Black Adam

Dwayne Johnson is beginning to look like Steven Seagal, at least in action movies. This is unwatchable. Tarantino is right, the last two decades of cinema, crammed with colourful comic book adaptations, is a dark era. Films made to order, without their own identity, creative passion and without a shred of originality. Thank goodness for exceptions like James Gunn (well, okay, the last Avengers and its emotional spark was pretty OK too, the one-eyed king among the blind). (2022.12.01)

I really don't want to watch this anymore. After Zack Snyder’s departure, I thought Warner wouldn't send these movies out anymore, but Black Adam actually looks exactly the same as the Snyder films, only that Jaume Collet-Serra uses about a third less slow motion. We still get more than an annoying amount of it though, and when the action starts, you don't really enjoy it because when it's not slow motion, it's either chaos or just golden-blue flashing. And there’s action more or less all the time, because there's nothing to stand on in terms of story, character depth, or anything else that could potentially engage, and they probably knew that. Black Adam is an emaciated over-colourful action flick that tries to be theatrically spectacular, but comes across as ridiculous and often even embarrassing (the skateboarding boy brings to mind the worst of 90s clichés). Dwayne Johnson stares and tries in vain to convince himself that he's playing Clint Eastwood, and getting through this collection of dull visual attractions, empty story and flat characters to the end credits is ultimately quite a chore. But it does have an advantage, an hour and a half after the screening ended, I remember nothing of Black Adam. (2022.10.19)

They try their best, but with a stupid and muddled script that even The Rock can’t move. Dwayne's dream project has finally arrived and it's not bad, but it's not very good either. It’s average, with an excellent Brosnan, whose Doctor Fate deserves his own film. On the other hand, the rest of the JSA team, or whatever it was, is rather crap, but someone has to do that job. Black Adam has a couple of great scenes where he slices up the bad guys, rips their arms off, and doesn't coddle them at all, but he gets to the gory action for strange reasons, often with no apparent motivation. Colett-Serra doesn't have a coherent story to fill out the Snyder-esque slow motion action, but he tries; it's not much fun, unfortunately. Now we need to pray that Gunn writes the script for the sequel and that Clark will by for more than a brief chat. (2022.11.27)

Fun, nothing more, but nothing less. The comparisons with X-Men: Apocalypse are warranted, but I think that in this regard, Black Adam hit the spot. Of course it's not as dark as everyone told us it would be, but it's no boy scout either, and I loved the main revolutionary idea, the natural introduction of new heroes to the scene (offbeat and likeable, with a perfect Pierce Brosnan) and the fact that each of them really was something, and until Johnson's taciturn terminator disposed of whomever he pleased, I was looking forward to every scene. The script even surprised me at the end, and although Jaume Collet-Serra copied Zack Snyder's style, he never overdid it. If there was one thing that really bothered me, it was the somewhat unclear connection to the world of Shazam. Otherwise – and also thanks to the fairly reasonable running time – I really can't complain. It's a promising sign that the DC cinematic universe might finally be taking shape after all these years. (2022.10.28)

While watching Black Adam, I felt like I was watching a sort of mash-up of the MCU and DC films, especially considering the characters – Doctor Fate (Dr. Strange), Hawkman (Falcon), Atom Smasher (Ant-Man) and Cyclone (Storm or Enchantress) – whose almost rip-off-like similarities at times irritated me a little. In terms of action and visuals, the film is handled quite solidly, although there are way too many slow-motion sequences in places (the film might have been ten minutes shorter without them), but whatever. I found the cast a bit awkwardly chosen to the point of being second-rate in some cases (like the wannabe funny and heroic family). Too bad Black Adam isn't, as one might expect from the title, a bit darker (but not as visually badly dark as Batman vs Superman) and too bad it doesn't hold back with the humour a little. (Spoiler alert) I was "amused" that Marwan Kenzari basically reprised his role of Jafar. (2022.10.20)