I WANTED TO LOVE THIS MOVIE!!
I’m a fan of Dwayne Johnson. His blend of muscle, humor, and charm, always makes for great entertainment. I thought I would get my usual dose of “The Rock” in Black Adam, but unfortunately, the movie fell flat on its face. The action scenes were great, but not the greatest. The fight choreography was nothing we hadn’t seen before. DC has a reputation for not being very creative, when it comes to action scenes. It’s always a degree of, who can punch the other guy in the face harder, and make him fly through more walls or buildings.
The movie is safe for children to watch. It’s not bloody, oversexualized, or tries to push any agenda. I wish the movie could have been better, but it was just a little bit better than average
GRADE: C+
SO WHAT WENT WRONG? IT WAS THE SCRIPT!
Well, most problems can be traced down to the screenplay. The director was Jaume Collete-Serra, and is not to blame. He’s not a writer at all, which I find interesting, because it’s automatically assumed that directors are also screenwriters; and vice-versa, most screenwriters have the ability to become directors, if they have leadership and communication skills. But, in the case of Jaume Colle-Serra, he seems to rely on the kindness of writers, and to work with what’s given to him. He did a great job directing the movie Jungle Cruise because he had a great script. Unfortunately for Black Adam, the screenplay that was gifted to him, was incomplete
There were three writers who were officially credited with writing The Black Adam: Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani. Roy and Sohrab are writing partners who are known for scripting the Amazon TV series Informer, which was nominated by BAFTA (British Academy Film Awards) for best drama. They also penned a movie called Mauritanian, which was adapted from a book. Besides the movie Informer and Mauritanian, Roy and Sohrab don’t have many writing credits to their name. That doesn’t mean they are not good.
Adam Sztykiel, the first writer to get credit, wrote a handful of features. Just to name a few, he wrote Due Date, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Rampage, and Scoob! I saw all of these movies and didn’t care for any of them. He wrote a lot of features, but none of which were nominated for an award.
The question is, was Adam Sztykiel assigned to Black Adam to punch up, or rewrite, what Roy and Sohrab wrote? Or, were Roy and Sohrab hired to add to a rather thin storyline created by Adam Sztykiel? Who knows?
Studios productions, unlike independent productions, have a plethora of writers assigned to a single project. Most don’t get any credit. Those that do, usually are the last of the writers to touch the script, or those that have the most political pull. Having a lot of screenwriters on a project is both a blessing and a curse. In some instances, every writer who touched the script would elevate it to a new height. Unfortunately, with studio scripts, the most common result would be a story that kept looking like a first draft, meaning undeveloped characters, storylines, and scenes. This usually happens because existing first-draft scenes were not modified, but often replaced with new first-draft scenes. As bad as this sounds, this is still better than how studio movies are presently made, as most scripts are written on set!
Because of this creative chaos, that is constantly present from script to screen, is why it’s important for a director to also be a screenwriter. He or she, needs to sort out the creative mess writers can easily create, and make the right moves to guarantee a great movie is created.
CHARACTERS
The reason why Black Adam didn’t feel like Spider-Man or Iron Man, was because every single character in this movie was flat, undeveloped, and a version of the same personality type.
BLACK ADAM: UNHEALTHY TYPE 8 “CHALLENGER”
Most characters that “The Rock” plays in movies are Type Eight Challengers. Unhealthy Eights are easy to spot. They don’t follow the rules, are loners, and if they choose to be, can be natural-born leaders. In real life, Type Eights can be hard to get along with. Their strong personality and confident behavior can turn a lot of people off. And this is just like movies. If your Type Eight Character is too strong, or too arrogant, they can turn the audience off. An audience can have superhero fatigue because they’ll get tired of seeing super beings flying around, punching people, instead of growing internally. And this is where Black Adam failed.
There weren’t enough opportunities for the Black Adam to slow his emotions. Everything was full-throttle anger and revenge until the third act, with very little contemplation.
This confused me. Was the Black Adam the antagonist or the protagonist in this storyline? Was I supposed to like him, or hate him?
WHO’S THE BAD GUY?
Well, I’m going to give out any spoilers here. I’m just going to complain. But other than flat characters, the reason why The Black Adam didn’t feel great, is that there was no real external threat throughout 90% of the entire movie. If there’s no great external threat to our hero, what will force our hero to grow internally? Every threat to the Black Adam just irritated him.
Conflict and agendas drives story, not action scenes, not punches in the face. And a flawed protagonist will almost never jump into action, unless they are forced or manipulated by the antagonist.
Who is the real threat to The Black Adam? Well, that changes throughout the movie. And that’s one of the reasons why the story is all over the place.
FINAL WORD
There were way too many flashback and voice-over scenes in The Black Adam. Flashbacks, to me, are lazy ways of creating character growth. And, voice-over scenes allow directors to be a bit careless. Save voice-overs for the news and documentaries, don’t use it for the movies. Show us what’s happening without a voice, and allow the audience to visually figure out the story. The Black Adam literally had flashback scenes that were voiced-over…..seesh. Back in the day, voice-overs were used to advance a story before or after a commercial break, or to save on the budget. But in this case, it was just a case of lazy storytelling…
Sigh.
Steve Young
