Tag Archives: Dwayne Johnson

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Black Adam – A Movie Review

(Warning: the tiniest of spoilers ahead, mostly concerning what is NOT in Black Adam)

As you know, I am a unapologetic DC apologist. I’ve loved Super Friends since my childhood and they will always hold a special place in my heart. Donner, Burton, Nolan, Snyder, Jenkins–whomever. Put them on the screen and I will watch them.

I won’t claim to be a big Black Adam fan, though I did thoroughly enjoy Geoff Johns’ JSA run, which heavily featured Black Adam, Hawkman, Captain Marvel (Shazam), Dr. Fate, Cyclone, and Atom Smasher (among many, many others).

I’m also not a huge Dwyane Johnson follower. I like him in movies, certainly, but I don’t consider his films a “must-see” experience. There’s no denying his charisma, however, and so when I heard he was almost maniacally dedicated to getting Black Adam onto the big screen, I thought the exposure would be good for DC, good for the character, and good for Dwayne Johnson. Furthermore, once I learned the film would also feature Hawkman and Dr. Fate, I found myself getting very excited. Black Adam, Dr. Fate, and Hawkman have been linked for centuries in the comic books and I assumed they would lean heavily into that rich history.

I just left the theater a few hours ago and here’s my one-sentence review: Good … not great.

Black Adam has tremendous action, special effects that sometimes look amazing, superb costumes, elaborate sets, and a pace almost as fast as the Flash.

Also, there are some real twists in the story that I did not see coming.

But let’s talk about that–story. The story? It’s fine. They do a good job firmly establishing Black Adam’s past and current status. They manage to introduce the JSA and its members while providing the audience a baseline understanding of each member’s motivations, histories, and dynamics. Additionally, they address the necessity of the gray area in which Black Adam exists. They call into question the morality of good and evil as it pertains to perspective. I frankly found it admirable that they did not shy away from such complexity at all.

But the dialogue? Woof. It’s bad, folks. It’s really bad. It’s the typical giant studio beating a dead horse with cliches, one-liners, catch phrases, and lazy talk. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.

Some bright spots? Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate. Brosnan brought the wisdom, regality, and wit needed for this version of the character. And the costume? The Dr. Fate effects? Wowzers. Fantastic. Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone brought a vitality and freshness to the film that it sorely needed. Her bright colors and interesting visual impact delivered a much needed contrast to some otherwise dreary visuals (excluding Dr. Fate, of course). Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher gave us the levity we craved, and boy-oh-boy did they deliver on his powers. You want to talk about nailing a comic book look and power set! Aldis Hodge played Hawkman, and while I loved the look, I didn’t love the angle they made Hodge take with the character. He was a little too much like Black Adam himself, which could work, and did (at times), but his hard-stance approach seemed to register in all the wrong ways. I look forward to more of Hodge as Hawkman, though, because he absolutely looked the part! Finally, we had some really, really fun cameos. I’m not going to spoil them, of course, but they are there, and they give me great hope.

I know the DCEU gets knocked for being too serious, and I get that. I do. It’s never bothered me, because Batman is rooted in some pretty tragic stuff. Joker is the pinnacle of psychosis. When the public’s modern perception of DC are primarily the Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder movies–yeah, they’re on the dark side. But don’t forget that Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam are also DC movies, and I would not define them as overly serious.

All that being said, Black Adam is too damn serious. Notice I didn’t italicize Black Adam there. I mean the character, not the movie. I understand Black Adam is a very, very serious character in the books, but Dwayne Johnson is a megawatt superstar known for unyielding charisma. He’s playing Black Adam about as straight as it gets, so much so that the attempts at humor are misfires because they are in such contrast to his general demeanor.

I’m also SORELY disappointed they did not dig into the connective tissue binding Dr. Fate, Hawkman, and Black Adam. Didn’t even scratch the surface. Maybe at one point, early in the writing, they tried. This could be the reasoning for Hawkman and Dr. Fate’s inclusion. The final version, though, left it all out.

Finally, Black Adam keeps the unrelenting comic book trope going, the one only She-Hulk dared defy. I won’t spoil it other than to say we have our prerequisite CGI monster at the end. <sigh>

If you’re a DC fan in general, I think you’ll enjoy quite a bit of Black Adam. Dr. Fate, Cyclone, and Atom Smasher alone are pretty fun to watch. If you’re a casual movie goer, you may enjoy the unrelenting action and eye-popping special effects. No one can deny that Black Adam and Dwyane Johnson took a big, big swing. They definitely made contact, but I wouldn’t call it a homerun.

Like I said earlier: Good … not great.

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Netflix’s Red Notice – A Movie Review

Red Notice felt very much like the excuse we needed to get Dwyane Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds together in a movie. It’s not especially good, but it’s fun to watch the three of these stars work together, so there you go.

Oh.

I guess you need a bit more than that, huh?

Okay, so Red Notice is about an art thief (Reynolds) trying to outdo another art thief (Gadot) as he’s being pursued by a profiler (Johnson) who is working with Interpol. Reynolds and Johnson eventually have to team up as Gadot outsmarts them both in regards to ancient Egyptian art pieces in the shape of eggs that Reynolds at one point refers to as MacGuffins. (Yes, you read that right.) Like any good MacGuffin, they serve as the motivation for all three characters even though nothing much ever really comes of them.

Reynolds cracks wise through the whole thing, Johnson tries to play his straight man, and Gadot takes a shot at being a femme fatale.

Honestly, there’s action, but it’s not great action. There’s fun quips from Reynolds, but we’ve heard much better from him in every other movie he’s done. Johnson seems to lack his usual charm for some reason. Gadot is fine though even she doesn’t particularly stand out.

Red Notice is a perfectly acceptable popcorn movie, but it never quite seems to figure out what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it a buddy movie, an action comedy, a self-referential satire, or a mostly serious heist film? It does not settle on any one of these, but instead dabbles in all of them.

While it was indeed fun to see Johnson, Reynolds, and Gadot on screen together, Red Notice did not work nearly as well as it should have.

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Jungle Cruise – A Movie Review

I struggle with paying the extra $30 for a movie on Disney Plus when I already pay for a Disney Plus subscription. Quite honestly, I feel a little fleeced when it happens. Of course, I can rationalize it by saying, “Well, you know, we’d spend more at the actual theater if it wasn’t available on Disney Plus, so we’re ultimately coming out ahead.” Anyway, we paid the thirty bucks.

And you know what? As my youngest daughter said halfway through Jungle Cruise: “This is totally worth the money!”

Yes, I’m a dad, so my kids get to hear me groan about extra expenditures.

But she was right. Believe it or not, Jungle Cruise absolutely lived up to the purchase price.

I’ve read a few headlines saying Jungle Cruise is nothing more than an advertisement for the theme ride, and I have to disagree. Yes, the movie is obviously inspired by the attraction and so there are going to be similarities, but I honestly believe this film could have stood on its own with a different name and been just fine.

True, it’s borrowing moves from some pretty successful playbooks. It’s a little bit Jumanji: Welcome To the Jungle, a little bit Pirates Of the Caribbean, and a little bit Raiders Of the Lost Ark, but those are not bad movies to emulate, right?

Most of the film, as you would expect, occurs either on or in water, and so you have to appreciate the technical execution of filming this thing. It also looks fabulous in terms of water crafts, costumes, architecture, flora, animals, and general scenery. The film is set in 1916, so making these items look authentic would not have been easy feats to accomplish. Furthermore, for the most part, the film’s CGI was above average, especially in regards to a certain big cat. CGI can really suffer on the small screen, and Jungle Cruise had a few CGI stumbles, but overall it appeared fairly seamless.

The plot is pretty familiar in terms of generalities. Person A has an object leading to a treasure. Person A needs Person B to guide her to said treasure. Person B is not entirely trustworthy or who he seems. Person A has doubts. Adventure ensues. Person A and B then … Well, that would be a spoiler, wouldn’t it?

Yet, even though the plot is tried and true, the chemistry between the leads is absolutely what makes this movie work. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, on their own, are about as charismatic as it gets. Put them together, along with Blunt’s onscreen brother played by Jack Whitehall, and you have a terrific trinity perhaps rivaling Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford. (Okay, maybe I took that one too far.) They really do sizzle together, though.

With tons of great humor, lots of terrible dad jokes, ample action, fantastic adventure, and some thrilling but not-too-frightening jump scares, Jungle Cruise managed to entertain both of my kids, my wife, and me. It’s pretty rare that all four of us are equally satisfied.

That being said, if you’re looking to spend theater prices without actually going to the theater, you can’t do much better in terms of a family film than Jungle Cruise. Enjoy!

(P.S. Once everyone has seen it and I don’t have to worry about spoilers, I plan to write a thorough analysis explaining the purpose behind Johnson’s dad jokes. As a former teacher, I totally related. Stay tuned!)

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Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw – A Movie Review

I have a terrible confession to make: I’ve never seen a single Fast & Furious movie. Not one. They just didn’t really seem like my thing. Also, I’m not a big Vin Diesel guy.

With that being said, you might be wondering what attracted me to Hobbs & Shaw, which is a spin-off of the Fast and Furious franchise. Honestly, it was the director–David Leitch.

Leitch is a former stuntman turned director with a lot of work in between those two things. I’ve read and heard interviews detailing his work ethic, his love of action, and his appreciation of buddy comedies. Combining him with the always-entertaining Rock, as well as the very physical Jason Statham seemed like the kind of summer action movie that I would like to see. Furthermore, Idris Elba and Vanessa Kirby are legitimate actors capable of serious range. The trailers looked action-packed, funny, and well-shot. I considered this a can’t-miss good time at the movies. Seriously, as my friends and I walked into the theater, I felt authentically excited about Hobbs & Shaw.

After about an hour of this thing, I’d had enough. Unfortunately, I looked at my watch and realized that I still had roughly seventy four minutes to endure. It didn’t get any better. In fact, it got actively worse.

There is no story. Not really. The plot is something that could be dropped into any movie, any time, in any era. The dialogue is just one cliche after another. No one says one original line in this entire movie. It drove me nuts.

The Rock and Jason Statham were funny at first, but then the jokes wore very thin and I realized that these guys actually don’t have any chemistry between them. I believe Dwayne Johnson can be a very good actor with the right supporting cast and the right director. He apparently had neither with Hobbs & Shaw. Furthermore, this movie convinced me that I will never see another Jason Statham film again. Nothing against him (especially if he’s reading this), but his brand just isn’t for me. He has one tone of voice, three facial expressions, and a type of action that gets very old very quickly.

My gosh, even Idris Elba stunk in this one. He, too, fell victim to terrible writing and poor directing.

Consequently, the alpha-male testosterone of Hobbs & Shaw bore me from the start. Everyone is the toughest. Everyone glares off to the side. Everyone walks with a strut. Everyone makes crude jokes. Everyone can’t be told anything by anyone. Almost two and a half hours of this nonsense proved too much.

It’s not even a great action movie. It’s had good action, yes, but not great action. Mission Impossible: Fallout is a great action movie. Hobbs & Shaw didn’t even come close to Fallout and seemed intent on borrowing shots you’ve already seen in other movies. I literally groaned when they blatantly swiped a scene from Captain America: Winter Solider.

And poor Vanessa Kirby. She deserves so much better.

I’m afraid I can’t recommend Hobbs & Shaw unless you just really love Jason Statham or Dwyane Johnson. It’s basically those two men running around a lot and making lewd jokes.

However, I will say this: there are a few cameos in this film that were fantastic. I won’t spoil it for you, but these scenes alone prove that The Rock does indeed shine when sharing the screen with the right person. Johnson can be funny, but he needs to play off of people who are even more funny. He literally cannot have Jason Statham as his straight man or you end up with … Hobbs & Shaw.

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