When Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock arrives in the world of superheroes, it is necessarily an event. The ultra actor bankable thus embodies black adamevil alter ego of Shazam (with whom he shares common powers) with a moral alignment that flirts equally often towards good and evil, and who has experienced repeated quarrels with Superman in the comics. Does this almost super-villain succeed in renewing the genre in cinema? Not so sure.
The feature film does not really have any originality compared to other origin stories of the genre.
black adam tells us the story of Teth-Adama human born during antiquity in Kahndaq, a fictional province of Ancient Egypt. Faced with an oppressive dictatorship looking for stones ofEternium to reform the maleficent Sabbac Crownhe will rebel and obtain the powers of the Sorcerer Shazam to free his people, which will lead to him sacrificing himself so that the crafted artifact can be hidden. Nowadays, Kahndaq is under the oppression ofInterganga militia that wants to plunder the country’s resources and regain the crown, and a certain Adrianna and his entourage will wake up by chance Teth-Adam trying to thwart their plans. This colossus with excessive energy will quickly attract the mistrust of the Justice Society of Americaa band composed of Hawkman, Atom Smasher, Cyclone and Doctor Fate.
Despite its appearances as an anti-hero movie, black adam never managed to make us doubt the goodness of its protagonist. First presented as a savior before seeing his status questioned, he is violent and lethal only with the most unsympathetic characters in the film and is rarely more disturbing than the American interventionists of the JSA to poorly thought-out methods and actions. So much so that, apart from the staging of a nag hero necessarily out of step with his time for worn-out jokes, in Arabic settings that are unusual in this kind of production (with accents cyberpunk which would have benefited from being much more advanced), the feature film does not really have any originality compared to other origin story of the kind.
All of its aesthetics is hardly surprising, between desert landscapes where we have already seen The Rock in The Scorpion Kingthe son ofAdrianna More head banging than a lot of teen movies from the 90s, superheroes whose lookalikes and powers we’ve already seen on the big screen via Falcon, Ant Man, Tornado and Doctor Strangeshort passages of adventure to the tomb Raider, passages on overheard music and muscular fights around the classic powers of the hero. And it’s not the musical atmosphere and the tasteless cast that will mark our minds, unlike some rather nice valves.
The fights remain impressive, the force, speed and violence of black adam giving rise to several striking action scenes, abusing slow-motion and computer-generated images for shots that should appeal to fans of the genre, but tire others. The frenetic editing also tends to wear out, chases or fights too often linking shots of barely a second. At least, black adam has the advantage of being a dynamic and rhythmic filmwhose action constricted in space and time offers a spectacle almost without pause.
So no, hard to get out of black adam with the impression of having seen something new compared to the superhero films (and other genres) of the last two decades. The anti-hero worn by Dwayne Johnson is for the moment too anchored in the shackles of traditional heroes and the production relies on its digital action scenes, its references to the universe DC for a wow effect without direct use for the film and traditional cinematographic codes to offer an effective blockbuster, but not as disruptive as she would like.
Note : 2 out of 5
You can catch Zack Snyder’s Justice League on Blu-ray at €18.41 on Amazon.com.
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| Favorite editor of your favorite editor since 2009, passionate about music that makes boom boom, follower of comic series of all kinds. I’ve played a little too much Pokémon in my life. | ||
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