Out of all the success that Marvel Studios has had in the last decade, perhaps the most monumental contribution it has brought to the culture at large is the film Black Panther (2018).  Despite being a cog in the mighty Marvel Cinematic Universe machine, Black Panther transcended into a historic, full blown cultural phenomena.  This was a touchstone movie for African-American filmmaking, with director Ryan Coogler granted a large budget and creative freedom to present black culture on the big screen on a scale never dreamed of before, with a mostly black cast and crew in tow.  Coogler was able to present the cultural influences that shaped him into this mighty fictional world called Wakanda, the Afro-futuristic utopia from the Black Panther comic books, and bring a very African sensibility to the art and geopolitical themes of this world and mainstream it with the full blessing of Marvel Studios.  Suffice to say, of all the movies Marvel has made, none have impacted the culture as much as Black Panther has, as it elevated black voices in cinema to much higher degree, as the movie became one of Marvel’s highest grossing films ever.  It also in turn made it’s lead star, Chadwick Boseman, into an A-list star.  Boseman would continue to shine as the Black Panther in the subsequent appearances he made in the Avengers films, and he also began to shine in movies made outside of the Marvel banner as well.  But, in the summer of 2020, the world received the shocking news that Chadwick had succumbed to his private battle with cancer at the age of 43.  A life cut tragically short right when it was taking off into the stratosphere.  Chadwick Boseman’s loss left the world a much emptier place, especially in a year full of tragedy like 2020, and the question quickly arose about what it meant for the future of the character that he will be forever celebrated for: King T’Challa of Wakanda, the Black Panther.

Before anyone knew of Chadwick’s condition, plans were already set in place for a Black Panther sequel.  Ryan Coogleralready had his script written and a release date was announced at the D23 Expo in 2019.  But, plans were inevitably thrown into blender the following year.  Boseman was gone, and the world was reeling from a catastrophic pandemic, which delayed the film’s start of production.  Inevitably, the entire Marvel calendar had to be moved back a year, which had it’s silver lining for Ryan Coogler as it now gave him more time to work out how he would continue with this project without his leading man.  Working with the Marvel team on what to do, the decision that came forward became a surprising one for many.  The role of T’Challa would not be re-cast.  This led many to speculate how Marvel and Ryan Coogler were going to move forward with the franchise.  Could you make a Black Panther movie without Black Panther?  From the promotional materials surrounding the movie, it looked like the solution was to focus was to put the world of Wakanda front and center this time, with all the supporting characters from the original movie now being the focus of attention.  Also, the new threat facing the nation of Wakanda would also be a major factor in the story; an ocean based race of super-beings led by a mutant king named Namor.  The inclusion of Namor is significant because he is one of Marvel’s oldest and most iconic characters, dating all the way back to Marvel Comics Issue #1, but here he will be making his big screen debut into the MCU.  Despite the challenges put up against this movie, which included a struggling production shoot in the middle of a pandemic, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever managed to finally come together and is now ready to be brought before an eagerly awaiting fan base.  The only question is, does the movie manage to overcome the obstacles that were placed in front of it and rise up to the level of it’s predecessor or does it struggle to find it’s way without it’s mighty king.

The film opens with Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) frantically working in her lab to synthesize medicine for her brother T’Challa who has suddenly fallen deathly ill.  She tries as quickly as she can to do all that is possible, but soon her mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) enter the lab to deliver the terrible news; her brother has joined with the ancestors.  Wakanda enters a period of mourning, now finding itself vulnerable without their king.  Despite T’Challa’s sudden death, Queen Ramonda asserts that Wakanda remains a strong and independent nation, still closely guarding it’s most valuable resource, Vibranium, the super strong metal that among other things has been used to create things like the Black Panther armor and Captain America’s shield.  However, scientists exploring the Atlantic Ocean discover another deposit of the precious metal beneath the waves.  Their discovery unfortunately brings attackers from the ocean itself to disrupt the excavation of the Vibranium from the sea.  Among them is the sea people’s leader, a wing-footed flying super being named K’uk’ulkan, or as he is known to his enemies, Namor (TenochHuerta).  Namor, equally protective of his claim to Vibranium, approaches Queen Ramonda and Princess Shuri to offer an alliance, uniting Wakanda and his underwater kingdom of Talokan against the rest of the world.  As part of this offer, he wishes for Wakanda to help him seek justice against the scientist that invented the Vibranium finding machine that was illegally used in his kingdom.  Ramonda and Shuri don’t want to wage war with the rest of the world, so they decide to seek out this scientist in the hopes of guarding them from Namor’s wrath.  They soon discover that the scientist is in fact an MIT student named Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne).  With the help of Dora Milaje general Okoye (Danai Gurira) Shuri manages to track Riri down, but not before the Talokan warriors working on behalf of Namor get to them first.  Both Shuri and Riri are captured and taken beneath the waves, with Okoye left to explain the situation to an already grieving Queen.  Ramonda, through her power and influence, seeks help from other allies, including American agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and Wakandan agent Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o).  With multiple forces bearing down on the nation of Wakanda, from Namor and the Talokans to hostile intentions from people working within the governments of other nations, can Wakanda manage to survive what is coming without their “protector.”

What I just described is merely the set up for the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as this is a very plot heavy film.  There is no question that this movie, due to the circumstances surrounding it’s production, had to do a lot of heavy lifting in order to ground itself again not just as a follow-up to the original film but also as a continuation of the MCU as a whole.  In the end, the movie does a commendable job of pulling things together under the harshest of circumstances, but it also suffers from some issues as well.  One of the things that it does absolutely perfectly, however, is honoring it’s fallen hero.  T’Challa’s presence is still felt throughout the film, and in a way that feels respectful to Chadwick Boseman’s memory.  It doesn’t go too far in dwelling on the tragedy, but does an adequate job of using that feeling of loss as a motivating factor within the story.  Each character has their own different way of dealing with the loss, whether it’s in Shuri’s distractions or Ramonda’sdefiance.  Each reaction to the tragedy informs how the story can progress in a variety of directions.  It also establishes how Wakanda itself finds itself in a position that it didn’t know it would be in; vulnerable.  This is also a Wakanda that has lost their king twice, first to Thanos and now to this sudden illness, and unfortunately there is no coming back from the latter.  It’s in looking at the degrees of grief that Ryan Coogler really finds the heart of this story.  He is very good at getting emotion out of his stories, so given the harsh hand he was dealt with, he thankfully had the skill and the imagination to weave that grief into his art without losing any of the magic that made this world work in the first place.

Where the movie struggles unfortunately is in it’s plot.  The movie is a beefy 2 hours and 41 minutes, the second longest film Marvel film overall (behind Avengers: Endgame’s 3 hours and 1 minute run time).  to Ryan Coogler’s credit, the movie never feels that long, but there are points in the story where the movie does come up a little hollow.  I think that this is due to having to juggle so many plotlines all at the same time.  Not only is he having to continue the story he set up with the first Black Panther, but he also has to incorporate what has happened in the larger MCU as well (especially with a 5 year time jump established in Endgame), as well as establish important new characters like Namor and Riri Williams, and the entire nation of Talokan and it’s entire history as well.  It’s a lot on his plate and despite Coogler’s best efforts not all of it manages to geltogether.  The Talokan part of the plot seems to suffer the most.  It feels like we merely get the cliffs notes version of their cultural history as the plot desperately needs to move forward, which is in contrast to how immersed we were able to be in the world of Wakanda in the first Black Panther.  Namor and the Kingdom of Talokan needed their own movie’s worth of development to really grasp the significance of their place in the world, but the movie unfortunately does not have time for that, even at it’s extended length.  The Wakandan side of the story also suffers because of that, as we don’t really see anything new from that world in this movie.  It’s been said the thing that unfortunately works against this movie is that we can no longer be re-introduced to the Kingdom of Wakanda again.  One of the most magical moments of any Marvel movie was that first glimpse of Wakanda’s mighty capital from the first movie.  Such a scene doesn’t exist this time around as now we are all too familiar with this world.  Not to mention there are side plots a plenty involving how Agent Ross is dealing with protecting Wakanda from hostile intentions within his own government, as well as the internal politics of Wakanda also coming into play, as Shuri has to confront more of her role in the future of her country.  Needless to say the movie buckles under the weight of it’s plot, but Coogler does manage to keep it from collapsing completely.

One of the movie’s best strengths is the performances of it’sactors.  Everyone, probably with the knowledge of the film’s significance in honoring the high bar set by Chadwick Boseman, brings their A-game to the film with some emotionally charged acting.  Though working outside her strength built up in previous appearances in the MCU, playing a mischievous supporting character at Black Panther’s side as Shuri, Letitia Wright does her best to bring emotional depth to the character now that she is front and center in this story.  Shuri thus far has been one of the more comic relief characters, being a carefree quartermaster to her brother with a slight proclivity towards mischief.  But this movie now has to put that character into the position of picking up the emotional weight of this journey with Wakanda and it’s connection with the Black Panther.  It’s not an easy shift to make, and you can’t help but miss the version of Shuri that was more comical in nature.  But, Letitia Wright picks up the challenge and manages to shine despite the obstacles.  She is also equally matched with Tenoch Huerta who brings the mighty Namor to life.  Namor of course comes with this long history behind him, but thus far he has yet to appear on the big screen, mainly due to some rights issues where Marvel had initially granted them to Universal Studios but the purchase by Disney made it impossible for Universal to make any use of their rights.  So basically, Namor can appear in a MCU film, but cannot star in one, similar to the deal regarding the Hulk.  So, this movie managed to work Namor into this story by making him the villain, as opposed to the anti-hero that he is in the comics.  Tenoch does a great job of making Namor this threatening presence but at the same time making him relatable given his tragic backstory.  In the end, they do the iconic character justice, even though he has to piggyback on the shoulders of another Marvel property.  Dominique Thorne thankfully brings some much needed comic relief as RiriWilliams and she steals every scene she is in.  It’s good that she stands out as well as she does given that she’ll be back in a spin-off series called Ironheart on Disney+.  Great performance come from many of the supporting cast as well including returning stars like Lupita N’yongo, Danai Gurira, and Winston Duke, who also brings some wonderful comic relief as M’Baku.  Of course the performance that most people will talk about is Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda.  Ramonda has a more important role to play in this film and Angela brings some of her most powerful acting chops to her performance here, with some especially electrifying moments of Oscar-worthy acting.  In a series already known for stand-out acting, Wakanda Foreverraises the bar even more for powerful performances in the Black Panther franchise.

The production quality has also translated over from the original movie.  It makes sense as most of the same production team has returned.  Oscar winner Ruth Carter, the costume design genius who created the look of Wakanda with her award-winning designs is back and not only is she working with more of the look of Wakanda, but she also has the unenviable task of imagining the look of Talokan as well.  She has come up with some incredible designs for this underwater kingdom, taking cue from Mesoamerican influence.  One of the especially incredible designs she has accomplished in this movie is the re-imagined look of Namor.  In the comic books, Namor is merely defined by a green speedo and red boots.  For Namor in this  film, Carter has added an incredible metallic bead collar that hangs across Namor’s chest that really defines the majesty of his character.  In addition, when he sits on the throne in his kingdom, he wears a majestic headdress that really invokes this image of a Mayan god come to life.  Carter’s costumes also updates the look of the Wakandan citizens as well, including some truly majestic dresses that Angela Bassett gets to wear throughout the movie.  It’s stuff like Ruth Carter’s costumes that really help to set the world of Wakanda apart in the MCU.  Also returning to deliver even more incredible work is Ludwig Gorranson, who also won an Oscar for his work on the last Black Panther.  Gorranson, who has been busy as of late in other major franchises like Star Wars delivers the same Wakandan sound that we’ve grown to love, but also adds to it the unique sound of Talokan as well.  Remarkably he manages to capture Mesoamerican melody just as well as he does with African sounds and the mix of the two cultures really helps to underline the theme of that clash within the movie.  What I especially love about Gorranson’s work this time around is how he uses silence in his score.  Whenever memories of T’Challa come up in the movie, the music suddenly goes silent as if it too was showing it’s respect to the dead.  It’s an emotional wallop when you hear that wall of sound from Gorranson’s score suddenly go silent, understating the loss that’s felt by both the characters and those of us watching the movie.  The only thing that I think doesn’t work as well this time around is the cinematography.  Rachel Morrison, the DP of Black Panther was not available this time around, so the duty fell to Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who previously shot the series Lokifor Marvel.  Autumn is a capable cameraperson, but her sense of color schemes is less refined as Morrison’s, who managed to bathe the original Black Panther in a gorgeous palette.  Arkapawdoes competent work, but it makes the movie feel more in line with the generic Marvel film look that feels a bit too repetitive.  Otherwise, this is a solidly mounted production that mostly falls in line with the high standard of the Black Panther franchise.

Given that the Marvel Cinematic Universe reached a high-point with the original Black Panther, you would think that the bar would be set very high with the newest entry in the series.  This film, given it’s shortcomings, may end up being a let down for some, but in this critic’s case, I feel that some of those expectations were set a little too high.  I for one admire the first Black Panther quite a bit, but it’s not one of the all timegreats for me.  In my original review here, I stated that I had some reservations about the story while at the same time praising it highly for it’s world building.  Though I loved Chadwick Boseman’s performance, I thought the original movie lacked character development for T’Challa, as most of his character arc happened in Captain America: Civil War (2016).  It was the world around him that stood out more to me in the original movie, something that gets more of the spotlight this time around.  It’s sad that T’Challa’s story ends so abrubtly for us, but it can’t be helped.  We can’t bring Chadwick Bosemanback, and Marvel and Ryan Coogler made the choice to not recast the part.  It will remain to be seen if that was the right choice in the long run.  It wouldn’t have been the first time Marvel has recast a major character (Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Don Cheadle as War Machine) nor will it be the last time (Harrison Ford replacing William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross).  Coogler decided for his story that Boseman alone was going to be his T’Challa and that for the franchise to progress it fell upon the rest of Wakanda to become future of the series.  I won’t spoil how the Black Panther itself is worked into that story, but there is a reason why this is still a Black Panther movie.  For the most part, it’s a commendable sequel that I think is pretty close to being on par with the original, but doesn’t exactly exceed it.  The performances are amazing, as is the production design.  And Namor is an absolute stand out villain that does justice to the iconic character from the comic books.  Perhaps with the difficult task of moving on from the tragedy of the past out of the way we may see a bright future ahead for this franchise.  It remains to be seen what that will actually mean, but the end credits promises “Black Panther Will Return.”  For now, Marvel and director Ryan Coogler have done a magnificent job of honoring the memory of Chadwick Boseman with this emotional tribute of a film and hopefully the future remains bright for Black Panther in the years ahead.  Indeed, Wakanda Forever.

Rating: 8/10

DC comics is well known for it’s collection of Super Heroes, but it can be said that they are just as well known for it’s rogues gallery of dastardly villains as well.  As often as we talk about Batman, Superman, and Aquaman we are just as likely to be talking about the Joker, Lex Luthor and Black Manta respectively.  In general, this is because DC Comics has been just as good at making their villains interesting characters as they do with their heroes.  And because of the complexity of character development that have put into their comic books over the years, they have managed to create characters that straddle the line between hero and villain.  These anti-heroes also share a special place within the DC pantheon.  Too dark and violent to be considered a hero, but not quite evil enough to be considered a villain.  The character within DC comics that probably embodies this type of personality the best is Black Adam.  Making his first appearance in 1945, Black Adam initially started off as the main antagonist to the DC super hero Captain Marvel, later known as Shazam.  Embodying the same power set as Shazam, Black Adam uses his nearly god-like abilities in a far more morally degenerate way; often having no objection to killing his enemies or anyone else who gets in his way.  This runs contrary to the heroes of the DC universe, who make it their duty to protect the innocent.  Black Adam often falls on the dark side when doing battle against Shazam or many other super heroes, but when something far more dangerous threatens his world, he will put aside his grievances and assist in saving the world as well.  Through his nearly 80 years in the comics, he has remained a very complex character and has become a favorite amongst comic book readers.  However, until now he has yet to be featured on the big screen.

Enter Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is bringing to life the classic comic book anti-hero on the big screen for the first time.  This has actually been a passion project for the wrestler turned actor.  He’s been in talks with Warner Brothers and DC to make a Black Adam film for over 15 years.  Even before there was a Marvel Cinematic Universe, Dwayne Johnson has been eyeing this role for himself.  A lot of things have put the project into limbo many times over the years, often due to change over and restructuring going on at Warner Brothers.  This movie, now that it is finally complete, comes again at yet another crossroads in the drama that is Warner Brothers history.  With the merger between WB Pictures and Discovery Entertainment, the new regime has been ruthlessly cost cutting across the empire in order to secure year end tax breaks, and DC falls into that turmoil as well.  Just a couple months ago, the entertainment world was stunned by the news that a $90 million Batgirl film was getting cancelled without ever seeing the light of day as a measure of the new Warner executives drive to get a tax write-off.  In addition, many of the upcoming Warner Brothers projects still in development were pushed back significantly; almost a full year for the Aquaman sequel.  Even amidst all this, the Black Adam (2022) premiere date stood firm, and it seemed like this would be DC’s one and only hope to deliver for the back end of this year.  Of course, it helps that Dwayne Johnson in those 15 years has become one of the biggest box office draws in the worldwide market, which bodes well for Black Adam.  And considering this is a passion project of his, you’d hope that he’s going to give a bit more to this performance than many of his other roles.  The question is, can Black Adam deliver on the same level of the titans of the DC universe?  Can Dwayne Johnson make a heroic stand for DC at this tumultuous time in it’s history on the shoulders of this iconic anti-hero?

The story is set in the fictional middle eastern kingdom of Khandaq.  Legends speak of a hero who protected the kingdom from mad king who sought to use the power of demons to rule with ultimate power.  The hero, Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson) confronted the king, who forged a crown with demonic power called the Crown of Sabbac, and stopped him before the king could wield it’s dark magic. However, after defeating the king, Teth-Adam vanished without a trace.  Nearly 5,000 years later in modern day, the kingdom of Khandaq is occupied by foreign interests who are robbing the small nation of it’s natural resources.  A brave archaeologist named Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shani) believes she may have found the hiding place of the Crown of Sabbac.  With fellow archaeologist Ismael Gregor (Marwan Kenzari) and her brother Karim (Mohammed Amer), she discovers the cave that house the crown and manages to retrieve it.  However, something else is trapped within that cave.  After being ambushed by the criminal organization Intergang, which is one of the occupying powers in Khandaq, Adrianna reads the spells carved into the floor of the cave temple.  Suddenly, a robed man in black appears and effortlessly destroys the whole troop of Intergang soldiers.  Adrianna and Karim manage to escape, but they end up running into the robed man, later learning that he is Teth-Adam reawakened.  They try to help him out, and Adrianna’s son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) becomes immediately attached to what he thinks is his country’s own super hero, even giving him the name Black Adam.  But, the re-awakening of Black Adam also alerts a watchdog group of super heroes known as the Justice Society of America.  The JSA includes the winged hero Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), the mystical sorcerer Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), the wind-controlling Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and the size-changing Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo).  Their goal is to stop Black Adam before he has a chance to cause immense damage with his still unchecked powers.  But their adversarial confrontation may have to wait as they are forced to align their strength in order to keep the Crown of Sabbac out of the wrong hands.

As far as DC movies have gone in this era of the DC Expanded Universe (DCEU), my opinions have strangely gone against the grain with the general consensus.  Sure, I love the movies that everybody loves like James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021) and the first Wonder Woman (2017), and hated the movies that everyone hated like the original Justice League (2017).  Those were never controversial opinions.  But, there have been a few of my reviews that didn’t match up with everyone else’s; contrary opinions that I actually still stand by.  I did not like the first Aquaman (2018), which everyone seemed to love but me, and I ended up liking Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) quite a bit, which I found myself being well in the minority on.  So, where do I fall on Black Adam?  Well, it’s not by any means the worst film in the DCEU; not by a long shot.  But, it is far from being among the best films either.  It is a very middle of the road film, for good and bad.  Let me get the bad out of the way first.  The movie is very rushed and unfocused, and seemingly uninterested in filling in detail to important things like character development and coherent plot.  A well-written movie this is not.  I think the thing that is going to upset most audiences is the fact that the movie packs in a whole bunch of different things, but never gives them enough time to really sink in; favoring spectacle above all else.  Characters are introduced with backstories only hinted at but never truly explored.  I think the writers wanted to cram in a whole bunch of DC comic book lore just because they could, but it distracts away from the fact that this is a Black Adam movie first and foremost.  Black Adam’s story is drowned out by so many different plot elements thrown into this movie’s 2 hour runtime.  What’s more, the JSA gets especially short-changed with very little time devoted to their character development.  If you are fans of the individual heroes of the JSA, and have been waiting years to finally see them on the big screen, you may come away very disappointed, because they are little more than plot devices here.

The visual effects of this movie are also a mixed bag.  In some instances, there are some pretty good visual effects in this movie.  The body swap effect that makes a de-powered Black Adam look like an average sized man is pretty convincing.  I never thought it looked weird seeing Dwayne Johnson’s head on an average built body, and the effect is actually pretty effective.  The moments when we see Doctor Fate’s power in full effect are also pretty imaginative.  I can tell that the effects team behind the movie were trying hard to differentiate how Doctor Fate’s powers would look compared to Marvel’s Doctor Strange, considering the similarities between the two.  Watching the movie, I feel like they were able to make it just different enough to where I don’t think they were doing a copy and paste of the effects in Marvel’s Doctor Strange (2016), though there were a couple that were borderline.  The same cannot be said however with the super hero powers of Cyclone and Atom Smasher.  Cyclone’s whirlwind power is so weirdly conceived that I had no idea what she was able to do and how she was able to do it.  She just floats around with multi-colored smoke and spins really fast, which I guess the effects artists thought would look cool in slow motion, but instead it just looks cartoonish in a bad way.  And speaking of distractingly cartoonish, whenever Atom Smasher grows to his giant size, he stops looking realistic and becomes essentially a walking-talking special effect.  In this regard, it has a negative comparison to a similar effect found in the Marvel universe.  Whenever Ant-Man would do the same size change, like he did in Captain America: Civil War (2016), those movies made his presence within the scene feel believable.  Not once in this movie did I feel like it worked to the same degree, and it’s one of the most glaringly subpar visual effects in a movie that goes back and forth between the believable and the unbelievable.

So, what is good in this movie?  Well, despite working with a very poorly written script, the cast of this movie actually does a pretty good job with what they have to work with.  First and foremost, Dwayne Johnson does not disappoint as the titular anti-hero.  It took him 15 years to make this movie a reality, so you know he was going to pour a lot more effort into his performance here.  You can tell that the years of researching and rehearsing the essence of Black Adam paid off, and Dwayne Johnson captures the character perfectly.  Naturally, being the main character, he gets the lion’s share of the character development in the film, and I appreciated how well he built the layers of this character into his on screen persona.  You honestly have no idea which way this character is going to fall; either to the side of good or the side of evil, and I think that’s a testament to how composed Johnson was able to make the character.  He keeps the character an enigma until the very end, and even still after he has helped save the day, he’s remains a character with ambiguous moral backbone.  I also appreciated what the actors playing the JSA bring to their roles, as bare bones as they may be.  Aldis Hodge especially shines as Hawkman.  His character is paper thin on the page, but Hodge brings emotional weight to his performance which helps to elevate the character throughout the film.  His performance is so could that you wish he was given a movie of his own instead of being shoehorned into a Black Adam origin story.  Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate also warranted a movie’s worth of development too, but Brosnan likewise makes the most of his brief screen time.  His contribution to the climatic battle is especially awe inspiring, and it makes me happy that they brought in an actor of Brosnan’s caliber in to bring this iconic character to life.  And though they have even less impact on the story, Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell are likable enough as their respective characters.  The remainder of the cast are pretty forgettable largely, and the movie suffers from have a very weak villain; one that pretty much here as an afterthought.  Still, where it mattered the most, they did get the character of Black Adam right, and that is a testament to a movie star who took the role seriously and was determined to not mess it up for the sake of the fans.  If anything, hopefully this movie will establish the character as an important part of the DCEU moving forward, because it would be worth it to see Dwayne Johnson in this role again.

Apart from the performances, what else is there to keep the movie from becoming an incoherent disaster?  There are action sequences that do work, and I do have to say that the movie does finally gain some footing in it’s latter half.  The movie, when it’s languishing in it’s exposition heavy first half, can be a pretty heavy slog to get through.  Even the early action sequences, featuring some Zack Snyder-esque slow-mo, feel fairly derivative and uninspiring.  But, as Black Adam and the JSA begin to clash about half-way through the movie, the film begins to find some life.  There is an exciting high-speed chase through the streets of Khandaq, where future-tech hover bikes and Black Adam are literally crisscrossing at the speed of a bullet in the air, and it is an action sequence that is actually well staged and feels unlike any other action sequence I’ve seen in a super hero movie before.  The action sequences also balance out the darker elements of the movie with just the right amount of humor.  There is a running gag where Black Adam tries to deliver a witty catch phrase but ends up killing his adversaries too quickly for them to hear it that actually gets a laugh.  The final battle scene, even though it’s up against a rather throw away villain, is also well done, and it does a fairly passable job of making the stakes in the moment feel pretty dire.  The only thing that could have been better handled with these action scenes is if they didn’t make up such a large part of the story as a whole.  There really is too much focus put on spectacle in this movie, with no time at all given to let the story breath and introduce more character building moments.  Instead, the movie just jumps from one set piece to the other, and it makes the whole movie feel like a mess as a result.  A lot of stuff is going on to be sure, but you the audience are given little reason to care, unless you are coming to the movie with a lot of prerequisite knowledge of DC lore as a whole.  You may know these character from the comics and various other media, and the movie probably hopes you already know them well enough too, but it ends up leaving the average fan with little to latch onto because the movie never gives us enough explanation about anything in the movie; not the characters, not the plot details, nor the world these characters live in either.  It’s a movie meant for fans, pure and simple, and even there it seems to take the fandom for granted.

So, was it worth the long wait to finally see Dwayne Johnson play Black Adam on the big screen.  It’s going to depend for a lot of different people, but ultimately it’s a fine performance in a movie that honestly falls short of reaching it’s goal.  Dwayne Johnson is the ideal actor to play this role, and I’m happy that after 15 years he finally got his wish granted.  The movie, however, is created more as an afterthought.  It’s by no means an absolute disaster.  There are good to great performances throughout, and the occasional battle sequence that is fun to watch.  But the lack of any detail in the story and the character development ends up making this movie feel pretty hollow as a whole.  The JSA especially feels wasted here, and it might have been better if they were either left out of the movie completely, or were reduced to just one or two characters.  I think it would’ve worked better if Cyclone and Atom Smasher had been left out of the movie, and that it was just Hawkman and Doctor Fate facing off against Black Adam.  At least then there would have been more time to develop those characters and give them the screen time that those iconic characters deserve.  These are characters deserving of their own movies, and the actors playing them are giving it their all.  It’s a problem with many of the DCEU films, where they try to pack too much into their movies, probably due to the worry that the films may never do well enough to warrant a sequel.  I will say that this was one of my biggest problems with Aquaman, where it felt like they were trying to tell every Aquaman story ever written in one movie.  It was way too overwhelming in that movie, and it’s a problem here in Black Adam too, though I feel it fares a bit better.  Between my controversial picks of a negative review of Aquaman and a positive review of Wonder Woman 1984, I’d say that Black Adam skews closer to the failure of Aquaman, but is only redeemed with better battle scenes and a better rounded cast.  I’m sure we’ll see more of Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam, and the mid-credits scene hints at a very exciting future ahead.  I just wish his place in the DCEU’s big master plan was laid on a much stronger foundation.

Rating: 6.5 / 10

The movies of David O. Russell can best be summed up as a mixed bag.  For the most part, he has delivered a track record that is more on the good side than the bad.  But when he misses, he misses spectacularly.  Mainly, he is a director that swings very hard for the fences, and that can sometimes lead to decisions that may end up working as a detriment to his films.  One of the most noteworthy cases of his roller coaster style of directing shifting from film to film was in 2004, when he made the movie I Heart Huckabees, a movie that very much missed with both audiences and critics, mainly due to it’s self-indulgent nature, and this was coming off of a movie that won him universal acclaim as a director; the Iraq War dark comedy Three Kings (1999).  The lows of I Heart Huckabees eventually led to another high, with the Oscar-winning The Fighter (2010).  And for a while, he enjoyed a decade of relatively successful hits afterwards, with The Fighter being followed-up with Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013), but even that string came to a halt with the underwhelming Joy (2015).  There’s no doubting that David O. Russell is a filmmaker with considerable talent, but sometimes he can be his own worst enemy too.  He has notoriously battled with actors on his sets.  He got into a physical fight with George Clooney on the set of Three Kings and a tape of him shouting obscenities at actress Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees leaked to the public, casting a very negative image on the director.  And yet, he still manages to be one of the most in demand filmmakers in the business, probably due to the fact that he can on occasion deliver a massive critical hit for a studio.  It’s possible that the reputation that follows him around is the reason why he takes long breaks in between projects.  It’s been 7 years since his last theatrical film (Joy) and to make his return he has put together what may be his most ambitious film to date.

Amsterdam has one of the most stacked casts in recent memory, with even small parts being filled by A-list talent.  He reunites again with Christian Bale, making his third David O. Russell movie after The Fighter and American Hustle.  Joining him are co-stars John David Washington and Margot Robbie, as well as a dozen other recognizable faces from Mike Myers to Taylor Swift.  But what is interesting here is that Russell, who typically works with contemporary storylines, is going way back in time for this period piece.  The furthest that he went back in time before was the 1970’s with American Hustle, which didn’t seem too alien a time for him to plant his sardonic style within.  But now he’s taking it into a time period nearly a century ago.  If balanced well, it could work, but as I’ve said, he’s got a track record that can verge either way.  Still, the movie comes as the Awards season starts to heat up, and a star studded epic with high production values is something that movie studios are always happy to put their money behind.  The fact that he has delivered multiple performances to Oscar wins and even more to a nomination, it’s easy to see why so many actors are more than happy to jump on board his films, though some may end regretting it later.  Amsterdam sees Russell return after a long hiatus and with a pedigree of talent on his side that is far grander than anything else he has made in the past.  The only question is, are we getting peak David O. Russell in this roller coaster of his film career, or are we heading into another treacherous valley.

The movie covers over 20 years of the lives of a group of misfit friends in the tumultuous early 20th century.  During World War I, Lt. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) is put in command of a regiment of mostly black soldiers after many other officers had refused the role.  During battle, he builds a close friendship with one of the soldiers, Harold Woodman (John David Washington).  The two end up in an army hospital together after being hit by a shrapnel bomb, with Burt even losing an eye.  There they meet a nurse named Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie) who not only helps them get back to good health, but forms a deeper and sometimes romantic relationship with the duo.  The three form a pact to protect one another and they move to Amsterdam to live a carefree Bohemian life.  But, Burt is called back home to New York where he wants to return to his upper class wife Beatrice (Andrea Riseborough), and his medical practice.  After a couple years of practicing medicine for veterans in alleyways and drinking himself into the gutter, Burt eventually reconnects with Harold, who tells him that Valerie left him behind without a trace.  The two rekindle their friendship and begin working together, with Harold now practicing law.  However, their quiet life is disrupted when they learn that their commanding general Bill Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.) has died, and his daughter Liz (Taylor Swift) suspects murder.  What follows is a journey down a rabbit hole of conspiracy involving a bird watching society run by British glass salesman Paul Canterbury (Mike Myers) and his American associate Henry Norcross (Michael Shannon) who both may be spies for their respective governments, a wealthy but suspicious couple Tom and Libby (Rami Malek and Anya-Taylor Joy), and a retired General who has turned into a popular orator for Veteran’s rights named Gil Dillenbeck (Robert DeNiro), who may be the target of a fascist organization.  Despite being clueless about what they are getting into, the friends are determined to get to the bottom of this wild conspiracy gearing to attack the very fundamental pillars of democracy in America.

As you can see, this is a loaded movie with a lot of puzzle pieces involved and even more familiar faces that I didn’t even mention yet.  One would think that with a plot this dense and an all-star cast this massive that it may fall out of the grasp of the director to reign it all in.  And sadly, that’s the case with Amsterdam.  This is definitely one of the lesser David O. Russell movies.  I wouldn’t go as far to say that it is the worst film that Russell has made (I Heart Huckabees takes that crown easily) but it is definitely a frustrating movie to watch.  What’s most disappointing with this movie is that you can see all the elements of a really good movie there, but the pieces don’t fit together well at all in the way that Russell has set them up.  Tonal shifts are a major problem with the flow of this movie.  You can’t tell if David Russell wants this to be a raucous comedy or a taught political thriller.  It seems like he wants to have it both ways and it really undermines the flow of the film.  The movie has scenes individually that are well shot, acted and paced, but they’ll conflict with the scene that follows after or before.  It’s like he wrote a bunch of scenes separately then threw them in a hat and picked the order of his movie randomly.  Yes, there is a through-line, but you’ll be in the position of having to re-center yourself from scene to scene as there are so many tonal and plot shifts back and forth.  There is a story in there, and one that is deserving of telling, but Russell’s style gets in the way, favoring quippy dialogue to motivate the flow of the movie rather than a sense of building tension.  By the end of the movie, the big climatic revelations just feel hollow, because Russell hasn’t given the weight of the situation the time to build to make it more shocking.

And the  most frustrating part is that it’s a story that really deserved to be told.  It’s plot involves the characters uncovering a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States and replace it with a fascist one; a tact that had proven effective in that time with Italy and Germany.  Not exactly new, but in Amsterdam, you see how fascist powers are given backing by corporate interests in America, which is a story that sadly remains relevant even today.  There are some connections there that I see Russell trying to get at, but the message just gets drowned out by all the other nonsense in the movie.  Any scene where we see the characters putting together the pieces of the conspiracy in an interesting way will then be followed-up by another scene where Christian Bale’s Burt will collapse to the floor at the most inconvenient moment due to the hard drugs he is experimenting with.  It can be funny, but it’s placement in the story clashes to much with the rest and breaks any momentum built up for the story.  The movie also has one of my least favorite screenwriting tools, and one that I think shows Russell’s weakness as a writer.  That tool being where a character monologues their entire backstory to the audience.  It’s a sign of lazy screenwriting, because it’s forcing development on a character rather than letting that build through the plot of the movie itself.  One such scene is delivered by Christian Bale in such an awkward way early in the movie; like he is just reading strictly from the character bio.  There’s a lot of scenes like that in Amsterdam, where characters catch up the audience on the plot by explaining what’s happening in monologues.  It shows that Russell has too much plot to detail, and he is impatient getting to it.  His strength primarily rests with character interactions, which there are scenes in the movie where Russell writes clever back and forth with the different characters.  But he builds up those moments in sacrifice of moments that drive the plot forward.  That’s why there is a lot of talking in this movie and not a whole lot of action; because David O. Russell is focusing on his strengths here in detriment to everything else.

The performances of the actors in the movie also reveals a rift between the two kinds of movies that Russell is trying to tell with Amsterdam.  Christian Bale is definitely trying to do character work in this movie, while John David Washington and Margot Robbie more or less playing things straight.  That ends up making the movie feel schizophrenic, because Bale’s flashy performance clashes with everything else in the movie.  That being said, I do think Christian Bale is the best part of the movie, because he at least is doing something to bring the film to life.  If only the rest of the film was on the same page; I would’ve appreciated the movie more if it was as quirky as Bale’s Burt.  I do like how he works the battle scars and glass eyeball into his character’s posture and facial expressions.  If anything, I think the character of Burt embodies more of the tone that David O. Russell was trying to attempt.  The remaining performances seem a little lost in comparison, though Rami Malek and Anya-Taylor Joy do a pretty good job of reaching Bale’s oddball level, with perfect parodies of the idle rich in their performances.  The biggest disappointments are Washington and Robbie.  We know how talented these actors are, but they bring none of that charisma into this film and have even less chemistry with one another.  One of the other big problems with a large star-studded cast like this is that you get distracted by all the familiar faces.  Some of them successfully disappear into their roles, including an unrecognizable Timothy Oliphant as a hitman.  But others like Taylor Swift and Chris Rock become a distraction because they just play their characters much like their own personas, and it feels really out of place in this period setting.  I don’t know if Russell intended for a star studded cast as packed as this one, or if it was forced upon him by the studio, but it’s clear that he does not spread out his attention evenly to all of them, and the movie ends up wasting a whole lot of big names in meaningless roles.

But, the movie does have saving graces about it and it’s largely found in the visuals.  The movie was shot by three time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, who brings a beautiful filmic quality to the movie.  He gives the movie a nice earthy glow that feels very appropriate for the time period that the film is set in.  In particular, he captures some very well composed close-ups of the actors.  Sometimes the close-ups have an uncomfortable feeling about them, with the actors looking right down the barrel of the lens of the camera, which helps to build up some of the tension of the movie.  Where the script lets down the story so much the visuals help to pick the movie up again.  Apart from the beautiful cinematography, the movie also does a fantastic job with period details.  It does a great job of invoking the time period, with the grimy streets of Depression Era New York City to the pristine Victorian era mansions that many of the story’s elites occupy.  The only downside is that Russell’s unfocused vision doesn’t allow for too much time to soak up the atmosphere of these settings.  You can really see the work and care that was put into the crafting of the costumes, the sets, and the on location shoots.  It feels timeless, but Russell’s direction is not.  He is very much a contemporary filmmaker, better equipped to tell personal everyman stories in modern or recent society.  The trouble with period films is that it takes a lot of work to make the past come alive again, and ultimately it falls on the skill of the director to make us believe in the this dramatization of the past.  For Russell’s sake, he should be happy that his unfocused vision is at least pleasing to the eye, which helps to make it at the very least watchable and at times very entertaining.

For David O. Russell’s career in total so far, you can’t help but feel disappointed in a movie like Amsterdam.  So much talent is involved behind the camera and in front of it; many whom you could say are at the tops of their fields.  And yet, it’s all wasted for a movie that barely functions as a narrative.  The grasp of what David O. Russell is trying to say in this movie (which is the threat of rising fascism in the free world, sponsored by multi-national corporations) get lost in the detours into absurdity that Russell seems to like putting into his movies.  You would think after a long hiatus that Russell would have crafted a more balanced piece, but in the end it seems like he has lost some of that creativity over time.  Still, you could do worst, and it is admirable that a filmmaker like Russell swings as hard as he can, even if it leads to a strike or an easy  flyball out.  I still think Russell is a talented filmmaker; it’s just that Amsterdam is the wrong vehicle for him to work with.  The performances are mixed, the script is a meandering mess, the cinematography is strong but could have been better served with a more cohesive narrative.  I think if the movie had just Christian Bale’s eccentric performance at it’s center, it could have been something more than what we got.  It’s frustrating to sit through, but at the same time not unwatchable.  Some people in my theater quite enjoyed it, but there was clearly not enough laughs to justify the goofier tones in scenes throughout the rest of the movie.  Hopefully for David O. Russell  takes on another project after this  that better plays to his strengths.  For now, Amsterdam is a movie that cannot rise to the ambition that it’s director was hoping to get out of it.  It’s epic, but also hollow; an exercise more in period film aesthetics rather than the taught conspiracy suspense thriller that it should maybe aim better for.  Still, it’s good to know that David O. Russell is still a risk taker, and some of his cinematic choices in Amsterdam bear fruit of that.  Time will tell if he’s able to return to a  worthwhile project where he is able to deliver cinematically in a sense different than how Amsterdam landed.

Rating: 5/10