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| Black Adam meets the iconic DC Comics superhero Hawkman |
Well, despite all the dreadful reviews, I went to see Black Adam this afternoon. I would say it’s a movie made for comic book geeks, not the general audience, but since I fit within those parameters, I quite enjoyed it.
The stoic protagonist is an ancient, problematic champion reawakened by a familiar magic word, and the superheroic Justice Society struggles to contain his seeming omnipotence. Black Adam wades through enemies like a more compact but equally effective Godzilla.
This is the first time we’ve seen the Justice Society on the big screen, despite the fact that they were the first superhero team in comics, created in the early 1940s.
As the colorful fireworks rolled on and on, I kept wanting to see the plot take an inobvious turn, and three-quarters of the way through it did, amping up the audience’s interest.
Pierce Brosnan’s long familiarity with action-adventure shenanigans lets him handle the role of the venerable superhero Dr. Fate with ease (and no, he’s not an imitation of Dr. Strange. If anything, it’s the other way around).
I was particularly impressed by Dwayne Johnson’s vastly and I think effectively underplayed Black Adam. Johnson has a rare, odd kind of otherworldly gravitas that lends itself perfectly to a superhero role (I’ve always thought that Uma Thurman has it too). It’s why I've long wanted to see Johnson playing the pulp superhero Doc Savage in a film project that’s now apparently dead.
The film should properly be counted as the second Shazam movie, for those who are bothering to keep score. A surprise credits sequence is a crowd pleaser, and sports one subtle touch that is truly delicious.
The film references without exploring the eternal theme of superhero stories, which is power and morality. But it’s pretty interesting that the villains Black Adam crushes like annoying insects are military “contractors” occupying and oppressing a Mideast country.
I’m guessing the Pentagon didn’t kick in any funding for this one.
Gary Day wrote:
ReplyDeleteJohnson has always been seriously charismatic, but his acting skills have really grown over the years.
Stephen Bayer wrote:
ReplyDeleteThat was something that I was concerned about going into the movie: would we see any "Rock-ism" like the raised eyebrow. Thankfully, Johnson played it straight with no hamminess.
The JSA was briefly but clearly uncomfortable with the fact that by refusing to intervene against an oppressive military-contractor invasion force, they were effectively supporting it. But I'd like to have seen the film have the courage to go more deeply into that moral dilemma between "chaos" and "order."
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