BLACK ADAM starring Dwayne Johnson (TBD) 7 7

[Sauce Dog]

On 11/16/2022 at 8:54 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

What do you like in a CBM?

If you like basic plots that lead to a group of 'good guys' beating up 'bad guys', then you'll probably enjoy Black Adam a lot. It has some great fight choreography and VFX (though some of the VFX are bad at times).

If you want something more convoluted, something perhaps with a real meaning behind character motivations other than Good vs Evil, then you'll probably be somewhat bored.

I love both those situations though in my CBMs yet found BA leaned 'bad' (I was indifferent coming out of it, but after thinking about it and rewatching some of it I'm now leaning towards 4/10 rather than 5/10), which was due to the actual editing and -script/dialogue (and soundtrack for the most part).

A movie can be basic and simple OR complex and rich with meaning and still fail (or succeed) on the merits of its actual construction and technical aspects. Just because a CBM gives me my fix of smashing and seeing characters I like (which BA delivered on both fronts) does not mean it gets a pass on actual quality film making and won't impact my enjoyment. I could see myself liking BA much more if it got a tighter edit and new mix.

I think it is less about what people want out of their CBMs, and more of what their personal standards are for ANY summer popcorn flick.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/16/2022 at 9:14 AM, Sauce Dog said:

I love both those situations though in my CBMs yet found BA leaned 'bad' (I was indifferent coming out of it, but after thinking about it and rewatching some of it I'm now leaning towards 4/10 rather than 5/10), which was due to the actual editing and --script/dialogue (and soundtrack for the most part).

A movie can be basic and simple OR complex and rich with meaning and still fail (or succeed) on the merits of its actual construction and technical aspects. Just because a CBM gives me my fix of smashing and seeing characters I like (which BA delivered on both fronts) does not mean it gets a pass on actual quality film making and won't impact my enjoyment. I could see myself liking BA much more if it got a tighter edit and new mix.

I think it is less about what people want out of their CBMs, and more of what their personal standards are for ANY summer popcorn flick.

I think the soundtrack in Black Adam is relatively great. Maybe not the song choices, but the OST itself.

Some people want hidden messages in their media. Those people, by default, won't like Black Adam because it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't.

I take it that the people who criticize Black Adam for "too much slow motion" want to watch WWII documentaries and not narratives which outcomes are based on magic-laden action.

[Sauce Dog]

On 11/16/2022 at 9:33 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I think the soundtrack in Black Adam is relatively great. Maybe not the song choices, but the OST itself.

Some people want hidden messages in their media. Those people, by default, won't like Black Adam because it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't.

I take it that the people who criticize Black Adam for "too much slow motion" want to watch WWII documentaries and not narratives which outcomes are based on magic-laden action.

It does have too much slow motion though, but that isn't a fault with the stuff that I found issue with as mentioned above - just a stylistic choice that was overused (felt fine in the first action sequence when he awakens, but after that felt like they were all just voguing; move to new spot, pose! move to new spot, pose! ah, peak fight choreography!).

It's not about preferring to watch other documentaries or styles of films, it's about wanting to watch good stuff that doesn't feel repetitive. No reason to paint people who have criticisms about CBMs as being pretentious people who are looking for high art (not saying you are doing that, but the critique sounds like it), makes it sound like one needs to abandon all standards and throw out ones brains to have a hope of actually enjoying a CBM (when we should be expecting more from them at this point - like every other movie genre that has gone through growing pains)

Edited November 16, 2022 by Sauce Dog

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/16/2022 at 11:41 AM, Sauce Dog said:

It does have too much slow motion though, but that isn't a fault with the stuff that I found issue with as mentioned above - just a stylistic choice that was overused (felt fine in the first action sequence when he awakens, but after that felt like they were all just voguing; move to new spot, pose! move to new spot, pose! ah, peak fight choreography!).

It's not about preferring to watch other documentaries or styles of films, it's about wanting to watch good stuff that doesn't feel repetitive. No reason to paint people who have criticisms about CBMs as being pretentious people who are looking for high art (not saying you are doing that, but the critique sounds like it), makes it sound like one needs to abandon all standards and throw out ones brains to have a hope of actually enjoying a CBM (when we should be expecting more from them at this point - like every other movie genre that has gone through growing pains)

I mean, that's an opinion. Considering that I didn't notice more than 1 scene had a lot of slow-motion, I would say that it doesn't have "too much".

If you're "not saying that I'm doing that", why was it mentioned? "Expecting more" sounds exactly like I pigeonholed this criticism accurately.

Edited November 16, 2022 by theCapraAegagrus
Structure.

[Bosco685]

On 11/16/2022 at 11:49 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I mean, that's an opinion. Considering that I didn't notice more than 1 scene had a lot of slow-motion, I would say that it doesn't have "too much".

If you're "not saying that I'm doing that", why was it mentioned? "Expecting more" sounds exactly like I pigeonholed this criticism accurately.

Black Adam was fine as a straightforward action movie with some story to it.

But I wonder if part of the story got left out because it was originally being setup as an R-Rated film and then got peeled back to be PG-13 for the wider general audience. But still, it was more entertaining to me than Thor Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, but below the fun I had with The Batman. I haven't seen Wakanda Forever just yet, so I can't judge it from that perceptive.

[Sauce Dog]

On 11/16/2022 at 11:49 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I mean, that's an opinion. Considering that I didn't notice more than 1 scene had a lot of slow-motion, I would say that it doesn't have "too much".

If you're "not saying that I'm doing that", why was it mentioned? "Expecting more" sounds exactly like I pigeonholed this criticism accurately.

You didn't notice too much, but I did. It's just a preference we both have, and once again wasn't a major fault of the movie that majorly impacted my enjoyment (though I would have been more excited if they had better interesting fight choreography, as it was it wasn't anything new or exciting to me).

It was mentioned because the argument you were putting forward typically is used to convey some sort of elitism held by those criticizing CBM films, as if they cannot enjoy these movies due to some bias for other 'higher' forms of film -so I say that to qualify any possible misconstrued intent read into the comment, cause it's the internet and we all know how well that goes when conveying intent within comments . When I say 'Expecting more' I don't mean wanting and expecting a 'deeper'/'hidden messages' etc I mean basic standards for the most basic of filmmaking we often take for granted (can still be a basic summer blockbuster with no depth of plot and still have decent editing and dialogue that doesn't make one cringe or break immersion). I'm not 'expecting more' if I expect the wheels on a cheap car to NOT fly off while I'm driving  

Edited November 16, 2022 by Sauce Dog

[Bosco685]

On 11/16/2022 at 3:23 PM, Sauce Dog said:

You didn't notice too much, but I did.

That's a great starting point. "I paid attention more than you did!"

[D84]

On 11/16/2022 at 1:26 PM, Bosco685 said:

Black Adam was fine as a straightforward action movie with some story to it.

But I wonder if part of the story got left out because it was originally being setup as an R-Rated film and then got peeled back to be PG-13 for the wider general audience. But still, it was more entertaining to me than Thor Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, but below the fun I had with The Batman. I haven't seen Wakanda Forever just yet, so I can't judge it from that perceptive.

You had fun in The Batman? Are you sure you didn't mean a nap? 

[Sauce Dog]

On 11/16/2022 at 4:25 PM, Bosco685 said:

That's a great starting point. "I paid attention more than you did!"

I claimed no such thing, maybe I should be more clear for those in the back: I was saying we both had different preferences that led to both of us seeing it differently, he thought it wasn't excessive while I did :P 

[Bosco685]

On 11/16/2022 at 7:31 PM, Sauce Dog said:

I claimed no such thing, maybe I should be more clear for those in the back: I was saying we both had different preferences that led to both of us seeing it differently, he thought it wasn't excessive while I did :P 

No. You should be more clear for human beings.

[Bosco685]

 

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/16/2022 at 2:26 PM, Bosco685 said:

Black Adam was fine as a straightforward action movie with some story to it.

But I wonder if part of the story got left out because it was originally being setup as an R-Rated film and then got peeled back to be PG-13 for the wider general audience. But still, it was more entertaining to me than Thor Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, but below the fun I had with The Batman. I haven't seen Wakanda Forever just yet, so I can't judge it from that perceptive.

Good point, would explain some of the editing. I enjoyed it more than The Batman, because it's an hour shorter. They're probably the same level of mediocre to me if you remove criticisms of excess material.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/16/2022 at 3:23 PM, Sauce Dog said:

You didn't notice too much, but I did. It's just a preference we both have, and once again wasn't a major fault of the movie that majorly impacted my enjoyment (though I would have been more excited if they had better interesting fight choreography, as it was it wasn't anything new or exciting to me).

It was mentioned because the argument you were putting forward typically is used to convey some sort of elitism held by those criticizing CBM films, as if they cannot enjoy these movies due to some bias for other 'higher' forms of film -so I say that to qualify any possible misconstrued intent read into the comment, cause it's the internet and we all know how well that goes when conveying intent within comments . When I say 'Expecting more' I don't mean wanting and expecting a 'deeper'/'hidden messages' etc I mean basic standards for the most basic of filmmaking we often take for granted (can still be a basic summer blockbuster with no depth of plot and still have decent editing and dialogue that doesn't make one cringe or break immersion). I'm not 'expecting more' if I expect the wheels on a cheap car to NOT fly off while I'm driving  

Okay, what "standards" does Black Adam not meet? It meets all of the standards for a typical CBM, which exceeds most of what we've been provided with recently.

Edited November 17, 2022 by theCapraAegagrus

[Sauce Dog]

On 11/17/2022 at 7:09 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Okay, what "standards" does Black Adam not meet? It meets all of the standards for a typical CBM, which exceeds most of what we've been provided with recently.

Standards between us are subjective, so while you might find BA exceeded other CBM recently I would say it didn't. Dialogue was extremely poor and often repetitive, editing was worse to the point of distracting and break immersion (it had some very egregious moments when characters were just talking with each other but included excessive cuts between them. This is one of the most obvious ones, and not making basic sight line editing mistakes is the bare minimum for me). I also have come to expect proper act structure with exposition that builds towards the end, which BA fumbled (editing and act structure I mention because those are the two most common complaints across all the different CB forums I'm on, so I'm not just being nit-picky here).

Standards to me also asking what we should expect from good action (if a CBM is mainly going for being an action movie, it should do strive to do that the best it can). We've seen countless movies with decent action, and many more that innovated action to keep things exciting and interesting, which I don't feel BA did at all. Was it fun to see some characters onscreen, sure, but was the fighting choreography interesting to me - for the most part, no (too much reliance on slow motion for me). It felt like BA was less invested in doing something new and was more reliant on these characters simply exciting us from being on screen for the first time (and it was exciting to see Doctor Fate finally - but he should not be a crutch the movie leans on to get our interest peaked)

VFX/CGI was fine for the most part so how that meets or exceeds ones standards is also subjective (though it had some pretty bad CGI in the final '4th' act of the movie and some very odd head-on-body compositions), so if one is putting more stock in that category I could see how BA exceeds other CBM movies recently.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/17/2022 at 9:06 AM, Sauce Dog said:

Standards between us are subjective, so while you might find BA exceeded other CBM recently I would say it didn't. Dialogue was extremely poor and often repetitive, editing was worse to the point of distracting and break immersion (it had some very egregious moments when characters were just talking with each other but included excessive cuts between them. This is one of the most obvious ones, and not making basic sight line editing mistakes is the bare minimum for me). I also have come to expect proper act structure with exposition that builds towards the end, which BA fumbled (editing and act structure I mention because those are the two most common complaints across all the different CB forums I'm on, so I'm not just being nit-picky here).

Standards to me also asking what we should expect from good action (if a CBM is mainly going for being an action movie, it should do strive to do that the best it can). We've seen countless movies with decent action, and many more that innovated action to keep things exciting and interesting, which I don't feel BA did at all. Was it fun to see some characters onscreen, sure, but was the fighting choreography interesting to me - for the most part, no (too much reliance on slow motion for me). It felt like BA was less invested in doing something new and was more reliant on these characters simply exciting us from being on screen for the first time (and it was exciting to see Doctor Fate finally - but he should not be a crutch the movie leans on to get our interest peaked)

VFX/CGI was fine for the most part so how that meets or exceeds ones standards is also subjective (though it had some pretty bad CGI in the final '4th' act of the movie and some very odd head-on-body compositions), so if one is putting more stock in that category I could see how BA exceeds other CBM movies recently.

Nit-picky and authoritative are definitely 2 different things, we agree there.

Why would the creatives use Black Adam to "do something new"? It's meant to be a cookie-cutter CBM and it accomplishes that for the vast majority of people who have shared their opinions online, except with new and obviously-exciting characters.

I pigeonholed this correctly from the start.

[Sauce Dog]

On 11/17/2022 at 9:15 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Nit-picky and authoritative are definitely 2 different things, we agree there.

Why would the creatives use Black Adam to "do something new"? It's meant to be a cookie-cutter CBM and it accomplishes that for the vast majority of people who have shared their opinions online, except with new and obviously-exciting characters.

I pigeonholed this correctly from the start.

Touting a movie as a 'cookie-cutter' experience should not excuse any issues with the film however (the Transformers franchise is an excellent example of this; they all were cookie-cutter but the quality between them was vastly different - though they did try something 'new' with VFX and design). This says more about the perceived quality of CBMs than it does really anything else if we are prepared to just be happy with seeing new characters on screen without anything else really done beyond what has been pumped out for decades.

Being a Cookie-Cutter movie/--script/CGI isn't a bad thing, but still needs to feel like it was done competently - which I feel BA had too many stumbling blocks in this regard for me to simply brush them off as just being 'just another CBM'.

I do think people will enjoy it more streaming it at home (and not paying threater prices for), hence my prior recommendation to do so.

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Sauce Dog

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/17/2022 at 9:28 AM, Sauce Dog said:

Touting a movie as a 'cookie-cutter' experience should not excuse any issues with the film however (the Transformers franchise is an excellent example of this; they all were cookie-cutter but the quality between them was vastly different - though they did try something 'new' with VFX and design). This says more about the perceived quality of CBMs than it does really anything else if we are prepared to just be happy with seeing new characters on screen without anything else really done beyond what has been pumped out for decades.

Being a Cookie-Cutter movie/---script/CGI isn't a bad thing, but still needs to feel like it was done competently - which I feel BA had too many stumbling blocks in this regard for me to simply brush them off as just being 'just another CBM'.

I do think people will enjoy it more streaming it at home (and not paying threater prices for), hence my prior recommendation to do so.

Context matters, of course. In the current sea of CBMs, cookie-cutter appears to be exactly what the audience wanted with Black Adam. It may have been received differently 3-6 years ago, but that's not relevant to the way people think about the movie right now. I know that in the future, I'd rather have this on my TV than anything not No Way Home from 2020-2022.

[Gatsby77]

On 11/17/2022 at 9:37 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Context matters, of course. In the current sea of CBMs, cookie-cutter appears to be exactly what the audience wanted with Black Adam.  

Counter-point: What audiences?

It's going not going to come close to breaking even theatrically, and it's dropping so fast that in Tuesday's domestic box office results it was outdone by Ticket to Paradise - the George Clooney / Julia Roberts rom-com (which did $704,975 to Black Adam's $608,481). Both films were released the same day.

Again - I've not seen it yet (waiting the 4 more weeks until it's on HBO Max) - but from much of what I've read here the consensus is Black Adam would have been a fine comic book movie had been it been released in the late '90s (a la Spawn or Blade) or even 2005 (a la the first theatrical FF film).

The difference is comic book films by and large have evolved beyond the simple origin story and 3-4 action/fight sequences.

The best comic book movies of the last 15 years have had plots that could have stood on their own even if you'd stripped out all the superhero elements. See:

• Captain America: Winter Soldier as a solid spy thriller
• Wonder Woman as a WWI espionage thriller
• The Dark Knight as a crime thriller - and self-conscious homage to Heat
• Black Panther as a Shakespearean meditation on family, betrayal and identity
• Even WandaVision as an exploration of psychosis and grief

Given these examples (and more), why settle for mediocrity?

I can forgive Ghost Rider (2007) because

1) It belongs to that pre-2008 era where simply seeing our favorite superheroes on-screen was enough; and

2) It *knows* it's garbage - and both Nic Cage and Sam Elliott (even Peter Fonda) ham it up '60s Batman TV style

For the same reason I can't forgive Venom -- again here it would have been fine if it had been released in the late '90s - or even in 2005 -- but to have a second shot at theatrical Venom and produce something so thoroughly mediocre (at best) when they had the opportunity to make it phenomenal was just...dumb.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/17/2022 at 10:10 AM, Gatsby77 said:

Counter-point: What audiences?

It's going not going to come close to breaking even theatrically, and it's dropping so fast that in Tuesday's domestic box office results it was outdone by Ticket to Paradise - the George Clooney / Julia Roberts rom-com (which did $704,975 to Black Adam's $608,481). Both films were released the same day.

Again - I've not seen it yet (waiting the 4 more weeks until it's on HBO Max) - but from much of what I've read here the consensus is Black Adam would have been a fine comic book movie had been it been released in the late '90s (a la Spawn or Blade) or even 2005 (a la the first theatrical FF film).

The difference is comic book films by and large have evolved beyond the simple origin story and 3-4 action/fight sequences.

The best comic book movies of the last 15 years have had plots that could have stood on their own even if you'd stripped out all the superhero elements. See:

• Captain America: Winter Soldier as a solid spy thriller
• Wonder Woman as a WWI espionage thriller
• The Dark Knight as a crime thriller - and self-conscious homage to Heat
• Black Panther as a Shakespearean meditation on family, betrayal and identity
• Even WandaVision as an exploration of psychosis and grief

Given these examples (and more), why settle for mediocrity?

I can forgive Ghost Rider (2007) because

1) It belongs to that pre-2008 era where simply seeing our favorite superheroes on-screen was enough; and

2) It *knows* it's garbage - and both Nic Cage and Sam Elliott (even Peter Fonda) ham it up '60s Batman TV style

For the same reason I can't forgive Venom -- again here it would have been fine if it had been released in the late '90s - or even in 2005 -- but to have a second shot at theatrical Venom and produce something so thoroughly mediocre (at best) when they had the opportunity to make it phenomenal was just...dumb.

How much money a movie makes is irrelevant to its quality. 70-85% of the people who actually saw the movie have given it a "good" score.

Black Adam is in the average range, not "best" range, so IDK why these comparisons are even being thought. Does anyone really have beyond wishful thinking to suggest that a Black Adam movie pushes the boundaries of the CBM genre?

[Bosco685]

On 11/17/2022 at 10:25 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

How much money a movie makes is irrelevant to its quality. 70-85% of the people who actually saw the movie have given it a "good" score.

Black Adam is in the average range, not "best" range, so IDK why these comparisons are even being thought. Does anyone really have beyond wishful thinking to suggest that a Black Adam movie pushes the boundaries of the CBM genre?

It's his thing. You will never sway that view.

Now, D-tiny-2 is another story.