" Proving the real killer of DC's potential is people's refusal to leave their Bat-Security Blankets.

You occasionally get a deviation to this trend, such as Wonder Woman, Aquaman or Shazam, but it doesn't take long for either a Green Lantern or a Suicide Squad to cause Warner Bros to panic and light the Bat-Signal. The non-comic reading audience get the only two characters they care about, while people like me piss and moan at another 3 Batman movies on the goddamn horizon.

Take a guess where Black Adam falls into that example?

Before I go on, I do want to say I highly enjoyed this movie as it feels like a nice throwback to comicbook movies of the 2000s. What I mean by that is this is a stand alone movie that anyone can view and not feel like they need to have read the comics its based on, nor do to they have to watch three or nineteen movies prior to its release. It's very newbie friendly, if you get what I'm saying.

It also contains a lot of that mid-2000s charm of stupid jokes (but not quips) and a lot of liscened music to help sell paticular gags.

The movie understands not many people know who Black Adam is, but also doesn't want to waste time going into his origin in great detail. Just a simple flashback intro that we'll occassionally cut back to when we need to give the titular character some emotional depth.

I'm somewhat familar with his origin story so the only real "change" to it is instead of killing his nephew for the godly power, he was gifted the power by his son. This was changed to make the character more sympathetic instead of a full blown villain; kind of similar to how the movie versions of Venom, Morbius and The Joker were altered to make them more sort of anti-heroes than villains.

Not sure why we can't have villains being villains in movies to be honest, for I'm fine with a story about a character's soul motivation being a dick (It's why I love The Grinch so much).

Naturally I would have liked a sequel, but that's looking doubtful thanks to WB's shoddy new management. "I've sat through enough mediocre and terrible DC films!" bellows James Gunn. Well, motherfucker, I sat through three of your mediocre movies (one of which being a DC film) so I believe you're in no position to talk.

I wonder if people are coming down hard on this movie because The Rock once said: "I smell a lot of Marvel bitches up in here", at some award show in the past. Who knew a lot of those 'Marvel bitches' were film critics?

I'm going to do something a little bit different with this review. I'm only going to talk about the things I didn't like about the movie, so presume anything I don't mention here is either fine, OK or I just didn't have a problem with it.

Off the top of my head - and get this ball rolling - the whole kid appeal character shit has to stop. Why does Black Adam need an irritating little hype kid that's eerily reminiscent of John Connor from Terminator 2? It was bad enough you did the same thing with Shazam, but the difference is this kid can't act and is more like that annoying child from Superman 3.

And then there's Black Adam himself. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but he's really a poor choice for this character. I know people will point to his contributions to the Fast & the Furious franchise, but there's always been something odd to me about casting him in these SUPER SERIOUS roles. It's hard for me to explain, but the best I can say is "imagine Jim Carrey or Lee Evans being cast to play the T800 in the Terminator series." You could, but it just looks wrong.

Maybe it's because I knew him best from his WWE days, but watching him play this emotionless godlike character seems almost counter to what he's good at. I would love to see a movie where Black Adam is telling the main villain to "know his role and shut his mouth!"

Black Adam: What is your name?
Superman: I'm Su...
Black Adam: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!!!

Speaking of the main villain, I can't even remember a single thing about him besides looking like a Poundland version of Hellboy. Besides him, the movie tries to throw in Intergang, The Justice Society of America and Amanda Waller, but they all feel like "we have to have action scenes" rather than substance. In fact, Intergang kinda disappeared after the first act of this movie; to the point I was wondering what was even the point of having them here at all. Yes, they're the lead in to the crown macguffin Poundland Hellboy needs, but you could replace Intergang with girl scouts or the fucking Teletubbies and it would have changed nothing.

Personally, I would have written them out entirely and gave the Justice Society more screen time. Atom Smasher certainly needed it. I honestly thought he was just The Atom at first but they changed his name for some legal reason. Nope, just some bumbling kid character with similar powers but trying too hard to be funny.

But my biggest complaint with the movie is the final act itself. The whole 'two armies fighting each other as the main hero fights the big bad, while a big sky beam is in the background' need to stop being happening because it's a concept that's been done to death at this point! Is there no other way to cap off these movies now? No wonder this genre is dying a slow and painful death, because you keep doing the same shit over and over again.

She-Hulk: I made that point you know!
Me: Sit your poorly rendered CGI ass down, before I ask for a directors cut!

I personally would have ended the movie with Black Adam's incarceration in Waller's prison, as a very poignant message to the audience that violence and rage are never the answer, but trying to communicate with those who oppose us could lead to more diplomatic solutions. But, you know, third act's gotta third act I suppose.

Besides all that, I loved it. Pierce Brosnan being the fucking show stealer and it's nice to see he's still got it after all these years. He carries a certain charm and smarmyness to him that sold a lot of the movie's humour. His friendship with Hawkman was amusing for you could tell these were old friends who have a very butting heads friendship (would have been nice to have seen more of this in the movie).

while I enjoyed Quintessa Swindell's brief contribution; she really reminded me of my character, Maia De Campo. The visual effects of how she commands the wind via slow-mo had a very trippy look to it that gave the movie some visual flair to help it stand out.

Oh, one last complaint: The use of Kayne West's "Power".... You know why.

As I mentioned at the beginning, none of these issues will be worked out because Warner Brothers, David Zaslav and James Gunn have decided there won't be a sequel to Black Adam. I am saddened to hear that, because there's tons of potential for DC Movies to finally move on from the same two characters that have been done to death at this point (mainly looking at Batman on that one).

I think what's depressing about this whole thing is that overlooked or unknown comic characters can produce crowd pleasing movies. Look over at Marvel and how many characters have gone from D-List, to household names thanks to the MCU. Meanwhile, WB's big solution to fight movie stagnation is with more stagnation!

Now to be fair, we haven't had a proper solo Superman movie since Man of Steel back in 2013, but I really don't trust these absolute wankers with a property like Superman. Hell, I'd trust Michael Bay with this character if I'm being perfectly honest wih you, before I'd let Gunn make a movie about "whiny emo teenage Superman!"

As for the caped crusader, we recently got The Batman this year and it's one of the most ridiculous comedies I’ve ever seen in my entire life; to the point it makes Batman & Robin look like Hamlet. I don’t think we need any more movies for Batman until 2030, but we're gonna get them anyway.

I naively believed DC and Warner Brothers were finally going to give us some more obscure characters like Black Adam, Booster Gold or god forbid a Blue Beetle movie. "Nah, fam, here's more Bats and Supes movies!" I'm honestly surprised they're not making "BATMAN V BATMAN: DAWN OF BATMAN (Featuring Batman from the Batman Franchise)" as their next big summer blockbuster.

(Bottom line)
Black Adam isn't the worst superhero origin movie I've ever seen, but it could have been better. It's about on the same level as the likes of X-Men: Apocalypse, Venom and Deadpool if you wanted a comparison. I do recommend you check it out because it may have something to keep you interested in the slowly dying comic book movie genre.

It's not like you'll be getting anything like this from DC going forward ever again.