“Black Adam” wants to break new ground for old DC

Dwayne Johnson first met DC to join the franchise way back in 2006 when he was offered the lead role in a Shazam movie. But Black Adam has always caught his attention much more. An antihero. A very powerful character, but capable of both doing good and creating unprecedented destruction. Many actors would have lost hope and would have moved on after so long without starting filming. But not the Rock. Johnson didn’t stop talking about Teth Adam, because if it was a matter of time before he jumped into the superhero movie, he wanted to do it with the character that seemed written for him.. Finally “Black Adam” arrives in theaters in a turbulent time for DC, as well as for Warner Bros. in general under the leadership of David Zaslav and his drastic decisions to cut costs. At a time when the general franchise is dozing off after “Wonder Woman 1984” and “The Suicide Squad” while other individual experiments like “Joker” and “The Batman” triumph, Jaume Collet-Serra’s film wants to open new avenues for the DC Extended Universe, albeit with a clean look and looking, perhaps too much, at the past and not at the future.

‘Black Adam’ is, first of all, the origin story of Teth Adam, a slave in the land of Kahndaq, a fictional country in the Middle East, who was chosen by the wizards we saw in ‘Shazam!’ to become the people’s liberator of him long ago. Already in the present, Kahndaq is still oppressed, now by the Intergang criminal organization, and they could use their champion. Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) manages to wake him up, but Adam turns out he’s not as superhero as he seemed, so Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) sends the Justice Society so as not to overdo it.. Like any origin story, the film begins with a long prologue in the past and continues to flashback the legend of Teth Adam so that we understand his way of acting in the present. While they are necessary, a more overwhelming overall film structure makes it hard for anything to stand out from the action.

Because there is action, a lot. Too much perhaps. The film lasts two hours and we are practically facing a very long climax in which one fight after another is chained. There is no time to breathe, and less time to develop the good script ideas that are stifled by so many powers, blows and kicks. Because “Black Adam” wants to follow the path that “The Man of Steel” has already opened at the beginning of the DCEU regarding the moral lines of superheroes. Superman (Henry Cavill) was traumatized by blood staining his hands, but Black Adam believes the end justifies the means, the bad guys are bad and the dog is dead, the anger is over. Opposite will be Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and the Justice Society, who will remind him that any person, however serious, deserves a fair trial. But things are never that easy. What about innocent lives dying under the yoke of a villain awaiting that due process? Are they enough to accept more drastic measures? Does the end, then, justify the means?

All this, added to the status of a symbol that Black Adam can mean for the population of the country (and what difference there would be between a dictatorial monarch and a hero with delusions of grandeur), the insurrection of a people who remembers, far away, the springs Arabs or the current uprising of women in Iran, and the denunciation of how these countries are ignored by the best superheroes, make this film something new, something more mature and darker within the main DC timeline. . But “The Batman” and “Joker” were also mature and dark and much more confident in their conflicts. They made them grow, they made them the center and they took the opportunity to break the rules of the genre. Where in ‘Black Adam’ they want to tackle it is in the very few moments the film tries to catch its breath before returning to the rattle, reaffirmed by a thunderous soundtrack by Lorne Balfe that is consistently on top, as the film pretends to be. . The result is quite grueling and inserts of humor that would stick more to “Shazam!” than to this movie. Of course, the pace isn’t affected if we can embrace visualization and The Rock blowing up every city wall it intends to save. ‘Black Adam’ is not for children. It’s not “The Boys”, but celebrates the arrival of an anti-hero with dismemberments and blood that we wouldn’t see in “Aquaman” or “Shazam!”, But in “The Suicide Squad”. The possibilities it opens up against its demure franchise partners are very tempting.

In the more technical part it is surprising how much Jaume Collet-Serra seems to want to emulate Snyder with excessive use of slow motion and detailed shots, which end up looking even parodic when he repeats them so frequently. The villain doesn’t work either, neither narratively because it has no development or surprise, nor technically, especially when excessive CGI makes an appearance that is too reminiscent of other stumbles like Ares from ‘Wonder Woman’. “Black Adam” mixes Snyder and James Gunn, but navigating between two waters is complicated. It reaches neither the solemnity of the one nor the enjoyment of the other. And that raw material is not lacking.

“Black Adam” should have relied a lot more on their characters, because that’s where their true potential lies. Starting with a Dwayne Johnson who makes it clear in every scene that he has been waiting for this moment since 2006 and will not miss it. The actor constantly keeps a rough gaze, bordering on the divine, he dominates the fights as if he’s back in the WWE ring. It gives Teth Adam that aura of superiority and strength that makes him someone who can be both attractive and dangerous.. But he also shows him as someone worried about injustice and about helping the weak. His methods are simply not the most orthodox. And it only touches upon the possibilities of the character in this film. It is clear that he is his son and that he wants this to be the first of many.

The first superhero team

Even the members of the Justice Society surprise for good, they don’t have much development on the screen but they drop enough crumbs to leave you wanting more.. Cyclone’s (Quintessa Swindell) past has a lot of potential. Noah Centineo acts as the pipiolo of the group and the pressure to inherit the family title of Atom Smasher. Hawkman is a good leader and his fights with Adam are pretty epic. And Pierce Brosnan, the best of the four on the street, wastes presence in the role of Doctor Fate, who will be very reminiscent of Doctor Strange (although in the comics Destiny came much earlier) for stylistic choices. However, Brosnan plays a battle-hardened and disenchanted veteran of the magical arts. They and the protagonist only scratch the surface of their stories, and the beauty is that by knowing The Rock we will only be at the beginning of his journey in DC.

Because the film reminds us that it is part of a larger plan with appearances like those of Viola Davis or Djimon Hounsou. And Dwayne Johnson has been talking for weeks about his plans for Adam and that his movie opens “a new chapter” in the DC universe. That new chapter for now surprisingly embraces the past, in tone and in some themes. Despite relying too much on so much ado for nothing, at least it lays the groundwork for a character who feels different, bringing a much-needed grayscale to the superhero genre. and who, whoever he will face in the future (from an inevitable crossover with the character of Zachary Levi to any other superhero clash), will give us a show. I just hope Zaslav isn’t the archenemy waiting around the corner.

‘Black Adam’ hits theaters on 21 October.

Note: 6

The best: the potential of Black Adam and the Justice Society. The grayscale that introduces you to the DC universe.

Worse: A lot of action covers the themes that the film wants to address. There is no villain equal to an antihero.