Black Adam

Deja-Zam!

or

"You Want to Split the World in Two"
 

It seems an odd choice—outside of Dwayne Johnson's wish to make it so—to make a movie centered around a relatively lower-tier character as Black Adam—known primarily as a villain in DC's "Shazam!" comics (so-named due to copyright restrictions imposed by DC's main funny-book competitor Marvel comics, despite their "Captain Marvel"-named character appearing later). It's rather like the pivot the MCU made when they started a series based on "Guardians of the Galaxy" (Why them? Why at that time?"). But, then, the Warner Brothers Studio has made a lot of odd choices in their perpetual game of "catch-up" with Marvel Studios—the sudden rush to make a "Justice League" movie despite one being in development for a decade, an "Aquaman" movie before making a movie of "The Flash" or a decent "Green Lantern" movie or even making another, less than morose "Superman" film (but then, Marvel can't seem to make a good "Fantastic Four" film and is only getting around to making a "Namor, the Submariner" feature—created in the 1940's—by introducing him in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, apparently).

 

Maybe it has something to do with toy sales. I don't know. It's as good a reason as any. Certainly, it has nothing to do with "art."

But, as these things go, the resulting movie isn't bad (but, it's not good, either). In fact, for much of its 2 hours+ length, it's a murderously efficient action film that purposely (rather than accidentally) questions the moral ambiguity of vigilantism in the guise of "doing good." It just matters who thinks what is good. That keeps shifting and changing throughout the course of the movie, where heroes do bad things and villains might be useful to a greater good. It's a long way from "white hats" and "black hats." But, don't confuse that with any sort of sophistication of thought.

The movie starts...with some verrry long exposition...in ancient times. Of a king named Ahk-Ton who ruled the middle-Eastern kingdom of Khandaq with impunity and, seeking the powers of a god, enslaved his people to look for a powerful mineral called Eternium, with which he would form "the crown of Sabbac". With this, he would be able to summon the power of the gods from the Rock of Eternity, granting him the stamina of Shu, speed of Horus, strength of Amon, wisdom of Zehuti, power of Aten, and the courage of Mehen* just by saying the magic word "Shazam!" (The Breath of Sekhmet is only needed if you having to do a lot of heavy expositioning.)

Anyway, the slave-boy Hurut, who finds the Eternium, learns a valuable lesson that life in Khandaq is cheap and grown-ups are not to be trusted. Ahk-Ton learns a valuable lesson when the ancient Egyptian gods double-cross him for his hubris and give the power of Shazam to wised-up Hurut.

Then, "something bad" happens powerful enough to send us into 21st Century Khandaq, where government has broken down and the place is run by the International Crime syndicate, Intergang. A resistance movement/archaeological team (they have those?) led by Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) is searching for the crown of Sabbac, because, you know, power and all. They get ambushed by Intergang shock-troops and only when Adrianna finds a way to resurrect Teth-Adam (or Black Adam)(Johnson) from his imprisonment in the Khandaqian version of The Rock of Eternity do they manage to escape with their lives. Intergang, however, gets cooked, poached, crushed, and blown apart by Adam's powers.

Enough damage is done that it gets on the radar of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis via zoom-call) who calls on The Justice Society of America to intervene.

Wait. Wait. Wait. 

Excuse me, your Honor. Side-bar?

Nobody may "get" this or even think it's important if they don't read a lot of DC comic-books. I have. So, what in the multi-verse is Amanda Waller doing being in charge of The Justice Society (they're the old heroes from the 1940's "Golden Age" of comics as well as...to keep things simple...younger heroes who have accepted "the mantle"). Amanda Waller (it has been established) is in charge of Task Force X—ya know, "The Suicide Squad" (whether it has the "The" or not)—the criminal sacrificial lambs who go on missions nobody else wants to do or are so illegal they have to be hush-hush. What's she doing in charge of anybody possessing or professing any sort of moral compass?

Well, that's troubling. Not just because the "good guys" are being run by "bad guys" but because the mission they're being sent on is to corral the "new threat" while absolutely ignoring the "old threat" that has been plaguing the populace—out in the open—for years. Huh, some heroes—those being Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Atom-Smasher (Noah Centineo) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell). Trust me, you don't want to dig too deep into these heroes and their origins, because a couple of them are either confused (Hawkman) or ridiculous (Cyclone).** 

It is nice to see Dr. Fate and Hawkman put in the movies, though—Brosnan does a fine, fine job in the role and it's good that they gave Hawkman a look that isn't completely stupid (he's appeared in the CW Arrowverse shows and in "Smallville"). It is not nice that they're basically little tin soldiers heroically doing things that aren't heroic. In fact, for much of the movie, the JSA can be seen as being "the bad guys" as they hector among themselves before considering what it is they are actually doing (rather than the requisite property damage while single-mindedly doing "the job" they were ordered to do).

In fact, Johnson's performance here is so "johnny-one-glower" that the movie naturally gravitates towards these new heroes (that the average movie-goer knows nothing about) for any sort of sense of what it is going on. They banter and bicker until Teth-Adam miraculously learns English from his ancient Khandaqian and joins in the snark. Well-paced and edited snark, but snark—and relentless snark—nonetheless. Everybody learns to play nice while kicking the crap out of everybody so they can defeat their common enemy—a villain that nobody and, indeed, Amanda Waller, have ever heard of. There is one super-hero death (which actually affected me—"Awww, they were pretty good!"), a switch-out on the principal origin story, and one scene of conflicted conscience that is dismissed with a quip and then forgotten about like one more tossed-to-the-horizon bad guy.

I'd like to say I enjoyed it, but all I can do is give it some tight-lipped respect for its pace for most of its length, and wonder at how the dark tone of this one—they had to go through four edits before it was dropped from an "R" to a "PG-13" rating—is going to merge with the inevitable mash-up between the larky "Shazam!" movies and this franchise off-shoot. It'll be like mixing ice cream with jalapeños.***

Or like mixing super-heroes with real-life problems. That trick never works. Since the time that cars started to be thrown around city-streets, nobody has ever paused to discuss the insurance implications. No super-hero has ever tried to stop poverty, homelessness, or severe drought or mass-starvation (Hell, it doesn't even happen in the real world, where Super-Democrats throws several tons of cash at it and Super-Republicans use their "Ignore-it-it doesn't exist" vision). It doesn't even work in super-hero satire. Superheroes are fantasy-land, a panacea to distract us from real world problems in a constant loop of goofy star-fish shaped alien threats and killer clowns that we see again and again.

Black Adam is no different. It is the same sort of feint that implores us to "look up in the sky" so we don't see the problems on the ground.

 

And not even a "last minute" cavalry appearance by Superman can save the day.

* Confused? Yeah, sure, if you've read Captain Marvel Comics. All this Khandaq stuff happened way, way before the Greco-Roman gods that Captain Marvel/Billy Batson siphons off every time he yells "Shazam!": that would be the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. What I want to know is: where did the Khandaq gods go when the Greco-Roman gods showed up and were looking for accommodations in Mount Olympus or Valhalla or wherever. Evidently,all these gods didn't die—despite what Wonder Woman says—because their batteries are still fully charged to torch the pilot lights of Captain Marvel, the Marvel Family, and Black Adam! They must have gone somewhere...and we're not even mentioning Rock n' Roll Heaven (where you know they have a helluva band!) 

 

** When I saw the Justice Society line-up before seeing the movie, I thought "Huh! That's interesting! They're putting in two super-heroes (Fate and Hawkman) who have origins in Egyptian lore! Maybe they'll do something interesting with that!" No such luck. They might have at some point, but nothing is made of it in the movie. At all.  As for the confusion surrounding Hawkman's origin (or origins), you couldn't figure it out even if you put on an Absorbascon.

 

*** What the hell! Someone's actually done this! Okay, bring on The Apocalypse, the world has finally gone absolutely mad!!

Aladdin (2019)

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Arabia
or
A Whole Re-Cycled World

Disney's live-action remake of Aladdin is a tough sell. Oh, don't misunderstand; it's a good movie—one might even say it's the best of Disney's kamikaze efforts to flesh out their revered animated classics—the art they established and are best known for—maybe in their fiscal attempt to find a tent-pole franchise (as if the parent company doesn't have enough of those) to crank out every couple of years, rather than roll the digital dice and counting on their new film to be as hot as Frozen.*

It's just that the 1992 animation version was so highly regarded—after they'd made their company best, Beauty and the Beast—as it was the last of the Menken-Ashman collaborations (the duo that revived the Disney animation brand in the 1980's under the Jeffrey Katzenberg regime) and it had the audacity to cast Robin Williams and the brio to match his improvisational pace with cell-drawings (principally by the gifted Eric Goldberg), and pulled it off with a manic energy that was simply breath-taking. It showed Disney wasn't the stodgy old cartoon company—they still took chances and aimed for the stars, not the fences.

Now, they're just happy to make return-trips. That's okay, if you want to start the development and generating cash, but it doesn't have the risk of charting new territory or any kind of innovation. Or risk.

Grumble aside, this cartoon-made-flesh does as good a job creating a similarly pleasing experience as its ink variety, and generating a similar amount of controversy as the original faced when it opened. Toss the bitching—they're tempests in an oil lamp; the studio has kept out Howard Ashman's original controversial lyrics and bent over backwards to have the "proper" ethnic casting (although the actress playing Princess Jasmine, Naomi Scott, is half-Indian if you want to make your picket sign accurate—she's great in the part, by the way, "despite" that fact) and beefed up the Princess' character and back-story, so the character is even more plucky than she was and less of a character for males to rescue.

Aladdin (played by Mena Massoud) is a parentless "street-rat", surviving on the streets of Agrabah near the Jordan River, by stealing anything he can get his thieving hands on. But, he's not such a bad sort, as he'll lift some food from the market and split it with his monkey Abu (voiced by Frank Welker again), then split it again with street urchins (1992 version) or a family (2019 version). There's a nice compression of the first film as Aladdin has an introductory song ("One Jump Ahead"), then meets Agrabah's Princess Jasmine (Scott), who is wandering the city-streets mingling with the people. Aladdin is immediately smitten and the princess introduces herself to him as "Dalia," the princess' handmaiden, to avoid detection. That song now serves as the song accompanying Aladdin and the princess running from the Royal Guard when she takes some bread to give to hungry kids. 

Aladdin takes "Daliah" to his make-shift home, where they start to get to know each other—other than the fact she's actually the princess—when she makes her excuses to leave because she sees over at the palace that there is a large cortege arriving, bearing another suitor for her. Her father, the Sultan (Navid Negahban) wants to marry her off, but, by decree, only royalty will be considered for the job. So, she begs off to meet the latest creep to try and woo her...leaving Aladdin with half-steeped tea and, to his shock, the princess' bracelet—given to her by her mother—which has been stolen by Abu. Bad monkey. No banana.

Meanwhile, back at the palace, the Royal Vizier, Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) has other plots-threads to plot. In an attempt to gain more power (he hates being "second best," poor boy), he has been using thieves to try and wrest the Magic Lamp that lies buried in the Cave of Wonders far from Agrabah. He's had little success as the Cave keeps chomping down on his thieves, while telling him that the only one who can enter must be "a diamond in the rough." In other words, bright, but not multi-faceted.

Aladdin, discovering that Abu has "Daliah's" bracelet, makes his own excuse to sneak into the palace to return it to her...and bring her tea. Still thinking she's "Daliah"—the real Daliah (Nasim Pedrad, who's delightful) tries to pretend she's the princess and sort of doesn't—Aladdin promises that he will try and see her again, but that becomes unlikely as he is arrested by the Royal Guard.

He is taken by the Guard to the Cave of Wonders, where Jafar tells him that the woman he met was not the handmaiden, but the actual princess. He instructs him to retrieve the lamp, and Jafar will make him a rich enough man to impress the princess—but don't take anything else...or he will be killed, either by the cave or by Jafar. Abu, however, is too dazzled by the many jewels in the cave (or it merely thinks "Hey, the kid will get killed, not me") so he takes a really big red ruby just as Aladdin grabs the lamp.

The cave, of course, is not happy, so decides to...cave. But, not before Aladdin, in trying to get Jafar his prize, discovers what a heel the Vizier is, and only manages to survive by the interventions of Abu and a Magic Flying Carpet—which (I neglected to mention) Aladdin had rescued in the cave. 

Oh. And Abu steals the lamp back from Jafar. Cut to the jinn, they rub the lamp, genie appears and it's Will Smith and not Robin Williams...

...which, as it turns out, is not a bad thing. Bless Will Smith, who knew...just knew...that everybody was going to compare him to Williams** and he would always come up short. And he took the job, anyway. And, surprise, he makes it his own. He's great in this. Lines are similar, but Smith brings his own charm to it and his own spin and he's a lot of fun. Check out the video below of the first minute of "Prince Ali"—it's a pinch slower (just ever so slightly), but he sells the thing for all it's worth...and (here's a plus), you can understand the lyrics without having to go to the internet. 

Yes, he definitely is contemporary (and I didn't hear you complaining when Williams had his period accurate William F. Buckley imitation come out of the genie), but then, Disney has never been too concerned with any flavor of the times other than the audience's. Smith isn't doing stand-up—he's bringing the most out of the material using his particular gifts and they are considerable. This is not an either/or situation. Both interpretations can exist without replacing one or the other. Both are applaudable; Williams created one of the greatest vocal performances in cartoons (on a par with Mel Blanc) and Smith has done as much with his as is humanly possible.

Now, Robin Williams is the stand-out of the 92 version; everybody else in it is competent  and gets the job done. This version, there's more pressure on the actors because they have no help from animators enhancing their performances. They gotta do all the work themselves, and they live up to it. Massoud's Aladdin is less of a bland Tom Cruise stand-in and he does a lovely job of playing amusingly painful discomfort—and more than one time I thought "was he dubbed by Hayden Christensen?" as he stammered through a line. Vast improvement.

And I found Negahban's performance as Jafar fascinating. He's not the angular Basil Rathbone type as the cartoon, but a seething one with large dead eyes that burn through the screen and an expressiveness that is subtle and slightly quirky. It's a performance that reminded me of the intensity of the young Christopher Lee, who could mime evil with only the slightest hint of acting. When he unloads and takes it to "11" in the final act, it's a lovely bit of CGI-chewing. 

And Scott is a real find, capable of the comedy but with a serene grace that, well, basically explodes when called on to belt out a song—and director Ritchie loves taking advantage of that by giving her...not one...but two moments in the movie where she swings into the camera and pegs the VU-meter, that might cause some to rock back in their theater-seats. I would advise audience members to watch out for their knees whenever she has a solo. Could be painful.

If one wonders why the movie has expanded to two hours from the ninety minutes of the original, chalk it up to the slightly slower pacing of real life from animation...and the dancing. There are a few extended dance sequences that pad the pace a bit.

One other quibble: the whole "Tell Her the Truth" lesson on which the movie is based—that Aladdin should come clean about not being a prince and just be himself to impress the princess. Oh, yes, hear, hear. Honesty is the best policy. But, the devil on my shoulder would like him to cap his confession with a "That's who I am...'Daliah!'" Okay, a bit churlish, I know, discretion being the better part of valor...but at least they have that one thing in common.

But, on the whole, a good show, actually worthy of the effort, and Ritchie shows himself very deft at spectacle, even using more of an eye-popping palette of colors than the desaturated look he favored in his last few films. And he makes the thing move like crazy, approaching the zip of animation, which gives it far more energy and verve than the last few Disney films that tried to move beyond the animation table. It doesn't replace the animated version. But it certainly becomes it.

* Makes me wonder why they don't just make a movie called "Cash-Cow" and admit it.

** Compounded by the fact that Williams is dead, and everybody—now that he's gone—has a case of the "guilt's" because they didn't appreciate him nearly enough when he was alive. Cue the Joni Mitchell song.