Black Adam

Rock Of Eternity

Black Adam
USA/Canada/New Zealand/Hungary 2022
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Warner Brothers/DC

Let me say up front that I found Black Adam to be quite an enjoyable entertainment and I want to make that clear before getting into the negative stuff. Regular readers will know that, even in the event that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson makes a movie I don’t like (it happens occasionally), I’ve got nothing but a huge amount of respect for this actor and the good work he’s doing in the entertainment industry which, despite popular thinking, can sometimes be a lot more important and influential than it at first appears. Also, one of my favourite UK critics really panned this movie, kinda, in the most respectful way... I can see some of his points but I didn’t really have any kind of negative experience with this movie other than the few things I want to get out up front so, yeah, here goes, the bad stuff...

First up, this movie is full of racial/cultural reappropriation again. I don’t mind it so much but why is it that when various characters of certain origins are played by Western actors (I’m thinking stuff like Scarlett Johansson being called out on Ghost In The Shell, for instance) there’s a load of angry protests but when some of the characters with white origins are suddenly played by actors with a darker skin, there seems to be no equal reaction. So, yeah, some of the actors in this movie are completely wrong for the characters they are portraying from the comics and, thusly, this movie should not be considered a competent adaptation of the original source material, it has to be said (although, they all did a brilliant job in this, for sure).  I dunno, this kind of thing... and it seems to be happening a lot over the last ten years or more... just makes me consider the people making these movies are, well, making blatantly racist movies. However, live and let live is how I view it... if they want to do that to their characters then that’s down to their own conscience, I guess.

Okay... so I’m assuming this movie is also based on much updated versions of the characters than the ones I know from the comics. Black Adam was a character who began in a 1945 issue of The Marvel Family comics and he was the arch enemy... yep, a villain... of the original Captain Marvel (you know, the proper Captain Marvel who we now have to call Shazam! because of Marvel comics now owning the name of that character for a range of their own super heroes). And, he’s supposed to be like a dark mirror version of Captain Marvel... so it should really be the same actor playing Captain Marvel also playing Black Adam, in actual fact. Right now, the main cinematic incarnation of Captain Marvel... um... or Shazam! (whatever) is played by Zachary Levi, so its puzzling that The Rock, who admittedly does look a lot like the original comic book version of Captain Marvel, has been tapped for this role (although he plays it absolutely brilliantly, it has to be said). And he’s definitely supposed to be a villain... rather than an anti-hero so, yeah, they got that really wrong.

And the Justice Society Of America have been around since the end of 1940, comprising the line up of Doctor Fate, Hourman, the Spectre, Sandman, Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman. In this movie only Doctor Fate (played by Pierce Brosnan) and Hawkman (played by Aldis Hodge) are still in the line up. The Atom has been replaced by the nonsensical Atom Smasher (played by Noah Centineo) and they’ve also dropped in Cyclone (played by Quintessa Swindell). Actually, the original Atom does turn up in a cameo, played by The Fonz himself, Henry Winkler... but he’s not in the suit. The very existence of the JSA in the DC cinematic universe does, of course, throw up the big question of... why the heck did Batman put a lot of time and effort into assembling the Justice League in the movie of the same name when all of these characters were already around to help out? It doesn’t make sense. And as for Hawkman... Hodge plays him brilliantly but, yeah, see two paragraphs ago. So, well, they got all that wrong.

That’s all the negative stuff though, pretty much. Apart from maybe the stop/start, bullet time style ramping up and down of the action highlighting sequences... don't get me started.

As a film depicting modern superheroes in mythic battles of good versus evil, though... it’s a pretty good one from DC, this time around (DC bought the Captain Marvel characters out from Fawcett in the 1970s if memory serves). This new take on the Black Adam character sees him revived by the power of SHAZAM in the 21st Century and suffering severe self doubts about what his purpose is in the modern day world... although there’s so much fast paced action in this one that the emotional resonance of the character, which is certainly all present and correct, seems a little tempered by the ‘all in’ assault on the senses that the modern superhero movie seems to have progressed/deteriorated into. But it’s entertaining action and it has a bright heart at its centre, for sure... so I can’t be too harsh on it.

What is surprising is the absence of an appearance by Captain Marvel... sorry, Shazam, in this one. Although the film does go out of its way to embed itself firmly into the current, if somewhat confusing, incarnation of the DC cinematic universe, with a character who was last seen in The Suicide Squad (reviewed by me here) making an appearance at both the start and end of the movie.

And it’s nice musically too. Lorne Balfe’s score really goes for it (and the CD the company has seen fit to release... thanks very much... will be going straight onto my Christmas list). Lots of strong, heroic stuff with some powerful choral support which all, because of the visual excesses of the movie, somehow don’t overpower it. And talking of the music, Balfe gets a little bit of help from both Ennio Morricone and John Williams in the movie too. There’s a scene early on in the picture where one of the characters is watching the denouement scene from one of Sergio Leone’s early spaghetti Westerns. It made me very angry because the TV station the character is watching it on is showing the film in totally the wrong aspect ratio and that just shouldn’t be allowed. However, there’s a brilliant parody of this same scene which turns up later when Black Adam finds himself in a similar showdown, very much filmed in the way Leone might have done it and, of course, a re-recording or reorchestration of Morricone’s score from that same scene is used here. And as for John Williams... well... all I’m saying is stick around for the post/mid credits scene at the end of the picture. It’s worth waiting for.

And that’s me done on Black Adam. It’s really not a bad film as some critics have alluded and, that’s kind of besides the point anyway because, once again, the people have voted with their wallets and I understand it’s got one of the strongest openings for this kind of movie to date. I am assuming this character (played by The Rock) will be returning for various sequels and crossovers in the near future and, rightly so in my opinion, this wasn’t a bad film at all, although I wish a certain member of the JSA had survived until the end of the movie to return with him. But, yeah, shush, spoilers.

The Invisible Man (2020)

Now You See Me Too

The Invisible Man (2020)
2020 Australia/USA/Canada/UK
Directed by Leigh Whannell
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Mild spoilers.

Writer/director Leigh Whannell’s new version of Universal’s franchise based on The Invisible Man is, I’m sure surprising nobody and just like many of the Universal sequels, really nothing to do with H. G. Wells original novel. That being said, the two things which both Well’s source and this movie version have in common is a central antagonist that shares the same last name as the original, Griffin and, similarly, the idea that he is an antagonist rather than protagonist... unlike the majority of the six original Universal films, is also retained.

Given director Leigh Whannell’s track record, the man who made the absolutely brilliant but still prohibitedly expensive to buy on Blu Ray movie Upgrade (reviewed by me here but, honestly, nobody wants to be paying £24 for this) you would expect that this film would be pretty good and, I have to say... yes, it really is. If you’re happy that this isn’t the same character that you knew from the 1933 version, then you should have a good time with this.

This time around, the film has been pitched firmly, it seems to me, to support the ‘me too’ movement and, although the final scenes of the movie are as troubling as the overly black and white ‘your perceived judgement of a situation trumps the possible truth of the situation’ reality of real life at the moment, there’s enough at the climax to make the ambiguity of the end game of an abusive relationship feel very true and I think it’s an extra feather in the cap for Whannell that some of the audience are going to walk out of the film with conflicting ideas as to whether justice has been served here for any of the characters.

Elisabeth Moss is absolutely fantastic in the role of abused girlfriend Cecilia Kass and she does carry the film extraordinarily well, backed up by a good supporting cast of people like Aldis Hodge and Storm Reid. Also, the film is well shot and edited but where it really comes into its own is with the sound design. This combined with Benjamin Wallfisch’s terrifically jumpy score (alas, not available on CD, only as a stupid electronic download) are what provide the film with the most scares. The film in itself, has no really big ‘fright moments’ but, due to the use of sound and music, you still get some quite intense suspense sequences in this thing.

Okay, so two standout things for me.

That sound work I just mentioned really comes into its own when, after two weeks confined in her friend’s house, Cecilia tries to brave the outside world once more by walking outside for ten seconds or so. The tension of her inner intimidation by the big, scary outside is strengthened incredibly as she puts her first foot out the door and the sound design gets suddenly muted and echoey as it does things to her footsteps. A really nice touch.

The other thing I liked about this is the way they played with modern conventions of horror which, in a way, also mimicked things Universal were doing with the series back in the 1930s and 1940s, for different reasons. That is the modern horror movie thing of the camera turning around and looking at empty rooms as you wait to spot some little detail in the shot that you know is going to scare you. It’s certainly something they would, by necessity, do in the original films in order to show you the visible signs of an invisible person being in the room... as you wait to see a tell tale foot print or a breath of cold air or a door opening. Here, though, Whannell does this purely, it seemed to me, to have fun with the modern viewer expecting to see these things. He’ll similarly focus the camera on an empty room as Cecilia is trying to see if she’s alone or not but, brilliantly, quite often does nothing with it. In the most cases, there are no indications to show there is anyone there or not... and you certainly know about it when it all kicks off. This, of course, strengthens the mood of carefully prepared paranoia which perpetually permeates the movie and I think taking this approach, at this particular time in horror film history, was a good idea.

There are some small problems I had with the movie... apart from the UK print being censored by a few seconds, ensuring that any future Blu Ray purchase from me needs to be imported from the US.

One of those problems is it’s not really a horror film. The weird science aspect of the chemical potion which gave invisibility but turned ones brain against one as it stayed in your system is gone. Instead, the lead antagonist is an optical science specialist and he’s basically wearing a stealth suit... it’s not unlike the terribly stupid car in Pierce Brosnan’s sad misstep of a Bond movie Die Another Day (reviewed by me here).

The other thing was the way it telegraphs an obvious twist in the middle of the film, where Cecilia gets a visit from a certain attorney. It totally gives away a reveal from later in the movie and I was a little disappointed that this was so blatant. However, it does lead the way for the second ending of the story and the whole problematic issue of the ‘me too’ element of the film... so I guess it’s at least good that this ‘almost twist’ is still in here. The final scenes give the film an interesting lack of clarity which may spark of debate at some point in the future, I suspect. Certainly, by the end of the movie, I would be as scared of the main protagonist as I was of the main antagonist so... yeah, I’m sure I’ll get moaned at for suggesting the ending could be read in more than one way but I suspect this was the writer’s intention.

So yeah, the new version of The Invisible Man is a pretty great time at the cinema and something I would recommend to fans of well put together suspense thrillers. A good attempt to resurrect a part of the Universal franchise.