Black Adam

I had some faith in this movie, I bought the movie cup.



I think Black Adam is the weakest of the DC movies, and even then the score is actually pretty good! It's a very odd origin story, not so much in the actual plot of how a slave under a cruel emperor gained the same powers of Captain Marvel and has awakened in the modern day to find his footing and do battle, but more just the execution of the film. If you want your action, this movie sure delivers but obviously there's more to it than that. When I heard Dwayne was gonna be Black Adam instead of Captain Marvel, I felt that was a off choice of casting. No man. It took exactly 1 second after he properly appears and literally pumps a guy with so many volts he essentially disintegrates to a skeleton and then I shut the f*** up real quick. He doesn't have that immense charm but he can still be funny and has no qualms about just brutally massacring people, it's a bit shocking (no pun intended I swear) but still rad. And when I saw trailer appearances of Dr. Fate, Hawkman, Cyclone who I never heard of until now, and The Atom (who for some weird ass reason is called Atom Smasher here) I was ever so slightly concerned the movie was going to be too busy with so many characters, and truth be told if you can just roll with it that these characters are here, the movie suffers no serious damage. The focus is on Black Adam throughout and the Justice Society while still prevalent are secondary characters. And I thought the acting for all of them were rock solid, with my favorite of all the characters being Cyclone played by Quintessa Swindell, she is just so fab and full of cute energy, I was there for her hardcore. Noah Centineo as The Atom was more on the funny bumbling side, it legit almost felt like they were backdooring Ezra Miller's Flash into his character portrayal but it still worked for me. Aldis Hodge as Hawkman I felt did justice to the character in his adaptation, and the clashing of ideologies between him and Black Adam leading to physical clashes I thought was a nice touch. Dr. Fate played by Pierce Brosnan, what interesting casting but he was my other favorite and gahd bless it I want that friggin' robe! Also, really nice of the film to put some love toward middle eastern actors and architecture, Sarah Shahi did very well being an emotional compass but sure wasn't afraid to throw down so well done young lady. Bodhi Sabongui, I will not grudge a great deal, he did decent work and while he was fully a kid sidekick I can't bash a kid's acting talent. The story moves in a somewhat predictable fashion but the entertainment can still be felt. The characters serve a purpose and progress the plot. It does have some very dated aspects to it I sensed a lot of 90s in this, a severe dose of slow-mo, trailing kid sidekick, there is literally a character in a shiny black trenchcoat, the effects do work but the CGI is obvious. And I know this is going to happen, and I'm already goddamn sick of it but people are going to call ripoff on this movie. Oh Dr. Fate is just Doctor Strange, Cyclone is almost Storm and dresses like the Eternals, Hawkman is Falcon, Atom's mask is flat out Deadpool's mask just painted blue, the powerful ore Eternium is just Vibranium. Move along! It's a typical superhero movie. A strange semi-recurring motif occurs where action scenes are put to popular music, when Black Adam goes on his first rampage the entire scene damn near is shot in slow motion set to The Rolling Stones' Paint It Black, and another even odder occurence is they reference The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly and it was so nice they did it twice, prefacing an action scene with Ennio Morricone's The Trio which was my favorite part of the movie. It isn't a great movie, but nor is it a bad movie, as previously mentioned above it is the weakest of the DC movies in my opinion yet I give it 2.5 stars, 7/10, and stick for that mid-credit's scene. Holy shit man! And we need some 50s classics before this month unfortunately ends so join me next week!