Black Adam (2022)

Dwayne Johnson spent a lot of time in the run up to the release of Black Adam by telling people that "the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change". I'm not sure anyone really believed him, but I was certainly willing to give him a chance to strut his stuff in a full-on superhero movie. It's probably going to be the only Black Adam movie we get, at least for now, and one or two quick-witted people online have already made an observation about the irony of Johnson being "dethroned" due to, well, a change in the hierarchy of power at DC.

It’s really easy to sun up this film. Adam is woken up by some people, he is pretty angry, and he starts to cause a lot of damage to property and people in the country of Kahndaq. A few talented individuals, known as the Justice Society, are sent to meet with Adam. If he cannot be reasoned with then he must be stopped. Which is strange, considering that Kahndaq hasn’t been of interest to the likes of the Justice Society while the people have been suffering under forces of oppression. Some people believe that Adam will be the savior of Kahndaq, but many more believe him to be a powerful threat to the entire world. There’s a much bigger threat on the way though. As always.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, delivering a film that is in line with most of the standard DC movies of the past few years (big in scale, plenty of polish, but just a little bit of extra grit and seriousness to remind you that DC desperately wants to be more than just escapist fun), Black Adam is, for the most part, surprisingly dull. Or maybe it isn’t that surprising. After all, the character is so similar to Superman that a lot of the big superhero moments feel overly familiar, and the plotting is as predictable as expected. That didn’t stop me from enjoying the last team-up between Collet-Serra and Johnson (the fun Jungle Cruise), but this feels like a step down. The balance is wrong, especially when the moments of actual heroism are the least enjoyable moments of the film.

Writers Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohran Noshirvani go through the motions for over half of the runtime, but at least it feels like Haines and Noshirvani are happy to be given such a big blockbuster in which they can make some interesting points about American intervention around the world and the ways in which different countries can help or hinder one another. This strand is the most interesting part of Black Adam, and you know it has to be pushed aside for a grand finale that will be overflowing with the usual display of visual FX. I admit that I enjoyed the look of the main villain here, but it was, as with most of the movie, tiresomely familiar.

Johnson is very good in the lead role here, as you expect him to be, and he gets a chance to show some actual acting, as opposed to just dominating the screen with his presence and bulk. It’s not all through the film, but it’s there, and credit where credit is due. Pierce Brosnan and Aldis Hodge are two senior members of the Justice Society, both doing their best to remain confident and cool in ridiculous costumes, and Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell are enjoyable enough as younger superheroes. Sarah Shahi is a good non-superpowered character, Marwan Kenzari does fine in depicting a character journey that keeps him on a rigidly set path, and young Bodhi Sabongui is the boy at the heart of the tale (the Edward Furlong to Johnson’s caped “terminator”) and my opinion of his performance is best summed up by me saying that Edward Furlong was arguably the weak point of that movie, but Sabongui doesn’t even manage to get to that level.

There are a lot of fun little Easter eggs dotted throughout this, eagle-eyed DC fans will find plenty to amuse them, and the technical side of things, from the special effects to the score, the production design to the audio work, is all as good as it should be. It’s easy to see why this didn’t set the world alight though. And it is now further weakened by a post-credit scene that is Joe rendered completely pointless. 

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Can't Take It Back (2017)

As soon as Can't Take It Back started, I started to get a good feeling about it. It was a supernatural horror about a vengeful spirit that made use of social media. Considering that I was entertained enough by Unfriended, and had enjoyed Friend Request even more, I thought this would be a bit of simple entertainment for me. Sadly, things soon started to dip, and it never recovers for the rest of the runtime.

Ana Coto plays Kristen Shaw, a young girl who ends up joining her friend (Morgan, played by Ivanna Sakhno) in posting hateful comments on the photo of someone's Facebook profile. Morgan is familiar with the target, Kristen is not. And that's what sets off a chain of events that will lead to moments of madness, death, and plentiful jump scares in rooms with unreliable lighting fixtures.

Directed by Tim Schechmeister, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Schechmeister, Can't Take It Back doesn't take long at all to devolve into a shapeless lump of clichés and moments that we've either seen in much better movies or we didn't need. It's clear that Schechmeister & Schechmeister had more ideas about the scares and set-pieces they wanted in the movie than they did about giving you characters to care about or a plot that makes any sense.

Arguably the biggest problem that the film has is the way in which most of the teen characters just accept some very odd occurrences, and surely had an idea that something was off from the very beginning, but don't give it any more thought until the pain and death begins. That's one reason that you don't end up caring for anyone onscreen, and the other is the lacklustre backstory given to the proceedings. It's good to have a film that utilises cyber-bullying as a central plot point but this one doesn't do it well. It turns one minor mistake into something life-ruining for everyone involved. I KNOW that anyone who has gone through a similar experience may feel the same way but at this point I am waiting on a more positive spin on the situation, a character who sends an embarrassing/naked photo/message and then shrugs when enemies try to use it as a weapon. Perhaps that way we can one day make social media a slightly safer space, meaning we will then only have to be on the lookout for ghosts in the machine, sexual predators, catfishing individuals, movie and TV spoilers, unexpected clips of Jimmy Fallon, and links to endless streams of pop-up boxes that want you to accept cookies, take the cookies, have ALL the cookies.

I wouldn't say that the cast are bad. They're just not very good, and seem worse when stuck in this material. Coto is fine in the lead role, and most viewers will probably want to see her figure out a solution to her big problem, but Noah Centineo, Ivanna Sakhno, Logan Paul, and all of the others just blend into one large blob of disposable teens.

The first third has some good stuff (including the first time that Coto has her mind messed up by an online encounter that understandably scares the crap out of her) but it's all downhill after that, as we move from one disappointing scene that looks as if it was rejected by Silent Hill to another, complete with pacing issues that make the 90-minute experience feel over two hours long. Not one to prioritise ahead of other choices.

3/10

Buy this instead.
Or a cheap laptop, if you're in America.

Netflix And Chill: Sierra Burgess Is A Loser (2018)

I wouldn't have prioritised a viewing of Sierra Burgess Is A Loser if I hadn't read yet another selection of articles written by people getting upset about content that I wasn't sure was intended to offend, in context. But we all know that anyone being offended doesn't give a damn about context. Just ask, well, anyone who has recently been offended.

As suspected, there isn't much here to cause offence, certainly when you compare it to the works that have influenced it (such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and the many John Hughes movies of the 1980s). There are mean-spirited things said about various people, but all of those insults say more about the attitudes and mindsets of the characters delivering them than they say about the makers of the movie. And the characters, including the one that viewers are supposed to root for, do some bad, deceitful, things. I refer you back to the influences just mentioned. So let's move forward with a more standard look at the film without making any attempts to defend aspects that don't need defending.

Shannon Purser plays Sierra, a high school student who doesn't fit in with the crowd of more popular girls, and therefore is labelled as a loser. When Veronica (Kristine Froseth) decides to have fun by handing out Sierra's phone number, claiming it to be her own, it's not long until romance is budding, by text, between Sierra and a young man named Jamey (Noah Centineo). To keep up the pretence, Sierra will need help from Veronica. And it turns out that the latter may need some help of her own, in the form of tutoring, so the two work together, discovering that they have more in common than either would think.

I don't know how things work for Netflix picking up, or creating, their original content but it seems to be working out well for them to often take calculated risks. Perhaps the stars, content, and viewing habits are enough for the algorithms to give them the nod to throw money at a variety of projects (and let's not forget that their data-analysing system gave us House Of Cards). This is, I assume, why we have Sierra Burgess Is A Loser as the directorial feature of Ian Samuels, after a string of shorts on his filmography, and the screenwriting debut of Lindsey Beer. Both do well enough, with Beer using the teen comedy framing to explore loyalty, friendship, peer pressure, honesty, and the benefits and downsides of connecting with others on the worldwide web. Samuels may not stamp his personality on the material, but he shows a knack for emulating the vibe of past teen movies (ones that we still view fondly, despite the many problems that come packaged with them).

Purser has been garnering quite the fanbase since her turn in Stranger Things, and she puts in another good performance here. Sierra is a good young woman, but she makes bad decisions when she starts to become more selfish, neglecting her close friend (Dan, played by R. J. Cyler) and piling one lie on top of another to keep up a dishonest relationship. Froseth is the typical high school clique queen, initially, and does well with that part. She also gets to show another side of her as she and Sierra grow closer, an aspect of the film that is necessary but feels slightly rushed. Centineo is a likable male lead, helped by the fact that his character is kind and earnest as well as the object of Sierra's affection, and Cyler is a lot of fun in his role. The other supporting players are all well and good, but it will please many veiwers to see that Alan Ruck and Lea Thompson play the parents of the main character.

What this film gets right is the general high school movie feel and the selection of standard teen problems. And the cast. What it gets wrong is the lack of believability in a lot of the character developments, which affects everything, although still doesn't do enough damage if you're happy to overlook the flaws while enjoying the predictable beats that lead up to a predictable, if undeserved, finale.

6/10

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