Black Adam (2022) [review]
Black Adam (2022) [review]
His name is Dwayne and he's white.
Quick(ish) Review
Bad film based around a bad plot with bad narration and bad CG. I also don’t like the lead actor. Who is bad.
…and that’s only the first 25 minutes. Which is, again, where I switched off. The filmmakers should be grateful I lasted that long.
Let’s be honest, this is a 2022 superhero movie. I could skip the first 50 minutes and still be able to keep up with its infantile plot; there’s a bad guy, a good guy and the one with better CG wins.
Some bad guy wants a magical device that gives him lots of power. Black Adam is trying to stop him. Simple story but most are. So long as the characters are likable and the settings, dialogue is engaging and effects are decent.
There seems to be a black African kid, who’s name must be Adam, that gains the same powers as Shazam. This turns him in to Dwayne “The Steroid” Johnson. Who is not black. How exciting.
A stunning and brave female leads a small group of annoying losers to find the bad mans artefact. They find it. Bad people arrive. Cue one of the worst CG comic book fights I’ve endured to date. It’s top quality in terms of blending. The problem is realism and acting.
The opening narration is horrendous. It lasts for a good 5+ minutes (?) and sets up the entire backstory. I skipped it. All of it. The kid doing the narration is appallingly bad; whiny, high-pitched, monotonous. Made worse that the “audio engineer” didn’t mix the levels correctly and he’s far too loud to ignore.
Everything looks fake. People accept this as normal in modern cinema, I do not. If this is as good as the technology gets, studios should return to scale miniatures. Because there are movies from the 1980’s which look more believable than ‘Black Adam’.
‘Black Adam’ is an immature, generic, bland waste of time. It’s a waste of time that you’ve wasted before. Only this time there’s Dwayne “The Steroid” Johnson. If you like the movie just because he’s in it, or because there’s a brief cameo by Superman, you’re a fucking idiot.
Overview
Genre(s): Comic book, DC, Superhero, Action, Adventure
Location(s): Green screen
Writer(s): Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani
Director(s): Jaume Collet-Serra
Main actor(s):
'Dwayne "The Steroid" Johnson' as 'Black Adam'
Official Synopsis:
“Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods - and imprisoned just as quickly - Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.”
Box Art:
Bad Movie Rant - The Message
No major spoilers from here on, but it does cover events up to 25 minutes in to the movie. That’s all I could sit through.
Brace yourself for a quote from one of the first interactions of the movie. I should have turned off at this point, but I really wanted to give this one a try. I thought ancient Egypt would be interesting.
This diatribe comes from a terrorist kid, ignoring the law, lecturing a US soldier who is risking his life to protect a checkpoint in a shit hole country:
“What you are is a neo-imperialist enforcer from halfway around the world, sent here to steal my country’s natural resources, strip-mine our sacred lands, pollute our water, oppress our heritage and make us wait in lines all day.”
Even worse than the ignorant lecture, is the kid seems to really believe the lie. That’s not acting. It could have been directly quoted from Wikipedia, the biggest distributor of fake news and propaganda in history? Perhaps the kids should get an education before getting a job? Because that Hollywood career isn’t going anywhere and a mentality like that will only lead to a drug overdose in your underpants.
Reality check. The government of that country asked the soldier to be there. Its native government sold the rights to their resources and lands to another country. The government would also have agreed to handle environmental protection operations, but didn’t. Because these corrupt governments of shit hole countries don’t care about their people or country. They ruin theirs, blame everyone but themselves, then ruin ours.
A person protecting the interests and people of a legitimate business, invited by the local government, is the bad guy? This is why none of you Hollywood writers, directors or actors could get jobs during the last strike. You have no sense of reality outside of CNN or skills to benefit society. Everyone in Hollywood is worthless.
That Kid
There’s not much left to say which wasn’t covered in the quick review; annoying kid, bad CG and a generic plot.
The kids narration was so poor that I scanned open browser tabs, thinking some Internet polluting advert had triggered in the background. It’s an overpowering voice that isn’t mixed with the other audio. The sharpness can’t be ignored. Why would the viewer want to ignore it? Why would anyone leave such a horrible opening in a movie needing to make hundreds of millions of dollars?
I’m just nitpicking, right? The narration goes on for 6 minutes and explains what transpired in ancient Egypt; the origins of Black Adam, his and the villains powers. It’s meant to be dramatic and draw the viewer in, not make them grimace. If I can’t sit through it then the directors vision is already lost to me.
Given the importance of this opening, why wasn’t it narrated by Dwayne “The Steroid” Johnson? Can he not read? That’s coming from someone who detests him. The voice is recognisable and powerful. Perfect for narration. It’s not a spoiler that he’s Black Adam when it’s on all the posters and we see it in this opening sequence!
On the plus side, I found it very funny that when the young black boy gained super powers he turned in to a giant white guy. Yes, “The Steroid” is white. Regardless of what nonsense he makes up about his heritage.
Something this bad which persists for this long would normally have me switching off immediately. However, a friend stated they found ‘Black Adam’ “enjoyable”. Maybe I am the Karen?
So I gave it a few more minutes…
The First CG Fight
This scene is so obnoxiously fake that it broke me. A lot of effort has been made to blend everything, but it all looks computer generated. Because it is. This is not an issue exclusive to ‘Black Adam’, it’s all Marvel movies.
Movies like ‘Batman’ (1989) and ‘Blade Runner’ (1982) hold up graphically today because they used miniature models and real sets. There’s something about the lighting and depth that can’t be replicated with CG. Irrespective of talent, CG will always be inferior to real sets. Regardless of scale.
Critique, if you will, the still image below from ‘Black Adam’. He’s quite clearly not part of the scene, rather added in post. Cliffs look alright but are blurry in places and the distance fogging is atrociously lazy.
Those helicopters don’t fit either. Now it’s paused I think I know why; there’s no air displacement from heat or vertical thrust. This wasn’t in my noodle while watching the scene, but perhaps my subconscious was telling me this was fake? It wouldn’t happen with miniatures as they still rely on real world physics, only smaller.
There’s no reason the helicopters and the desert couldn’t be real. With Black Adam added in post. That would require a competent director though. One who could scout locations, plan a scene and understand reality. When everything looks fake and moves fake, there’s no human connection to it.
Realism is a make or break factor for me. A little amateurish CG isn’t going to put me off. Though given the length of this scene, it’s importance and the trend with modern comic book movies, it will only take 1 more irritation to drive me away. Well there’s a big one!
Black Adam appears to have Shazam powers. Which are almost identical to Superman; lightning fast, seemingly immortal, impervious to all weapons, has super strength and some sort of electric power. I hate Superman for this and I hate Black Adam even more; being a bad Superman clone. These are too many powers for a single character. He’s unstoppable space magic.
The bad guys know Black Adam exists. They know his powers; that he’s unstoppable. Why did they send hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and death gratuity payments in to a hopeless battle?
Horrendous writing. As usual. Someone wanted an explosive scene depicting Black Adams power and this was the best they could muster? No intelligence or thought. Just jarring camera movements and thousands of hours in render farms.
From the screechy opening narration, we know there was an epic battle between 2 super beings in ancient Egypt. So make this an origin movie set back then! That would be unique. Oh, but then there could be no cameo by Superman, which is the major selling point of this film. Not Black Adam, the character it’s based on.
…or there could be a cameo if anyone in the movie industry was competent enough to formulate a coherent time travel narrative. Forget Superman, introduce Green Lantern or have Flash travel back in time using the Speed Force? If I can can ponder these scenarios at 23:29 on a Friday night for free, why can’t multi-millionaires in Hollywood who are paid extortionate amounts do the same?
The ultimate insult is how Black Adam is subdued. After he’s killed everyone, a small rocket flies towards him. He catches it, reads “Eternium” on the side, it explodes and he’s incapacitated. If it was known this was the way to stop him, why wasn’t it used before all their solders and their equipment got sent to banworld? I give up.
There is no excuse for writing this bad in a movie with a budget so large that it wouldn’t fit on the screen of cash withdrawal machine. Perhaps they wanted to test his powers first? Then why not lure Superman or Shazam in to battle him? It doesn’t matter if Black Adam loses. The bad guy is after a magical crown or some shit, not him.
Everything about these first 25 minutes is why I hate modern comic book movies and can’t sit through them. They personally insult me.
Although, there is 1 more comic book film I would like to try watching before going back to real movies. Just the one!
Maybe 2.
The End
Bail time: 25 minutes.
‘Black Adam’ isn’t anywhere close to being the worst movie ever. I could be subtly prodded to say it’s maybe even watchable. Is that all you want from a movie? Something you’ve seen before, changed ever so slightly to avoid copyright infringement? Something to lower your IQ instead of taking a chance and experiencing something new?
This movie never interested me. The lead actor is a terrible person and I don’t see the point of a 90 minute video game cut scene if there’s nothing to play afterwards. In fact, I don’t even want a 90 minute cut scene in a video game!
These comic book movies have devolved in to easily predictable plots with laughable action sequences, bolstered by unrealistic CG. The original batch of Marvel movies like ‘Iron-Man’ (2008), ‘Thor’ (2011), ‘Avengers’ (2012) and ‘Guardians’ (2014) movies were good. Well written, paced, acted, the audio was balanced and CG was more believable than current Marvel offerings.
The only issue with these origin movies was they made far too much money. Some of the sequels were OK, most were forgettable. There’s a finite number of narratives which can be employed when the hero never dies and villain always loses.
Superman, Batman, these legendary characters have to die. Not to be brought back with space magic, but for another generation of heroes to take up their mantles. Future movies can be historical records for fallen heroes, or their series’ can be rebooted. It’s insulting to viewers when movie studios make it blindingly obvious that main characters never, realistically, have a chance of dying. If there’s another 3 sequels in the pipeline, of course the hero survives the threat of <whatever>. Surprise endings sell rather well.
Marvel movies were loosely tied together by the Thanos plot. DC had no direction; throwing movies out with little thought or long term plans. As someone who once liked the DC universe, the incompetence behind these movies pushed me away from comic book adaptations altogether. I’ll occasionally watch Michael Keaton Batman, but that’s it.
It’s not that comic book movies have outstayed their welcome and need to go away. Rather the uninspired studio hacks who pump them out need to. They don’t understand how to make a movie. It’s more than just point and shoot whatever’s in front of you.
I’ll wrap this up with one of my favourite behind-the-scenes of all time. Michelle Pfeiffer. The only Catwoman. Single shot. No computer graphics. No stunt actress. Just perfection. Can you name a single actress today who could do this? Or would even try?