The Rock Confirmed To Play Black Adam In DC's "SHAZAM" Movie

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

It's kinda like what Andrew said way back then. How are they expected to cheer for Shazam whupping Black Adam's ass if they're supposed to think he's a bad-ass superhero in this one?

Even though it sounds more like he'll be fighting Superman instead.

Same difference, though, really. Unless they try and flip it around and make it like Superman is the dumbass for just blindly following orders but then... if they're trying to put the Cavill Superman back over, do they really want audiences to be rooting against him?

I do admit, the thought of Cavill and the Rock trading punches and throwing each other through mountains isn't a bad one. They're just not setting it up right and not really thinking things through logically.

[joe-eyeball]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

They're just not setting it up right and not really thinking things through logically.

This statement alone describes the entire DCEU perfectly!

[Leo656]

EDIT: Apparently we're going tonight at 10. Whooo.

[Andrew NDB]

Saw it. So... a few decent beats but, eh, this isn't a very good movie. It feels like something from the 90s actioners, as expected. Only about 3 of the one liners/gags really landed. Pretty much you could remove the JSA from the movie and it wouldn't make much of a difference, except then they'd have more time to make us care about Black Adam and his supporting cast... which aren't great. And that kid was a horrible actor.

I admit, they DID do an OK job milking the PG-13 rating. One thing in particular early on was surprising.

[Leo656]

I don't agree, I think it's one of the better DC ones for sure, not as good as anything Snyder did but it's up there with stuff like Aquaman and Wonder Woman easily. The plot was a bit muddled, there's 500lbs of exposition and the third act plot twist of who The First Champion really was seemed a bit tacked-on, extraneous, and out of left field, and a few of the jokes totally don't land at all. BUT, the JSA stuff was pretty great, especially the visuals for Dr. Fate and Cyclone during the fight scenes, that stuff was fantastic.

There's really nothing "wrong" with the movie, the only thing working against it is, "It's a super-hero movie and we have 80 million of them now so Here's One More". So it doesn't really excel at anything on its own, but I don't ever feel fair taking points off for that, it's not the movie's fault the market is oversaturated, there's really no new ground the genre can break anymore. It does what it's supposed to do. I'd have polished a few things but there's not much of a better movie they possibly could have made out of the parts they chose to use.

Black Adam himself is pretty one-note but I mean, he plays the part well enough for what it is, it's a thin character. I think that's why they had to pad the movie with the JSA, they more than make up for the Black Adam character's lack of outward charisma. Which is technically a sin because it's his movie, but again, the character doesn't lend himself well to solo affairs and it's hard to make such a one-dimensional character dynamic. So the trick becomes to have the characters around him take up the remaining slack and I do feel that they accomplished that.

Wasn't expecting much but way better than I expected. Again, there just isn't... anything really WRONG with it. And the stuff it does well, like the JSA stuff, it does VERY well. The worst thing I can say is some of the CGI wasn't great (although some of it really was), and in the "Intergang storms the house" scene the "100 camera cuts per second" sh*t was aggravating, but thankfully the movie isn't always like that. Although that stuff IS a problem more than it should be, but I mean a lot of action movies do that now. I prefer Snyder's wide-angle "let the scenes breathe, don't hide the action with jump cuts" approach BUT YA KNOW.

I can't in good conscience go lower than 8, frankly. I'd go a hair higher if the plot was smoother and the editing wasn't so car-crashy. I admittedly tend to be pretty forgiving, but to be honest the only way I feel it could be objectively lower than a 7 is if a person watches it while comparing it to other movies and that's simply never fair, especially in a such a crowded market.

Notes:
- Theater wasn't full, but about 2/3s or 3/4s. This is pretty typical for most movies at this theater, actually, unless it's MCU or Star Wars almost nobody ever sits in the first three rows no matter what the movie is so it's rare I've ever seen a fully-packed house there even on opening night. I've been going there my whole life and it's the damnedest thing. Works out fine for us, we end up getting Row 3 center every time which is pretty much prime seating. For some reason at this place people like to crowd the back. But yeah, decent crowd.

- They played the Shazam 2 trailer right before the movie started. Yeah, wow, that looks awful. I am REALLY hoping that like the first movie, they just made the trailers look goofy on purpose and the movie itself is more even, because going off the trailer that movie looks SO DUMB. Yeah, that guy ain't ready to fight Black Adam anytime soon. No way, if they made the Cap vs. Black Adam movie and had it out next year it'd be f*cking dog sh*t. I feel like they need at least two or three whole movies to Level Up Captain Marvel before he could hang with Black Adam. I'm curious to see what they do eventually, but in 2022 the idea of those characters facing off in their present state is just a bad joke. Hopefully, they fix things so it becomes plausible.

- Well, I was dead wrong about a lot of expectations. Black Adam is sufficiently ruthless in this, way more than I expected. To be fair, most of my expectations were based on things Rock has said in interviews like "Never wanting his movies to be too dark or violent", he's a "family movie guy" and all that. I even said right here a few times, "You can bet he's not gonna be ripping anybody in half like in the comics", and... well, shut my mouth.

- I have NO doubt that the R-rated cut that they initially filmed was a LOT better, and probably more coherent story-wise. Pretty sure there'll be a Special Edition or Ultimate Edition or Director's Cut at some point, I sure hope so.

- For anyone wondering, no, the JSA get no background, no backstory, no explanation whatsoever, which is one of the few problems I do have with the movie. You're just basically meant to accept, "Well, this world is now full of super-heroes so here's four more of them." I REALLY hope we get a proper JSA movie out of this because especially after seeing how they fared in action the characters definitely deserve it, and they'd have room to breathe and get into their stories better. I want to know where they came from, how long they've been around, and what their connection is to Amanda Waller, other than "She's the DCEU Nick Fury now". Cyclone is the only one who gets even a hint of backstory about her powers, which is a bummer.

- Always fun to see Amanda Waller, even though - as stated - they don't even attempt to explain how she knows these guys. She just snaps her fingers and metahumans jump, apparently.

- Dr. Fate really does steal the goddamn show, and everything he did was terrific and looked amazing. He's not a solo movie type of character and we'll probably never see him again unless they do a JSA movie, but if this is the only movie we ever get with Dr. Fate than at least he was a joy to watch for every moment he was in it.

- I liked that the Cyclone/Atom Smasher stuff was kept to a dull roar, it was cute without being overbearing. I kept thinking GREAT, here's the love story subplot every movie has to have, but it never turned into that, and that's refreshing.

- "Hawkman" was pretty good, but I say it in quotes because really, that isn't Hawkman, and I don't mean because he's black. Hawkman would be the LAST one to go around spouting "Heroes Don't Kill" and telling people to tone down the violence, and he's also not JSA frontman either. I get it, these are decisions that get made because "We can't use Alan Scott, we need him for the Green Lantern TV series" (which will probably never even happen, let's be real), but the team needs a leader so he gets to be it. But it's whatever, so they basically stuck Alan Scott's personality onto Hawkman for contractual reasons, it's dumb but the character still works. The only thing I didn't like was his costume could have been better, it's too plain, especially the pants. But everything else was great with him. The movie kind of makes him a bit of a sap to contrast him with Adam, but I mean, y'know, Real Life Reasons and all that.

- What they did with the real villain wasn't bad but like the "First Champion" twist, it kind of doesn't feel entirely earned or built-to as well as it could've been. Once he was at full power, all that stuff was pretty good. I really liked the brief "underworld" stuff before he was revived in his full form, that was really cool.

- The score wasn't really remarkable, I'm trying to remember specific cues but I can't. So I guess it was "fine".

- I'm kinda over "needle drops" in these movies, the two big ones in this one just don't fit. And I actually really like both of the songs used - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" and "Paint It Black" - but the latter is too on the nose and also does not fit well with the scene it's attached to. And I don't know WHAT "Bullet..." was doing in there, I swear to God people just stick that onto movie soundtracks because people love setting up a scene with "The world is a vampire...." I adore the song but I kinda think there ought'a be a moratorium on using it in movies and trailers for a while. It's beyond overdone.

- After seeing this movie, I can tell you one thing for a fact: WB actually really, really, REALLY LOVES Zack Snyder... they just wish his movies made more money. Because they rip him off SO F*CKING HARD in a lot of the action scenes that it almost becomes parody at times. I promise you, if his movies made the bank WB arbitrarily decided they "needed" to, he'd still be out there doing stuff like this, instead of WB hiring someone to be all "So get as close to Zack's style as you can... but add bad jokes for Mom and Little Timmy." Seriously, there's "homage" and then there's Memorex. It wasn't done BADLY it was just... very, very blatant.

- I popped for the scene of Adam on the throne, because it's a perfect recreation of a comic book panel and I'm a sucker for that sh*t. He even had his legs positioned right.

- There was applause for the Superman cameo but nothing as loud as in the leaked footage. I was admittedly pretty loud, though. I notice when I go to movies people are generally afraid to clap or cheer unless I do, then they get loose. Dunno why.

So anyway, yeah, much better than I thought and one of the better non-Snyder DC movies although I know that's not saying much. If it'd been R-rated and Snyder directed it, well, obviously it would be much better but this is frankly as good as we can expect unless WB and Zack ever kiss and make up. In the meantime, we'd best get used to people just copying his visuals and adding "humor" into the mix to keep it light. It's a way to go, I guess.

[Leo656]

Like I said, 7 or 8 and I don't see how it gets lower unless you really want/need/expect it to be "something new", which... it can't be, realistically, there simply won't be another "groundbreaking" or "game-changing" comic book movie because the market won't allow for that. So that said, I think this is about as good as it gets for non-Snyder DC movies.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Pretty much you could remove the JSA from the movie and it wouldn't make much of a difference

This, I disagree with HARD, take out the JSA and there's hardly even a movie. You can't have Adam by himself against Some Rando, he's equally a Captain Marvel character and/or a JSA character but you simply couldn't do this movie without one or the other, and as I said Cap is nowhere NEAR ready for Black Adam the way things stand right now. I can see how a JSA movie with him as the villain would have been tighter but I think that movie would have a lot of the same problems that this one has, just from a different angle.

[ZariusTwo]

I keep thinking Dwayne would have benefited more being the antagonist in a Justice Society movie than carrying this by himself. Re-edit the movie into the JSA would be preferable, but at the same time, they don't have existing bank with the mainstream, at best you'll get a couple of CW fans who'll remember the JSA from Smallville

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I don't agree, I think it's one of the better DC ones for sure, not as good as anything Snyder did but it's up there with stuff like Aquaman and Wonder Woman easily.

Aquaman, yes. It's about equivalent to the tone and feel and level of writing as that. WW, nah. There's nothing in Black Adam as good as those first two acts of WW.

Black Adam himself is pretty one-note but I mean, he plays the part well enough for what it is, it's a thin character. I think that's why they had to pad the movie with the JSA, they more than make up for the Black Adam character's lack of outward charisma. Which is technically a sin because it's his movie, but again, the character doesn't lend himself well to solo affairs and it's hard to make such a one-dimensional character dynamic. So the trick becomes to have the characters around him take up the remaining slack and I do feel that they accomplished that.

I guess.

Wasn't expecting much but way better than I expected. Again, there just isn't... anything really WRONG with it. And the stuff it does well, like the JSA stuff, it does VERY well. The worst thing I can say is some of the CGI wasn't great (although some of it really was), and in the "Intergang storms the house" scene the "100 camera cuts per second" sh*t was aggravating, but thankfully the movie isn't always like that. Although that stuff IS a problem more than it should be, but I mean a lot of action movies do that now. I prefer Snyder's wide-angle "let the scenes breathe, don't hide the action with jump cuts" approach BUT YA KNOW.

The quick cutting bugged you, what bugged me was the metric ton of ADR going on. Like, whenever the camera isn't on someone's mouth, suddenly they're spitting out one-liners or funny stuff they clearly thought of later on in post. It's the Marvel school of "let's fill in all the silence we can with laughs."

I can't in good conscience go lower than 8, frankly.

If we're saying, for example -- personally -- if Birds of Prey or WW84 is like a 2 or a 3 and Man of Steel is a 9 or a 10, I'd say charitably this is about a 6, 6.5 tops.

They played the Shazam 2 trailer right before the movie started. Yeah, wow, that looks awful. I am REALLY hoping that like the first movie, they just made the trailers look goofy on purpose and the movie itself is more even, because going off the trailer that movie looks SO DUMB. Yeah, that guy ain't ready to fight Black Adam anytime soon. No way, if they made the Cap vs. Black Adam movie and had it out next year it'd be f*cking dog sh*t. I feel like they need at least two or three whole movies to Level Up Captain Marvel before he could hang with Black Adam. I'm curious to see what they do eventually, but in 2022 the idea of those characters facing off in their present state is just a bad joke. Hopefully, they fix things so it becomes plausible.

Yeah, that trailer. It just looks so busy and trying too hard for goofy laughs, this time out. Coupled with Levy looking a lot older in the face and those kids not really looking like kids anymore. A couple of those "Shazam!" transformation group shots are a little embarrassing to look at. Like, wow, they grew like an inch.

Well, I was dead wrong about a lot of expectations. Black Adam is sufficiently ruthless in this, way more than I expected. To be fair, most of my expectations were based on things Rock has said in interviews like "Never wanting his movies to be too dark or violent", he's a "family movie guy" and all that. I even said right here a few times, "You can bet he's not gonna be ripping anybody in half like in the comics", and... well, shut my mouth.

I would've liked to have seen him punch through one head, but whatever.

I have NO doubt that the R-rated cut that they initially filmed was a LOT better, and probably more coherent story-wise. Pretty sure there'll be a Special Edition or Ultimate Edition or Director's Cut at some point, I sure hope so.

That could really help things, I think.

Always fun to see Amanda Waller, even though - as stated - they don't even attempt to explain how she knows these guys. She just snaps her fingers and metahumans jump, apparently.

Yeah, weird.

Dr. Fate really does steal the goddamn show, and everything he did was terrific and looked amazing. He's not a solo movie type of character and we'll probably never see him again unless they do a JSA movie, but if this is the only movie we ever get with Dr. Fate than at least he was a joy to watch for every moment he was in it.

I probably enjoyed his stuff more than anything in the whole Dr. Strange Multiverse of Madness movie.

- I'm kinda over "needle drops" in these movies, the two big ones in this one just don't fit. And I actually really like both of the songs used - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" and "Paint It Black" - but the latter is too on the nose and also does not fit well with the scene it's attached to. And I don't know WHAT "Bullet..." was doing in there, I swear to God people just stick that onto movie soundtracks because people love setting up a scene with "The world is a vampire...." I adore the song but I kinda think there ought'a be a moratorium on using it in movies and trailers for a while.

Yeah, those songs make it feel like a 90s actioner. And reminds me of what the studio was trying to do with their cut of Suicide Squad.

There was applause for the Superman cameo but nothing as loud as in the leaked footage. I was admittedly pretty loud, though. I notice when I go to movies people are generally afraid to clap or cheer unless I do, then they get loose. Dunno why.

I was looking forward to seeing/hearing the reaction there. Sadly, 95% of the theater left before they could see it, so it was only like me, wife and kid, and a couple of old guys scattered about and it was silent.

If it'd been R-rated and Snyder directed it, well, obviously it would be much better but this is frankly as good as we can expect unless WB and Zack ever kiss and make up. In the meantime, we'd best get used to people just copying his visuals and adding "humor" into the mix to keep it light. It's a way to go, I guess.

I feel like if The Suicide Squad had performed this would have surely been A-OK with an R. As is, WB probably blamed a lot of performance on that R-rating.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Like I said, 7 or 8 and I don't see how it gets lower unless you really want/need/expect it to be "something new", which... it can't be, realistically, there simply won't be another "groundbreaking" or "game-changing" comic book movie because the market won't allow for that. So that said, I think this is about as good as it gets for non-Snyder DC movies.

I mean, it's better than what Sony is doing with Venom. Not a TON better, but it's the same kind of filmmaking model.

This, I disagree with HARD, take out the JSA and there's hardly even a movie. You can't have Adam by himself against Some Rando, he's equally a Captain Marvel character and/or a JSA character but you simply couldn't do this movie without one or the other, and as I said Cap is nowhere NEAR ready for Black Adam the way things stand right now. I can see how a JSA movie with him as the villain would have been tighter but I think that movie would have a lot of the same problems that this one has, just from a different angle.

Well, yeah, you remove the JSA and you'd have a 45 minute movie. But story beats-wise, the JSA weren't really organic to anything going on in the movie. And I'm not even sure Black Adam needed to have a big bad to fight in it. Until the first trailer, I kind of just assumed Black Adam would be the villain of his own movie, only "seeing the light" by the end of it.

Also, I'm not sure they really accomplished his "face turn" very well. It's a bit like the last Mummy movie where before we even get a chance to hate or be scared of the titular character, we're overloaded with sympathetic backstory so as to not only not hate or be scared of them, but to feel sorry for them... before they even do much at all.

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

I keep thinking Dwayne would have benefited more being the antagonist in a Justice Society movie than carrying this by himself. Re-edit the movie into the JSA would be preferable

I think you're right. Just spitballing, but yeah, had they built a JSA-centric movie about the JSA assembling right as Black Adam appears and rises as a threat, there might have been a solid movie in that. Black Adam used sparingly, Terminator-like, until we little by little get his backstory. Maybe in the third act the JSA manages to recruit Billy Batson as "the muscle," and we get the first meet in a group setting.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

I keep thinking Dwayne would have benefited more being the antagonist in a Justice Society movie than carrying this by himself. Re-edit the movie into the JSA would be preferable, but at the same time, they don't have existing bank with the mainstream, at best you'll get a couple of CW fans who'll remember the JSA from Smallville

They would've needed to change the plot around entirely, but I can see how it could have been done. Although probably not as successful as setting up Black Adam as the character the DCEU and WB needs/wants him to be. And I don't think that movie would have been TOO much better than this one, especially without Scott or Garrick, who they "can't" use right now because they're tied up in a bunch of stuff WB will never actually make.

Like, Real World Why stuff. We don't have to like it, we DO have to accept it and set expectations accordingly. WB doesn't "need" the JSA. They need The Rock to bring his "box office Viagra" to the DC franchise. A JSA movie doesn't accomplish that, even if he's in it. Just like "Birds of Prey" didn't draw a crowd even with Harley Quinn in it, but "Harley Quinn and BoP" did... slightly better, after they switched the title around to make clear she was the star. Didn't help MUCH, but the uptick after they switched the title proved that they should've marketed it as her movie all along.

..I mean what they SHOULD have done was cancelled that piece of sh*t Birds of Prey movie before they ever made it, but you know what I mean.

I do sincerely hope now that they got some of the heavy lifting out of the way, they can do a real JSA movie with the full roster. I went into this movie not knowing (in this universe; obviously I know the comics stuff) how long the JSA have existed, how they met, where the individuals came from and/or got their powers, why they're Waller's foot soldiers, and if these are the only four members. After watching the movie, I STILL don't know ANY of that stuff, and it's the only thing I really don't like. But I get it, it's NOT a JSA movie so they felt like it'd be wasted time to get into it, and I guess it would've been.

Still, it's a lot to just drop these guys into the mix and not even attempt to get into any of it. My head is still so set in Snyder's "There were only a few metahumans in existence, technology isn't super advanced, etc." establishment, especially since they're still building on his framework... so to go into a movie and suddenly there's 500 super-heroes with no explanation and mercenaries have Eternium-powered hoverbikes like something outta Star Wars... it just kinda breaks your brain a little. I know the toothpaste is out of the tube, but still. The idea was originally to build things to this kind of point s l o w l y, but then we all know WB and "patience", plus they started this whole deal a decade ago and have barely made any progress. So yeah, I get it, "who cares, just go full-on comic book, get crazy" but it doesn't feel earned.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Like, Real World Why stuff. We don't have to like it, we DO have to accept it and set expectations accordingly. WB doesn't "need" the JSA. They need The Rock to bring his "box office Viagra" to the DC franchise. A JSA movie doesn't accomplish that

Correct. In fact, I'd strongly advise against a JSA movie. I am a fan of them, but the DCEU needs a JSA movie like the comics need a 29th reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes comic. I just don't see it being successful. They absolutely would have to put out a new Justice League movie with all the A-listers and score big before even considering that kind of stuff with the C-listers, down the line. Especially after The Suicide Squad bombed. I'm pretty sure the general public's awareness of The Weasel isn't too different from their awareness of Atom Smasher.

Still, it's a lot to just drop these guys into the mix and not even attempt to get into any of it. My head is still so set in Snyder's "There were only a few metahumans in existence, technology isn't super advanced, etc." establishment, especially since they're still building on his framework... so to go into a movie and suddenly there's 500 super-heroes with no explanation and mercenaries have Eternium-powered hoverbikes like something outta Star Wars... it just kinda breaks your brain a little.

I was immediately reminded of the recent Godzilla movies. We got that first one that was grittily real-ish and contemporary with Bryan Cranston doing Breaking Bad-level acting in the background, then only like a movie later we've suddenly got little hover ships with neon lights flying around like Star Trek shuttlecraft and so on. I know, it's a movie, but immediately I'm checked out of taking it seriously.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Aquaman, yes. It's about equivalent to the tone and feel and level of writing as that. WW, nah. There's nothing in Black Adam as good as those first two acts of WW.

The quick cutting bugged you, what bugged me was the metric ton of ADR going on. Like, whenever the camera isn't on someone's mouth, suddenly they're spitting out one-liners or funny stuff they clearly thought of later on in post. It's the Marvel school of "let's fill in all the silence we can with laughs."

Yeah, that trailer. It just looks so busy and trying too hard for goofy laughs, this time out. Coupled with Levy looking a lot older in the face and those kids not really looking like kids anymore. A couple of those "Shazam!" transformation group shots are a little embarrassing to look at. Like, wow, they grew like an inch.

Yeah, those songs make it feel like a 90s actioner. And reminds me of what the studio was trying to do with their cut of Suicide Squad.

In order:

- I'unno, see, because they're entirely different kinds of super-hero movies. Like this one is by design a CGI Action Slugfest, and the CGI Action Slugfest parts of Wonder Woman were the only thing people cried about (they were "fine"). That was an action/drama period piece and this is a Big Loud Action Movie. I think they both succeed well enough at their individual mission statements.

Thus I personally can only compare them insofar as, "How likely would I be to watch either of them again?" And the honest answer is, about the same. Neither one is among my all-time favorites but they're both movies I'll still be checking out from time to time for many years. Maybe not all the time - I liked WW a ton but haven't actually watched it in years - but I'm not done with either of them for sure.

- Yeah, the jump cuts were trying to hide some of that but yeah. I'm never a huge fan of that either, but the pacing in those scenes was so frenetic I was more focused on what was going on than watching for that kind of stuff. I'd probably have caught more of it later on upon a second or third watch.

Like how I mentioned that the music didn't thrill me or stand out in any way (nor did it bother me; it was just There); I'm huge into music but for some reason, with films the visuals always stand out to me more than the audio does. Zimmer's score for MoS left little impression when I watched the movie the very first time but HOLY SH*T do I adore it now. For some reason the audio of a movie takes like two or three passes before it becomes one of my biggest priorities. But yeah, this would have annoyed me eventually, I'm sure. But since I'm more visually-oriented with movies the quick-cut sh*t bothered me more.

Like, in that "storm the house" scene they were jump-cutting and nothing was even happening! Three or more cuts within two seconds? Lay off the caffeine! A guy took two steps to the right, you don't need to show it from three different F*CKING angles!

- Holy sh*t yeah, what about Zachary Levi, huh? OOOOF the guy looks f*cking SIXTY now! What'd he do, spend all his money from the first movie on crack and cheap whiskey? He looks like SH*T and he wasn't a good visual choice for the role anyway. Like he was "serviceable", but that's all, and now he looks like his own Dad.

I popped huge for the Marvel Family in the first movie just because I didn't think they'd go there, but yeah I can't say I love them being the focal point of the sequel, I mean HE is barely even established and the sequel is all about how he's the weakest link of "his own" super-hero family? F*ck outta here. I liked it in the first movie as a fan but it was objectively too much too soon and now it's f*cking sh*t up.

Mary Marvel is f*cking hot as f*ck, though, so... there's that. Like I've always been a huge fan of the character, never expected to see her in a movie at all, now we actually do AND she's smokin'. That's nice, I appreciate that.

- For a half a second I did think, "Ah geez, they're doing it like Suicide Squad". And then they pulled it back.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Correct. In fact, I'd strongly advise against a JSA movie. I am a fan of them, but the DCEU needs a JSA movie like the comics need a 29th reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes comic. I just don't see it being successful. They absolutely would have to put out a new Justice League movie with all the A-listers and score big before even considering that kind of stuff with the C-listers, down the line. Especially after The Suicide Squad bombed. I'm pretty sure the general public's awareness of The Weasel isn't too different from their awareness of Atom Smasher.



I was immediately reminded of the recent Godzilla movies. We got that first one that was grittily real-ish and contemporary with Bryan Cranston doing Breaking Bad-level acting in the background, then only like a movie later we've suddenly got little hover ships with neon lights flying around like Star Trek shuttlecraft and so on. I know, it's a movie, but immediately I'm checked out of taking it seriously.

- Yes, 100, another JLA movie should be their priority far beyond a JSA one. They won't, just like they won't do a Green Lantern movie because the JLA name is "toxic" just like the name "Green Lantern" is "toxic" for their movie branch after the first one, but that's dumb.

- I was sitting there and as soon as I saw the hoverbikes I literally said in my head that I was gonna come home and you were gonna say EVERY WORD that you just said in that paragraph. I literally said "I can't wait for Andrew to say how this reminded him of how they ruined the Godzilla movies." That's so awesome.

In my head I'm just saying that between-movies someone from S.T.A.R. Labs figured out Kryptonian tech from the ship and that's why there's all this Star Wars tech in the DCEU now when there wasn't before. Makes sense if you squint. It's as good as we're ever gonna get.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Thus I personally can only compare them insofar as, "How likely would I be to watch either of them again?" And the honest answer is, about the same. Neither one is among my all-time favorites but they're both movies I'll still be checking out from time to time for many years. Maybe not all the time - I liked WW a ton but haven't actually watched it in years - but I'm not done with either of them for sure.

I guess that's fair. But while something like MoS or WW would be a no-brainer for me to put back on in any revisiting of the DCEU years later or to show someone else... Black Adam, I dunno. I wouldn't say that no, I wouldn't, but unless he as a character goes on to bigger and better things in the DCEU then I probably wouldn't. It's missing too many elements to independently elevate itself, and the music score is a major component of that to name just one.

I saw it 2 hours ago and I can't remember any of the score. Just those ham-fisted songs.

Zimmer's score for MoS left little impression when I watched the movie the very first time but HOLY SH*T do I adore it now.

Absolutely. That score fills you with wonder and excitement and "alien." It's wonderful. What Zimmer did there was magic.

Holy sh*t yeah, what about Zachary Levi, huh? OOOOF the guy looks f*cking SIXTY now! What'd he do, spend all his money from the first movie on crack and cheap whiskey? He looks like SH*T and he wasn't a good visual choice for the role anyway. Like he was "serviceable", but that's all, and now he looks like his own Dad.

It's weird! I know you're his greatest fan but they really should have just gotten a John Cena type for the role (also, probably BIG muscled people for all of the Super versions of the other kids to offset the inevitable aging). And over here on the Black Adam side, you have him filling out the costume earnestly, how ridiculous is Levi going to look when he's going toe to toe with him?

- Yes, 100, another JLA movie should be their priority far beyond a JSA one. They won't, just like they won't do a Green Lantern movie because the JLA name is "toxic" just like the name "Green Lantern" is "toxic" for their movie branch after the first one, but that's dumb.

I dunno. Getting the trinity right seems to be a priority for Zaslav. The obvious endgame there has to be a proper Justice League.

Green Lantern... what a mess on all sides, including that show. I still maintain that the first GL movie wasn't beyond saving in a sequel.

I was sitting there and as soon as I saw the hoverbikes I literally said in my head that I was gonna come home and you were gonna say EVERY WORD that you just said in that paragraph. I literally said "I can't wait for Andrew to say how this reminded him of how they ruined the Godzilla movies." That's so awesome.

It's just upsetting. Less so in Black Adam, because as you say, mankind has had unknown years now to study and reverse engineer Kryptonian tech (though this seemed to go beyond that? were these little ships phasing through matter in Black Adam or just jumping forward super fast?). In the Godzilla movies, what? They studied the MUTA DNA and it somehow taught them how to make Star Trek hovercraft? The one logical thing Independence Day: Resurgence got right was how humanity would absolutely jump to it with reverse engineering alien tech leftover for, you know, the next attack which could happen a year later, or a month. Even though they basically stole that from War of the Worlds: Goliath.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I saw it 2 hours ago and I can't remember any of the score. Just those ham-fisted songs.

It's weird! They really should have just gotten a John Cena type for the role. And over here on the Black Adam side, you have him filling out the costume earnestly, how ridiculous is Levi going to look when he's going toe to toe with him?

Green Lantern... what a mess on all sides, including that show. I still maintain that the first GL movie wasn't beyond saving in a sequel.

- Yeah, the more I think about it this movie may have the single most generic score I've ever heard. To me that's just garnish, like I appreciate a mind-blowing score but it's a visual medium, I don't always miss it if it's not there. But yeah, I do agree that there's just nothing moving about it, it just didn't really hurt the movie for me personally.

- My All-Time pick for Captain Marvel, like if they got to make it 20 years or so ago, was always Brendan Frasier. But then he got way too old, fat, and bald (and way earlier than he should have), but yeah when I was a teenager he would've been the guy.

Y'know who'd honestly be the best pick NOW, though, and I'm not even kidding? Brandon Routh. No, I'm dead f*cking serious. He still looks fairly youthful, he has a fanbase among a section of the DC audience, the CW Crisis stuff showed that he can still "go", he's very tall and adequately jacked (when the designers give him a suit that highlights his physique properly; he looked much better in the Crisis suit than the movie one), it would be a "Previous DC Movie Easter Egg" that people always bust nuts for, he has the "looks a lot (but not quite) like Superman" thing that Cap needs to have, AND as we've seen in a few things that Routh does great when he's allowed to display a kind of cheeky sense of humor, which also fits Cap.

Like seriously, I doubt he was ever up for it, doubt he got the call or auditioned at all but HE would have been the best possible Captain Marvel for so many reasons and I'm aggravated that I'm probably the first person who ever even thought of that. Should have been a no-brainer.

Would be totally worth it just for him to crack, "I feel like I'm more of a 'Superman' than you are!" when him and Cavill inevitably met. See, I'm the only one who f*cking knows anything, it's infuriating.

- Green Lantern 2: Hal vs. Sinestro would have been MUCH better than GL1, absolutely, and I liked GL1 more than most people. But I left thinking, "Well, heavy lifting is does, sequel will be better." Yellow Ring Sinestro is all anyone cared about seeing, anyway. It still pisses me off that WB - AS USUAL - decided that the best course of action to a minor fumble is, "Let's scorch and salt the earth so nothing ever grows here again." Like ALL they ever do is overreact as a rule, they are such a f*cking sh*t company and since they have always been I am not convinced that will change no matter how many regime changes and mergers there are. That company is f*cking cursed.

[AquaParade]

Brenden Fraser may have been physically destroyed by his own anxiety from the sound of things.

Unless all that “Brendan Fraser is back! He was sexually harassed and blacklisted but he is back!” angle is just exaggerated puff-piece stuff to try and revive a dead career.

But if it it’s as bad as he implied, yeah, maybe it explains the quick aging.

Although, even if it is exaggerated, I guess going from hero-to-zero would be hard either way. The guy does seem sort of fragile.

I’d buy him as Hal. He was fun in the Mummy movies and had enough charisma, as an actor.

[Leo656]

Y'know, I don't keep up with him much at all, I sincerely have no idea about any of that or what the deal is with that. All I know is I used to see him in stuff, "Bedazzled" was really good (Hurley was SO F*CKING HOT in that), and then shortly after he vanished into the Phantom Zone, then the next time anyone saw him he was fat and bald. And now apparently he did a movie and people remembered he existed and it's some kind of feel-good comeback thing.

Good for him, by the way, I just haven't paid any attention so I don't actually know what's going on or has been going on with him.

It's just that as a kid, I couldn't help but notice that a lot of his headshots for various movies looked a lot like the way Captain Marvel looked on the covers of the old Justice League International comics, and then at one point he was up for Superman back in the late-90s/very early-2000s but obviously nothing happened there, but at one point he was the official "If we can't get anybody else 'better' or more marketable to play Superman, it'll be him" pick, like not WB's first choice but none of their first choices actually wanted to do it, and he said he would if it came down to it. But then obviously no movie got made and it all just evaporated.

I never thought he would've been a great Superman - "good enough", maybe, which again was basically what WB had him on retainer for, "He's good enough if we can't get a Real Star" - and part of that was because he generally has a goofier, goonish kind of quality. BUT it's the same thing that made me think he would've been "eh" as Superman to make me think he would have, at that time, been a very good Captain Marvel.

[Andrew NDB]

* Green Lantern 2, with Sinestro vs. Hal. Sure, that seemed the certain way to go. There is a lot of great storylines they could have done as long as they had a better vision. We could have seen Ryan Reynolds' Hal becoming not a Ryan Reynolds' Hal with what he would go through in such a thing. And we'd have a great character arc as a result.

* Brendan Fraser as Captain Marvel. Yes. Absolutely. 22 years ago, for sure.

* Brandon Routh as Captain Marvel. No, I can't agree. He was cast as Superman because he had the same "swimmer's body" as Christopher Reeve. Also, because Bryan Singer is into that. Captain Marvel should not have a "swimmer's body." He should forever have a hyper-exaggerated Charles Atlas-type body. But mannerisms and performance-wise, sure. He could do it. And hey, there's probably nothing that says Brandon Routh couldn't bulk up to tank-like levels if directed to do so. Or maybe there is, I don't know. We saw what happened when Tom Hardy was tasked with bulking up for Bane, the biggest muscled villain Batman has ever encountered.

* The perfect casting for Hal Jordan would always have been an in his prime Dennis Quaid. That's even exactly who Darryl Banks modeled Hal after in his run. And I agree.

Also, I admit. When there was rumors about Tom Cruise for Hal Jordan, I wasn't too bitter about it. Especially if it's like an Ant-Man where Hal Jordan is like the legacy character and the main character is a new GL, like Kyle. That could work. In fact, imagine how beautiful an "Emerald Twilight" story would be with Tom Cruise as Parallax Hal going nuts?

[Leo656]

You're gonna tell me with a straight face that This Guy - while admittedly no Rock or Cena - isn't jacked enough to fill out a padded/sculpted muscle suit? Yer boshin' me. Look at those delts.



He does have a bit of a lankier frame skeletal-wise but Routh gets wider/thicker or not as roles require. He was also way bigger, more jacked and cut up than Reeve EVER was, at the time he did the movie. The costume designers actually thought he was TOO big, because you're correct in a sense that they wanted him to be reminiscent of Reeve, as in a leaner type of musculature, and so when they designed the suit they did everything they could to make him look far leaner than he really was, specifically making the trunks way too low so his torso would look longer/slimmer. They did everything they could to hide how much taller/thicker Routh was than Reeve because ostensibly, you were supposed to believe they were The Same Guy within the movie's fiction. In reality he was much, much bigger than Reeve. Too big to wear the "proper" costume, unfortunately, in the opinion of the costumers.

Start with the above picture, get him on even the most basic Comic Book Movie Steroid Kit to get a little thicker and more defined, give him a suit that fits properly like the CW Crisis suit, and you've got your Captain Marvel. Done deal. Even in that one pic he's barely in shape and he's way thicker off the gas than Zachary Levi is on it. I know that's not saying much, but you're totally not giving the guy enough credit.

Plus, there's a certain very vocal and very whiny contingent of Superman fans who simply will not shut up about him getting a Superman project, and I kinda want those people to shut up already, and I feel like having him play Cap might be a good enough compromise to finally make those people quit their eternal bitching.

- For what it's worth, I've seen some pictures of the old Reeve suits and what they looked like inside... y e a h those things had a lot more padding than you'd think, and Reeve never even looked jacked as Superman. I know the "Darth Vader/David Prowse got him in shape" story is a fan favorite, but... Reeve hardly worked out for Superman, to be brutally honest. He just didn't care for it and the suit was pretty much half of his physique. Too bad.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

* The perfect casting for Hal Jordan would always have been an in his prime Dennis Quaid. That's even exactly who Darryl Banks modeled Hal after in his run. And I agree.

Chris Pine would be my dream pick for Hal, but WB had to go and make him Steve Trevor just because they have to f*ck up every single layup anyone gives them.

But yeah ever since I saw him as Kirk in those Trek movies I was like, "If he took this exact same 'rebel within the organization, maverick-style good guy who flies by the seat of his pants but pulls it together in the end somehow, maybe with a little help from his friends' type of energy... he would be a PERFECT Hal Jordan."

But again... WB gonna WB. Literally any scrub could have been "Steve Trevor" (especially since they were just gonna kill him off anyway) but they had the best potential Hal Jordan they're gonna get within this particular era... and they punted because "LoL dawg we don't do Green Lantern movies."

[AquaParade]

Brendan Fraser was sort of the “Chris Pratt” of his day.