The spiky and beautiful “Black Adam,” which was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and stars Dwayne Johnson in a standout lead role, is one of the best DC superhero movies to date. This story about a gloomy, presumably evil god who reappears in a Middle Eastern country that has been under occupation for a long time rejects the majority of the decisions that bland-ify even the best entrants in the genre. It portrays its eponymous character—a hero who fought against a tyrant ruler thousands of years ago—during the first third of the film as a terrifying and mysterious entity with an insatiable desire for destruction. His resurrection from a desert tomb, going by the ancient name Teth-Adam, is both a miracle and a curse for the people who prayed for protection from the corporate-mercenary thugs who have been oppressing them and strip-mining their country for years.
The remainder of “Black Adam’s” running time concentrates on the inevitableness of Adam’s change into a decent man, summarising the transformation of the title character in the first two “Terminator” movies (there are even comic bits where people try to teach Adam sarcasm and the Geneva Conventions). Then, “Black Adam” adds a dash of the macho sentimentality that was once popular in classic Hollywood films about loners who needed to become involved in a cause in order to reorient their moral compass or realise their own value. But the film’s early chapters of its plot never lose their razor-sharp edge.
At first, Adam appears to be a literal force of nature, comparable to Godzilla and other monsters from Japanese kaiju movies. At first, it’s difficult for anyone who crosses Adam’s path to determine if he is good, evil, or simply apathetic to human needs. Everyone wants Adam to help them stop someone in Intergang from getting a crown made in hell and filled with the power of six devils (Marwan Kenzari). Intergang is a multinational corporate/mercenary consortium whose interests are represented by a two-faced charmer.
Years ago, Humphrey Bogart portrayed a lot of cynical guys who pretended to have no interest in issues before changing their minds and taking up arms in opposition to tyranny or corruption. The plot has been revised numerous times by Johnson during his career. Most recently, he played a character in “Jungle Cruise” who was based on Bogart’s riverboat captain in “The African Queen.” Infusing the whole with his own distinct charm, he draws inspiration from classic primal performances by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as poet-brute performances like Anthony Quinn’s strongman in “La Strada.” As evidenced by “Black Adam,” he has studied the classics, as evidenced by selected passages that seem to fit his needs. Even the sweeter moments of remorse and guilt seem to be influenced by 1950s morality plays like “On the Waterfront.”
The latter are typically brought on by three “civilian” people who appeal to Adam’s supposedly inherent (albeit hidden) benevolence. One of them is Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), a professor at a university, a member of the resistance, and the widow of a resistance hero who was assassinated by the colonists. A different one is Adrianna’s jovial and unflappable son, Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), who zooms through the bombed-out city on a skateboard that appears to have as many additional uses as a Swiss Army Knife. Finally, Adrianna’s brother Amir (comedian Mohammed Amer), who brings life to the stereotypical earthy everyman role, is present.
However, the screenplay by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani manages to fend off the urge to indulge in unwarranted sentiment. Despite the proof, the film does not claim that Adam or the superheroes he is up against (Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman, Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell’s wind-controlling Cyclone, and Pierce Brosnan’s dimension-hopping and clairvoyant Dr. Fate) are good people with sincere intentions. There is no absolute right or wrong in discussions of motives and strategies. The film’s edge comes from its desire to linger as long as it can in morally ambiguous territory.
Additionally, it derives from violence, which is depicted as an unavoidable outcome of the individuals’ motivations, obligations, and personalities rather than being linked to any particular morality or ideology. As “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Gremlins” did with the PG rating over 40 years earlier, this framing, together with the bloody scenes and visuals of people being shot, impaled, and crushed, pushes the film’s PG-13 rating to its breaking point. At the “Black Adam” screening this writer went to, there were a few walkouts, and in each instance, a parent with a child under 10 was responsible.
To be fair, they might not have anticipated the movie’s opening flashback, which culminates in a slave at a construction site being stabbed in the gut and thrown off a cliff, a boy being threatened with beheading, or the title character destroying an army with electrical bolts and his bare hands shortly after his first appearance. It ties into recurring scenes and dialogue about what it means for a small country to be invaded and occupied by outsiders who set their own rules and are unconcerned with daily life on the ground. Nearly every other scene, including dialogue exchanges that explain what’s going on, takes place in a chaotic city where the people have become hardened not only by the occupation but also by the disasters that happen when super-beings fight.
Film historians might notice that the idea was created by the Warner Bros. branch of New Line. It first gained popularity with horror movies, then expanded by putting out auteur-driven, gritty genre pieces and dramas (such as “Menace II Society” and “Deep Cover”), before breaking into blockbusters with the first three “Lord of the Rings” films. This movie, which is PG-13 in actuality but R in spirit, has many situations and sequences where you can see its heritage mirrored. By incorporating lyrics from “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones and musical and visual snippets from “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” “Black Adam” immediately makes it clear what kind of movie it is. These are significant works by artists whose best work invites you to root for characters who move through their worlds like threshers.
The movie’s director developed his mayhem skills in horror films before moving on to R-rated thrillers with Liam Neeson mercilessly eliminating enemies. By editing away from or reversing the most graphic violence while still allowing us to hear it, Collet-Serra transforms a PG-13 movie into an R (or imagine it when people watch from a great distance). He also does this by showing, through both his actions and his words, that people, even superhuman ones, act for many different and sometimes contradictory reasons.(A “good guy” and Adam fight in a boy’s bedroom decorated with superhero posters and comics, and in a scenario that rhymes with images of the city’s iconic monuments being toppled or destroyed, they burn and tear apart DC’s most well-known icons.)
Even when it is doing ten things at once, “Black Adam” remains focused because of its fidelity to basic film storytelling. The film is packed with well-defined lead and supporting characters, as well as foreshadowing, setups, payoffs, twists, and surprises. Among the best is Brosnan, who paints a poignant picture of an immortal who is sick of looking into the future and reflecting on his past. Dr. Fate looks at people who can live in the present with a mix of sadness, knowledge, and envy.
Another is Johnson, who possesses true acting talent but has lately shown signs of being restricted (or perhaps intimidated?) by his rich reputation as the people’s colossus. He plays the role of a god as simply as possible. He appears to have taken notes from action hero performances by actors like Neeson, Toshiro Mifune, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Charles Bronson, who understood that the camera can detect and amplify faint tremors of emotion as long as you act with the film—not just in it, and never against it. Clint Eastwood is the screen star that the movie quotes the most frequently. The climax is a brief instant when Johnson shifts his gaze and softens his face, letting us know that something deep inside Adam has shifted. It lasts about half a second. It’s not the kind of acting that garners awards because when it’s done effectively, as it is here, you get the impression that it took place in your thoughts rather than on film.
The movie’s politics and spirituality are equally steadfast and unwavering. “Black Adam” never loses sight of what Adam stands for in our world: autonomy, emancipation, the potential of atonement and regeneration, and a refusal to be defined by how things have always been done. This is true even when the plot tones down Western heaven-and-hell imagery or dabbles in Orientalism.
The end effect occasionally comes out as the DC response to the “Black Panther” pop cultural quake, serving up an Afro-Futurist sensibility with a Middle Eastern influence and using colonised areas as its setting. However, its politics are more firmly established and less tainted. “Black Adam” is adamantly anti-imperialist to the core; it even compares the Avengers-style team dispatched to apprehend and imprison Black Adam to a United Nations “intervention” force that the locals don’t want since it exacerbates the situation. Even more of a surprise, given that the storyline is based on monarchs and genealogy, is the fact that the film is anti-royalist.
The movie “Black Adam” is an outstanding and astute example of this type, colouring inside the lines while adding intriguing doodles to the margins. Collet-film Serra’s respects its audience and seeks to earn that audience’s regard in its boisterous, unrelenting, overblown manner. The movie “Black Adam” provides the audience all they desire and even more.
The latest superhero tale, Black Adam, catapulted the box office beyond $100 million last weekend for the first time since July, but this weekend, with no major releases to keep it afloat, it is predicted to drop back below the nine-digit mark once more. Although the statistics may dip that low once more the next weekend, this weekend should still be considered “excellent” in comparison to the dry spell from mid-August to mid-October, which saw seven consecutive weekends below $65 million. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens the following weekend, which is good news. It is expected to have one of the biggest opening weekends of the year, if not the biggest. However, the unpredictable box office is still a thing in the post-Covid era.
Prey for the Devil, the latest in a busy season of horror movies running up to Halloween, which falls on Monday, is the largest release this weekend. The movie is about a nun who studies to become the first female exorcist but runs into a demon she has previously encountered. Daniel Stamm, who directed the 2010 picture The Last Exorcism, is no stranger to this subject. The Last Exorcism opened to $20.4 million and ended with $41 million domestically and $69.4 million globally, off a meagre $1.8 million budget. Prey for the Devil will be fortunate to break out of the single digits in its opening, and the fact that the reviews are being kept under wraps implies that we won’t be seeing another Barbarian or Smile, which both had their openings nearly tripled thanks to positive word of mouth and reviews (and the indie Terrifier 2 even sextupled its opening). Even though it’s said to have a low budget, it might still do well, and maybe the success of other scary movies will carry over to the last one of the season.
Prey for the Devil, the only fully wide newcomer, appears likely to place third. Black Adam, which may be the only movie grossing more than $10 million this weekend, is poised to recapture the top spot. The large-budget DC movie had a strong opening weekend with $67 million; a 54% decline, ala Shazam!, would put it between $30 and 31 million. The Dwayne Johnson-starring movie might end up being more frontloaded, but with positive reviews (B+ CinemaScore) and strong weekday figures, there’s no need to anticipate a sharp decline. It’s nice to see a big movie back on the charts doing similar numbers in its second weekend, even if the overall box office numbers still leave a lot to be desired, especially considering Bullet Train’s $30 million opening weekend gross was the best weekend gross any film saw in August and September.
Although second place is more difficult to predict, Ticket to Paradise has a good chance of winning. With an A-Cinemascore and strong word-of-mouth, the romantic comedy starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, which debuted to $16.5 million, may experience a strong hold that keeps it in the double digits. Even if it doesn’t, it might still hold onto second place. After amassing $81.8 million abroad since its release in September, Ticket to Paradise surpassed $100 million globally this past week. Strong domestic legs would be ideal, but at this point they are not essential to the movie’s success.
Tár, which Todd Field directed for Focus Features, expanded to about 1,000 theatres in its fourth weekend at the specialty box office. The Oscar contender with Cate Blanchett has so far made $1.34 million from a maximum of 141 theatres. Its potential for growth is unclear, as there aren’t many comparable films from the recent past, but it should at least place in the top 10 this weekend and have a steady run into award season.
The six-theater release of Armageddon Time in the arthouse market (also from Focus Features) is significant. This semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama, set in 1980s Queens, is directed by James Gray and stars Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, and Anthony Hopkins. Armageddon Time, which was screened in competition at Cannes and has an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is generating awards buzz.
