Black Adam (2022) - Dwayne Johnson, Noah Centineo, Aldis Hodge, Sarah Shahi

[AlbertV]

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by AlbertV

[AlbertV]

Production has begun this week on Black Adam, in which Dwayne Johnson plays the titular antihero who was once a villain to Shazam! The film will feature other DC superheroes with Jaume Collet-Serra directing from a script by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani.

The other DC superheroes?

Atom Smasher played by future He-Man, Noah Centineo
Hawkman played by Aldis Hodge
Isis played by Sarah Shahi
Doctor Fate played by Pierce Brosnan in his superhero debut
Cyclone played by Quintessa Swindell

The film is coming out on July 29, 2022. 

[DarthKato]

On 4/14/2021 at 2:32 PM, AlbertV said:

Production has begun this week on Black Adam, in which Dwayne Johnson plays the titular antihero who was once a villain to Shazam! The film will feature other DC superheroes with Jaume Collet-Serra directing from a script by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani.

The other DC superheroes?

Atom Smasher played by future He-Man, Noah Centineo
Hawkman played by Aldis Hodge
Isis played by Sarah Shahi
Doctor Fate played by Pierce Brosnan in his superhero debut
Cyclone played by Quintessa Swindell

The film is coming out on July 29, 2022. 

Lets see:

• I have no idea who Atom Smasher is. So I cannot really say much on the casting of Noah Centineo in the role. He seems to have the right build and everything, but I will have to see a trailer to decided. 
• It will be cool to see Hawkman for the first time in a movie, but the casting choice is not favorable. But the character does have the whole thing of being reincarnated over and over again(So what's to stop him from reincarnating into a black guy? I think he does originate from Egypt anyways...), so I guess it isn't a total train-wreck. If the movie is good, I will overlook it.  
• I think Sarah Shahi looks pretty close Isis. Don't know much about her acting ability(Never seen her in anything), but yeah, she looks like a nice choice. 
• Pierce Bronsnan is an interesting choice for Doctor Fate. He's one of my favorite actors, so it will be interesting to see what he does in the role. 
• Eh, I'm not a fan of race-swapping Cyclone, but I'm also not really a fan of Cyclone anyways. Maybe this version will change that. I will meet the movie half-way and give her a chance.

Well, I've liked all the DC movies so far. So I'm super-hyped(Heh) for this movie and all the others that are coming(Except for Wonder Woman 84. That movie worries me). 

[AlbertV]

Shooting is almost done on the film. There will even be a sequence that will be shot at 960fps...which is close to the Valkyrie flashback sequence in Thor: Ragnarok, which was shot at 1200fps. 

[laagi]

I had slight hope for this after the trailer which I quite frankly enjoyed. After the first reviews dropped this hope however slowly diminished. Wasn't really in a rush to see but eventually ended up doing so tonight.

I had low expectations and somewhat still walked away disappointed. Black Adam is another generic superhero movie in an increasing amount of movies with similar problems.

There are certain aspects which would've been interesting like the backdrop of the story or the origin of Black Adam. However neither of these are ever given enough attention.

All we get is a short voice over at the beginning to give us some background to our anti-hero before we change to present day and start with the CGI carnage. Some of which I admit for PG-13 are rather brutal. Apparently so brutal some scenes had to be cut... expecting to see a DC of Black Adam down road.

A story or room for any of the characters to grow is barely there. Terrible writing throughout doesn't help it much either. And what good is one CGI battle after another when there's nothing there holding it together.

Dwayne Johnson is well... Dwayne Johnson. He's charismatic as ever but you can't help but feel that he never truly embraces the character. The movie tries to do it both ways. Black Adam is supposedly not a hero but also not a villain.

Adding insult to injury is that most of the characters are utterly forgettable. Also the one child actor while still somewhat terrible seems to have been written during the 90s... Skateboard time!

Last but not least can action directors or whoever is responsible stop using slow-mow in every damn set piece. It not only looks terrible but after the 10th time I was bored out of my mind with the action. Which was the only thing somewhat serviceable.

Overall I feel that underneath all its faults there could've been something good but neither Johnson nor the director had the courage to embrace that dark tone. They just took the easiest route possible and made another run of the mill forgettable blockbuster!

Nevertheless I'm sure this will be a success either way. I mean Johnson is not just an actor he's build an empire around his persona and everything is kept pretty much on brand here.

Edited October 28, 2022 by laagi

[ShaOW!linDude]

Took this in a couple of weeks ago. 

I loved this movie. Fairly tight story. Action is well-paced and properly escalates, and doesn't skimp on the mix-ups. The character does have certain arrogance in the comics, and that was downplayed. A little of that could've upped the comedic aspect. Regardless, for me, Johnson didn't disappoint. I'm wanting to see it again. 

Honestly, I've always envisioned him as the perfect Namor, and believe that's who Marvel should've cast and gone with in a truer depiction of the character. 

[DarthKato]

Black Adam (2022)

Intro: Well, here we are at last to take a look at the newest entry into the DCEU. I didn't really know what to expect, seeing as I don't have a lot of knowledge on Black Adam(Never read one of his comics to my knowledge) and the casting choices were interesting, with some highs and lows. But I went into this movie with an open mind and a willingness to meet it half way. Now, I have generally liked most of the live-action DCEU movies, save for Birds of Prey, which was kind of garbage. So being invested this far probably helped to elevate my opinion of this movie more so than if I was a newcomer. Overall, I really enjoyed the film. It wasn't the best(Wonder Woman) or the worst(Birds of Prey), but it was an enjoyable addition to the lore. 

Story/Plot: The story was fine. Nothing more than a series of excuses for our heroes and villains to beat the hell out of each other and blow stuff up, but it works. It felt they were trying to grab some of the charm of the Shazam movie, with mixed success. Shazam was a wonderful movie that had a nice flow to it, that mixed action and comedy very well together. Black Adam, on the other hand, just felt like a convoluted mess from beginning to end. We don't even see or know of our main villain until the last 20ish minutes of the film. Most of our time is spent seeing the conflict between Black Adam and the Justice Society. I actually love the Justice Society, so it was nice to see them on screen, so I give the movie props for finally letting me see them in a movie. 

Characters/Actors: This is probably the area that I would most like to talk about. I know it might sound strange to some, but I do have a sort of love for my favorite comic book characters, and I like to see them handled with respect. So lets go over the main characters of the movie, which include:

• Black Adam (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson)
• Hawkman (Aldis Hodge)
• Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo)
• Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan)
• Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) 
• Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi)
• Amon Tomaz ( Bodhi Sabongu)
• Sabbac (? No Spoilers here. lol) 

Okay, first up: I think that Dwayne Johnson did a pretty good job with the title character. Oh, I don't know too much about Black Adam, but his take on the character was pretty cool and I wouldn't mind seeing more of him. His interaction with Amon kind of had some of that Shazam charm to it, with the boy trying to teach the anti-hero how to a real hero, which resulted in situations that got some chuckles out of me. Good stuff, even if it didn't reach the high of what we got in Shazam. Hawkman, on the other hand, could have benefited from having another actor. Aldis wasn't terrible in the part, but he also wasn't very good either. He never really convinced me that he was this smart, bad-ass guy that he is suppose to be.  Also his suit looked kind of dumb. I would have preferred they went with the bare-chested look that the character has in the comic. This guy just seemed like a semi-competent cosplayer. Atom Smasher was fine. He was basically channeling The Flash character from Justice League as the comedy relief. Not much to say, except his interaction with Cyclone actually kind of worked. And speaking of Cyclone, Swindell made me kind of like the character. I admit, I groaned at Hollywood making yet another stereotypical "Flawless Nerd" type character. But Swindell quickly won me over with her sweet personality and her interaction with Atom Smasher. Her powers were also really cool, but more on that in a bit. Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate was a brilliant choice in my opinion. He felt like a guy who had this vast knowledge given to him by this haunted helmet. Dr. Fate and Black Adam are easily my favorite characters in this movie(Save for one other character later on. More on that in a bit as well). Sabbac, as our main villain, had a cool design, but I found him kind of boring. I never once thought of him as this big threat that our heroes might not be able to handle. Heck, like I said before, we don't even get a hint of him until the last bit of the film. This is really a let down. If not for the conflict between the Justice Society and Black Adam, this movie would be dull from a lack of a main villain. You might bring up the occupier's of Kahndaq as another antagonist, but there really isn't a good enough figurehead to make that true in my opinion. Finally, Amon and his mom Adrianna were fine. Nothing much else to say. Its just, unless the character is really well done(Like Lois Lane for instance), ordinary people in movies like this can come across as out of place at best and annoying at worse. These two fell somewhere in the middle for me. Its not as bad as the humans in the Transformers movies, but they are pretty close. 

Sound and Design: Well, this movie had a lot of cool parts to it, like the slow motion fight between Black Adam and the military(Which was so brutal at times, it had to be nearing an R-rating) and Black Adam vs Justice Society. I really liked the look of most of the costumes(Save for Hawkman, but even he had those cool wings, helmet, and weapons). Dr. Fate looked like Dr. Fate, Black Adam looked Like Black Adam(Except for being bald. lol) so I'm very pleased. And the effects they did with Cyclone when she was using her powers were so friggin cool. It looked like a crazy rainbow-color tornado. Really cool stuff. Oh, and like I referred to before, Sabbac looked really cool, as this badass demon dude. But they waste it on a lackluster finally. But anyway, props to the costume department and to the CGI techs. 

Super Special Spoiler Section:

Spoiler

Superman shows up!!!! When he walked out of that smoke and was all like, " We need to talk." I jumped out of my chair and was all like, " oh shit, Superman just showed up!" It was so great to see Henry Cavill show up again(And it looked like he even had the famous Superman "S" curl on his forehead!). Its a shame that he isn't going to be Superman anymore, but man it was great to see him one last time. 

Conclusion: A pretty good movie overall. Nothing too special, but I had a good time watching it(I even got a Black Adam T-Shirt to wear while watching it. lol) and I'm happy to have it in my ever growing collection of DC Superhero movies. I'm going to give it a rating of 4/5. I really liked it, but it had some flaws. If you are a fan of this universe they have built like I am, I suggest checking it out. For everyone else, try to at least catch it on Cable or a Streaming service. Thank for reading. Have a nice day.