Is The Rock On A Roll In His Super Hero Debut In Black Adam?

There is a lot of change afoot for DC Comics in regards to their live-action presence.  First the DCEU now just the DC Universe.  That "The World Needs Heroes" trailer that had one independent project and 3 DCEU projects  was quickly short-changed to just the well-received The Batman movie and only this one movie, Black Adam, came out in this year.  The last of these DCEU, now just DCU movies, The Suicide Squad, came out all the way back in late July in 2021.  

With all this talk from Black Adam leading man Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson about this being a new era for DC with his character at the center of it, and all the behind the scenes changes with James Gunn taking charge of a super confused direction for these movies, this movie does potentially take the lead for the future direction of this entire storyline and continuity.  What will the end result be for these movies.  Will this franchise rise from the ashes to challenge Marvel, or will this franchise continue to wallow in despair with the uneven track record it is currently known for.  Also, be aware, this episode will for sure be an appreciation episode for all Pierce Brosnan does not only in the super cool role of Dr. Fate, but just overall.  So be excited for that and more on this super episode of Nick Nack Goes to the Movies!

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S3E18

-Intro/Jingle

-Well hey there friend, how are ya?  How’s the weather and all that?  Come here often to this movie and tv show review podcast?  Well if you are a long-time listener or if this is your first listening experience, either way, welcome, to Nick Nack Goes to the Movies.  The one stop shop destination podcast for all of your media review needs, especially if those needs involve horror, Disney, or super hero things.  

-And as that is our bread and butter, the later of those three will be the focus of our show today or tonight, whatever time of day or time zone you are listening to this.  And while we are all very excited for the Black Panther sequel, viewing it and getting my take on it, we have to first see how the future of the DCEU, now rebranded to just The DC Universe after the leadership and many other changes that have recently enough transpired.  

-We can see this in the latest film to come out from DC Comics in live action, Black Adam, and the only one from this year after all the adds alluding to this being their year.  It has been all the way since the summer of 21 since The Suicide Squad came out for reference.  But The Rock has been working on this role and a movie for this role for a while, so let’s see if this can kick start the other super hero company and keep them rolling with the MCU or if this is another strained and pained step to keep this live action universe afloat.

-Actors

-The fun of movies and actors, is we all have different favorites and inversely ones we don’t like as much.  The right or wrong actor for each and every one of us can get us into the recliner lounger theater seats on a random Tuesday at a Marcus Theaters, or wherever you view them, or instead keep us far away from the comfort of a theater for months on end, relying on repeat streaming service horror flicks or whatnot.

-So, for Black Adam, it was a super hero movie, that alone meant I pretty much had to be there.  But outside of that fact, there was one more reason I had to see this.  Now look at the actors in this list.  Most of you are gonna say, well I know who the Rock is, leading man from the hit HBO Max show Ballers, the other bald muscular man in the Fast and Furious movies, the You’re Welcome Disney song singing Maui, or that CGI scorpion in early 2000’s sequel, the mummy returns.  He has had a super long career.  But no, that is not why I had to watch this movie.

- I still really haven’t touched on here nearly in-depth enough how much I love James Bond movies.  We have done an episode that was partly on the last one, No Time to Die, so one day we will have a whole month or months or just a slew of them, all 25 Eon ones.  I really can’t convince myself to do the other two, although I have seen Never Say Never Again, also with Sean Connery.  I just don’t need that when I have Thunder ball, but never say never…again.  Hah, see what I did there.

-But enough about dumb wordplay.  And while I love every James Bond Actor, I will always have more of a connection to Pierce Brosnan.  He was the first video game Bond for me from Night fire as well as he was in one of my favorite movies of the franchise which also has Sean Bean, Golden Eye.  So yeah, him reprising one of my favorite, and cooler Justice League Unlimited characters, Dr. Fate, I was all in on this!

-But outside of those two, the Rock will always make an impact on any movie, especially where he is the lead, no one else really did anything to me.  The two younger Justice Society actors were more or less just there to fill out the roster, although the brief Henry Winkler cameo as the original Atom Smasher was very funny, love a good short or long role from him, never forget the fun of his short Scream role.  All-dis Hodge as Hawkman had some moments for sure, he is the leader of the group, which makes no sense, should absolutely have been Dr. Fate, but Hawkman comes off, probably intentionally, but still, like a winey guy who can’t see how morally grey the world is.  But unlike Superman, who when played by Cavill has a great sense of hope and optimism, he never comes off super annoying like Hawkman does all the time here.  And the Rock’s Black Adam, his tethers to the mortal world and helping people is tied in with Adrianna Toe-mahz’s archeologist role and her son.  And while it made sense making a bit part of this whole thing based on having a surrogate sun, some of those scenes were just blah and painful and just cringy AF.  We will get into this relationship with this family of characters and Black Adam as the episode goes, but believe me, I have some ideas.  Not as bad as the Wanda and Dr. Strange ice cream song, nothing is that cringe, but we will have some moments to discuss around it.  

And last but not least, the actual comedic relief, not the kid or the rock or Atom Smasher, Mohammed Ah-Mare’s Karim as the friend and funny guy of that mom and her son.  But all of his jokes outside of like the first bad one with the rockets, pretty much land.

-While it seems like I am pretty much watching Black Adam just for Piece Brosnan, my favorite James Bond based on at least nostalgia, spoiler alert, I am and your assumption is right.  But there are other things this latest DC Universe super hero movie brings as well.  The question for you is how much do you like The Rock or Pierce Brosnan?  Because those two aspects will pretty much determine if the first DC Universe movie in over a year will be worth the watch for you and how much you will like this movie in question.  

-Black Adam

-So, this movie does bounce around time periods a fair amount, but for the most part outside of a few other locales including literal Hell, this is happening in the fictional city of Kahndaq, based in Asia.  And while we don’t jump around as much as Eternals time period wise, the past storyline never did a ton for me until the eventual end reveal.  But there are other questions I have with the overall Black Adam personality, a character I pretty much only know from the Injustice game storyline.  I guess I feel like we as a viewer, no matter what Hawkman whines about, we all know at the end of the day, the Rock portraying Black Adam is an anti-hero when I feel like I more wanted him to be a true Villain.  Sympathetic sure, but a villain.  I guess I was really hoping for more of a Magneto portrayal of a man with a cause that is just and he cares about, he just breaks all the laws of morality that heroes won’t to meet those goals and save those people who need the help that only someone who is morally gray can fix. 

-I wonder if people watching this realized that the Rock was clearly the dad in the flashbacks and not the kid who became Black Adam, or as he was eventually called by the end of the movie.  But like, skinny Rock without showing his face still very obviously was still voiced by The Rock, did anyone else not get that in one?  That the dad was the one who was Black Adam in the end, had to be.  Also, fun to see one more tie to the Shazam movies, a character we expect to fight it up with Black Adam eventually, but the original wizard played by Jai-men Han-Sue is here to grant powers once again.  Neat touch.  But the one thing about all this history we see, so much of it is shown off and eventually corrected or shown in its entirety.  Obviously, we have seen this before, and it kind of works as a neat enough mystery element, but sometimes it is just a bit annoying to almost be lied to for so long into the movie.

-Some of these story beats may feel similar, not just to super hero movies, but movies of the past overall.  You can’t not feel some similar but less interesting versions of this.   Look, we always have archeologists looking for stuff that leads to ancient powers that are just super hero things now.  Moon Knight just did this, very well, the 2016 non-Ayer Cut version of Suicide Squad, give us the real one Gunn, has archeologist stuff too.  It is all fine, it just at times might feel all a bit too familiar to some people.  Yeah, the power is not always discovered in a tomb, but mostly it is, sometimes it is a power, sometimes it is a person with powers, this is the latter.

-And this does lead to a fish out of water story once we get The Rock bopping out and about in the world, a modern Kahndaq he has no clue about under occupation by generic military baddies.

-So, when he does get lose, he starts serving up some violet AF justice, and they put in some work with those scenes.  He is like melting people, throwing them all over the place, like I was all about seeing things a bit more brutal than most super hero movies, and obviously it makes sense here with his character being more of an anti-hero, not unlike Deadpool.  Now, do I think they should have for sure just made him a more sympathetic villain as opposed to any sort of hero or anti-hero.  Yeah, I really do.  But we can’t change that sadly.

-So, after this a lot of things happen, real brief introductions to a whole new unexplained or mentioned group of heroes, the Justice Society.  Not only is this non-justice league group just never spoken about before, they are also somewhat under control of Amanda Waller, who while we love seeing more Viola Davis, there are just a lot of questions.  She is not the leader of this group necessarily, but she clearly has some managerial status and can send this second group under her to go do some missions.  Now unlike all of her Suicide Squad stuff, these are hero characters that she can’t force to do things.  So, from a overall DCU thing, there is some confusion for a linear storyline, but that is to be expected and hopefully smoothened out soon enough, you will hear my whole rant on this soon enough.  

-While some of the characters are not super inspiring with younger versions of heroes we have heard of but never met, and Hawkman has never done it for me, his brief Justice League Animated stuff or the Legends of Tomorrow stuff.  He just never had a lot to do in most of my media, and this version, while a more important role exists for him, everyone in this movie will pale in comparison to Dr. Fate.  And while he and Pierce Brosnan play a big and strong role for this movie, that does lead to some questions.

-So, Dr. Fate and his helmet works in a way where he is allowed to use it by this other being, No-Boo.  He is supposedly stuck wearing the helmet and has to consult the voice in the helmet for a lot of stuff.  He very casually took the helmet off the whole movie and when someone else got to use it so casually, it worked for the story needing it to work, but it was not a great thing for some big Dr. Fate moments.  That being said, he was easily the best part of the movie being funny, wise, having the best super power moments and powers visually, and in all honesty, I expected him to be the wise leader of the group instead of the more close-minded Hawkeye.

-And they get to have a bit of a fight, most people get clocked losing to Hawkman, but Dr. Fate has as usual some really cool powers here.  And the whole discovery of Black Adam not just being some hero, which is obvious to some that he is not just an omnipresent hero.  Like people watching Spiderman Far from Home and actually being surprised that Mysterio, a Spider-Man villain, actually was a villain, no matter how he was presented initially in the MCU.

-Through this movie seeing the Rock learn to do certain things from this kid and his mom, I will say, this always felt a bit like a distraction from where we wanted to be in these movies, in the same way that it was fun watching the Rock fry random military people and really not being the hero character, because he really is not that, I just never cared for the main villain, who was kind of bland, even when he went through his own transformation.

-And maybe I already talked about this.  But the goal of this movie was to introduce us as an audience to Black Adam, show that he is a bit of a killer who isn’t just another Superman or Shazam, but still make him somewhat of a humanized hero.  So by the end of the movie he is the ruler of this region, Kandahq and the people love him and he is less stoic and now knows some pop culture references, neat.  But every time this became a family story, I was just a bit disappointed and kind of bored in those moments.  Even being aware that the goal of this movie was to make you root for Black Adam and tie the community with this kid representing his dead son.  I get it, but still, just ehh at times with it all.  The teaching Black Adam scenes learning random stuff from this kid that did not matter was groan worthy, to me at least.

-I did like all the scenes with him fighting with and against the Justice Society, even if they just came out of nowhere in this continuity and story.

-Now the villain initially is just a guy who wants this crazy evil crown, he gets it and gets killed, all done, the Rock feels bad for like, partially hurting a kid, and they lock him up in the DC movies version of the Raft from the MCU on like life support.  Kind of like that one scene from Blade I am pretty sure, remember those movies.  Gosh I need that new one ASAP, I have so much pent up hope and excitement for that spookier hopefully R-rated Marvel movie.  

-And when the not Amanda Waller led Suicide Squad drops off Black Adam, we get another longer term enough cameo.

-As far as quick other DCEU, I mean universe, DC Universe now, gosh it sounds better but I have to get used to saying it now, there are a few.  There is a huge one, and a neat one.  The neat one is Jennifer Holland coming back to here Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad role Emilia Harcourt.  This movie does setup a soft tease to more content from the Squad with an equally small Viola Davis uncredited role here too.  We will get to the big one at the end.

-But before that, this is probably one of the weirder parts of the movie.  The idea of having to imprison Black Adam makes little to no sense.  I get it, he hurts people and feels bad and they slightly don’t trust him, even though he didn’t really do anything wrong, that stuff never made sense in the movie, and obviously it comes back to bite them all.

-Through all this stuff, Hawkman is super lame who is just a righteous jerk who is super morally rigid, the two younger teen super heroes add nothing, but Pierce Brosnan has a place for some humor, he has this almost sage like role, and he has a compelling secondary goal, that to save his friend Hawkman, I have to check myself to not call him Hawkeye.  You cared about Dr. Fate more than any character, Black Adam included.  But I had this nagging feeling that somehow that was gonna be a problem.  That that reason alone was the reason his character was not going to make it out of this, his first movie role, and into future projects without some time travel or parallel universe mumbo jumbo magic.

-So, when he dies showing off all sorts of crazy visually cool magic powers all the while waking up Black Adam and getting him out of to save the day, you kinda wish this guy would be in more movies instead of killing him off in his first movie.  He was nuanced, powerful, and actually fun to watch, Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate was really good.  In general, he is pretty good in just about everything.  Mama Mia, James Bond, this movie, and for a deeper cut, check out the AMC 2 season show, The Son, where he is the lead too.

-While I think this was one of the worst villains of the DCEU and DC Universe, newly branded, of this continuity, the how it came to be was kind of fun.  Having to bait our reluctant anti-hero into killing him so he can go to literal hell and get some Shazam like powers.  There will always be criticisms of villains just being dark versions of our heroes with the exact same powers, Iron Man and Iron Monger, Super Man and General Zod, and now this one.  It is cool when there is a different of not just two sides of the same coin.  Something the X-Men always seemed to nail, maybe not like Wolverine and Sabretooth obviously.  But Magneto and Professor X will always be cool for mixing up this formula.  But even if it was more of the same, at least how this ne'er-do-well got his evil powers was kind of cool.

-So, this was a problem in Thor 4 and it is a problem here, more of a problem in Thor 4.  When a bunch of kids get super powers it just feels unearned, and weird.  It feels a bit better here when the people stand up, even if it is against hell spawns and not like the people who were occupying their country, weird.  But having it come from this annoying kid, something just felt cheesy.  Maybe I don’t like placing so much emphasis on a regular kid to save people from supernatural demon soldiers and galvanizing everyone, I just feel like a lot of things boil down to humanizing Black Adam and making him the ruler, none of that really worked for me, but I was fine with the Rock and how his character existed, just outside of that whole semi-major plot point and character development arc.  

-So, this villain is just a generic CGI baddie demon who adds little to the narrative, period.  And while I hate how he is defeated.  I mean I love Black Adam going to town on him, look he rips him in half, that part was crazy, and that is what we need from what should be a villain but is trying to be an anti-hero here.  I do not love that Hawkman casually gets the Dr. Fate helmet, one of the things that pissed me off about the whole concept of that magical item.  That would be like Justin Hammer being able to pick up Thor’s hammer in the MCU.  Also, remember that Sam Rockwell dance in Iron Man 2?  Terrible movie, super fun acting by Sam Rockwell.

-But to this movie, I enjoyed parts, The Rock and Pierce Brosnan were fun, the visuals were mostly cool, the more aggressive power usage from Black Adam was fun, and I am of course happy with Black Adam now semi-ruling over Kandahq.  All of that is fine.  It just took some weird detours and choices to get us there on a bit of a bumpy road.

-So, it is finally time for big one has to be, no disrespect to anyone else here, but without question, it was amazing to see Cavill back as the man of steel after the vague references to his character in Shazam, Peacemaker, and The Suicide Squad.  It is quick, but gosh is it nice and good and a long time overdue.  I really hope the rumors of kind of keeping this whole thing together with him here and Afleck in Aquaman 2 now are all a good sign.  Release the Ayer cut trended again recently enough on Twitter and the new leadership makes me hopeful again this and the Snyderverse Justice League can all come about again.  TBD on whatever is happening with the Flash and maybe this Michael Keaton batman return.  Also RIP to Kevin Conroy, one of the truest batmen not only of my childhood with the animated shows, but later on too with those stellar Arkham games that need to get on the Switch ASAP, and as normal games, not the weird cloud ones.  

-To superman things though.  This does mean the Witcher show will have to say goodbye to Cavill after season 3 on Netflix.  And while this is a bummer and it will be weird to see Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivea, I will happily make that trade.  Also, any way that we can bring the Batgirl movie back with Brendan Fraser and others with the new leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran?  Come on, give us it all like Marvel does with all the movies and specials and Disney plus shows.  But to take a quick break from Marvel, where does this latest and first of the DCU movies clock in on Letterboxd?

-Letterboxd ratings

- Black Adam – 3 Stars

-wrap/call to action

-So that is the episode, and fret not, we are coming with another episode soon enough, having just seen Black Panther 2, so we will have to see how Marvel follows up a very good solo outing and a few team-up appearances and makes something that has to not only tell its own story, but help with real world saddening events for its leading man in Chadwick Boseman.  So that is all the time we have for you today so cheers, and as always, until next time cinephiles.