"Some men are not meant to be heroes."
Hello everyone!
I know, I know, everyone gets bored with it long before it's over, BUT.
I kind of like doing the themed posts for the one month that we get.
So I'm looking forward to it, aren't you?
Anyway, before we can do any of that, however, we do still have this one day of the regular posts left, so here we go.
This weekend was fun for me as I participated in a video game from afar (via video call) AND watched a pretty fun movie too while I was at it.
It had action, it had wit, and it had quite a good cast, not to mention the surprise at the end.
I'm talking about Black Adam, of course.
Seeing as this movie is connected to the wider DC universe, I'll be linking the other related posts down at the bottom of the page, as per usual.
Black Adam is the passion project of one Dwayne Johnson, who was initially supposed to appear as the character in the movie Shazam!, but decided a solo movie for the guy might work better. Then it took years until he could deliver the finished product, and despite the fact critics seem to want to rip this thing to shreds, it's ACTUALLY enjoyable, and the best to come out of the DC lineup since Aquaman if you ask me.
Let's look at the story.
We get a brief introduction and history to Kahndaq, a kingdom city that was really rich and really free until a stupid king decided he was going to enslave everybody to mine for a precious metal which he could then make into the Crown of Sabacc, but before he could put the thing on his head, a Champion of the people appeared, defeated him, and was never seen again.
Flash-forward to today, when Kahndaq is once again enslaved by a military gang, and a group of men are all nervous at a checkpoint, though with the help of a boy named Amon, they manage to pass, and it's revealed his mom, Adriana, was hiding in the van, and she's wanted by the gang.
She's got bigger things to do though, such as locating the Crown of Sabacc and relocating it before the gang gets it, but unknown to her, one of the guys, Ishmael, is actually part of the gang and just tagging along to get to the crown itself, which they uncover, along with a tomb that's revealed to be the final resting place of Teth Adam, the titular character.
Teth Adam goes out there and destroys everything in his path trying to destroy him, and I thoroughly enjoyed the slow-motion shots which showed just how he saw all the attacks and how slowly it all unfolded for him.
Anyway, he eventually gets wounded by the same precious metal we've been talking about previously (consider it his Kryptonite, if you will), and so Adriana takes him back to her place, along with the Crown, which is where the trouble starts,
See, her son Amon (yes, THAT Amon) is convinced Teth Adam's return from the eternal sleep means Kahndaq will now be freed, so he goes and goads the gang into almost whooping his ass just so Teth Adam would save him.
And of course things get MORE complicated because naturally the gang is still looking for the Crown, but also because the Justice Society shows up in Kahndaq in response to Teth Adam's emergence.
Who're they, you wonder? Well, at the moment, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Cyclone and Atom Smasher, and none of them know how to read the room, because while Teth Adam is dealing with the gang, they attempt to deal with him, get booed by the people of Kahndaq because they're rescuing the gang, and try to convince the people they're the good guys.
But, as Adriana explains to them while Hawkman's on his high horse: where was the Justice Society when Kahndaq got enslaved thirty years ago, or any time in between? And now they come in, RESCUE the very enslavers who've been ruining the lives of Kahndaq people, and expect to be appreciated as heroes?
Like, I swear, someone should have pelted Hawkman with rotten fruit and veg. The guy keeps harping on 'good guys and bad guys' but somehow slates the gang into the 'good guys' territory in the same breath because he's stupid.
Anyway, needless to say none of the Justice Society can make a dent in Teth Adam, not that Hawkman doesn't try, and eventually Dr. Fate figures out the Crown of Sabacc is also in play, much worse than Teth Adam, actually, so he convinces Adriana to get Teth Adam to talk. So they go ahead and talk, and it's revealed that Kahndaq has a slightly skewed version of its history that's currently circulating.
See, Teth Adam didn't rescue them or anything heroic like that. He went nuts and killed everyone in the palace and was entombed with the Crown instead, but history kinda sorta remembered him as a hero.
Then again, he didn't come out of there demanding to be worshiped or anything, so it's not even his fault anyway (I'm looking at you, Amon, you stupid kid who started the whole damn ass chain of events which led to all the problems just because there was no one there to smack sense into you and tell you to sit down, shut up, and obey your elders).
ANYWAY, Teth Adam and Hawkman might have even gone at it again if not for the fact that the gang with Ishmael manages to kidnap Amon, and they want to exchange the Crown for him.
After a lot of back-and-forth and hilarious chase scenes later (including but not limited to a poor pilot landing with a splat), they all rendez-vous with the gang and Ishmael reveals himself to be the last living descendant of that stupid king who thought enslaving everyone was the best idea since sliced bread, and he wants the Crown.
Teth Adam ensures Adriana can give Ishmael the Crown, even though the Justice Society doesn't want that, but things go haywire as Ishmael taunts Teth Adam, causing his powers to overload from his emotions which kills everyone human in a wide radius (that wasn't protected) and even zaps Amon by mistake.
He then reveals to Hawkman that, in fact, it was Hurut, his son, who was chosen by the Council of Wizards, but after the crazy king went after his family, Hurut sacrificed his powers to save his father, then was killed by an assassin arrow, which drove Teth Adam to near-madness. His powers were born out of sheer rage, and he killed the king for what he'd done to his family, but the Council then intervened, and even though he killed most of them, Shazam managed to entomb him.
Teth Adam swears Hawkman into preventing him from ever speaking the word Shazam! again after he says it to let go of the powers, and is taken to a black site where he'll be in cryo sleep forever.
Meanwhile though, Adriana and Cyclone realize that, because the demon world is a mirror one to their own, they'd read the inscription on the Crown all wrong, so instead of it saying 'Life is the only path to Death', it's actually 'Death is the only path to Life' - Ishmael goaded Teth Adam into killing him while wearing the Crown of Sabacc, which lands him in Hell and makes him Champion of the demons that initially imbued the Crown with power.
So then he's sent back topside to open the floodgates and release zombies and other nasties into the world, causing Adriana, her brother Karim, and eventually the people of Kahndaq (after a rousing speech by Amon, the only useful thing the kid does the entire movie) to fight them off.
Meanwhile, Dr. Fate prevents his team mates from continuing the fight with Champion Ishmael, because he's been searching for a different outcome to his vision of Hawkman dying, and the only way to achieve that is to sacrifice himself.
But because he can be in many places at once, he also frees Teth Adam and wakes him from cryo, saying he's the only one who can take on this demon and live, and Teth Adam says the magic word and arrives just in time to actually beat the crud out of Champion Ishmael and send him right back where he came from, managing to focus and control his powers for the first time.
Hawkman and the others then leave, deciding Teth Adam might not be so bad after all; Teth Adam changes his name and destroys the ancient throne because the people of Kahndaq don't need a ruler, but need to be free - something his son Hurut fought for way back when - and gets a video call from Amanda Waller.
Waller tells him he's confined to Kahndaq and if he ever sets foot beyond its borders, she'll call in a favour to get him obliterated, to which he says PFT bring it.
Which reveals none other than Henry Cavill in the Superman suit, finally returning to DC a Clark Kent after almost a decade.
And the movie wraps to the world shrieking.
Boom!
This was a really interesting one to watch because it's not from the perspective of a hero; in fact, heroes aren't really painted in the best of light in this one, because, as Adriana points out, where the hell were they when Kahndaq actually needed them? They only show up when something threatens to dismantle their carefully-constructed paper image of a world.
Black Adam is also definitely not a hero but kinda has to work to get there, and never apologises for the stunts he pulls during the movie, and I love it. I also thoroughly enjoyed watching him just be the strongest and most undefeatable thing on the planet, which is usually the problem with any Superman iteration, because movie makers are afraid to show him as completely invulnerable.
Not so with Black Adam, and it makes for a fun experience.
Of course as a participant you want to throttle Hawkman about three quarters of the time (and I personally wanted to put Amon six feet under in a tomb with no access to his skateboard, but that's beside the point), because he and the stork that delivered him could cheerfully bop right out of there with his black-and-white views.
Pierce Brosnan is amazing as Dr. Fate, but I'm a bit confused as to why Noah Centineo was even in the movie other than for the purpose of a running gag, as Atom Smasher is basically pretty useless. I loved Cyclone though, and really enjoyed that they used the same slo-mo for her shots as for Adam's, indicating the difference in view.
However, OVERALL, this is a fun way to spend two hours with lots of places to laugh, places to roll your eyes at, and absolutely places where you root for the anti-hero rather than the heroes.
Plus, THE ROCK GOT HENRY BACK! For that alone, I'm gonna be paying attention now.
xx
*images and video not mine
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