Black Adam

And My Stockholm Syndrome

I don’t think it’s a surprise to find out that people in prison love comic books. Dudes in prison are down with not only the MCU, but the spider-totems, the Court of Owls, the Hellfire Gala and all sorts of comic book nonsense. I just happened to be in prison during a comic book movie boom. While I was down, ten Marvel and DC films made over a billion dollars each.

Okay, okay, that was a sneaky stat. Eight of those megahits came from Marvel. DC didn’t exactly have the same rate of success, though I appreciated what they were trying to do in principle. The DCEU runs nearly parallel to my prison term, beginning beforehand with 2013’s “Man Of Steel” and ending with their 2023 output, and they distinguished themselves from Marvel by trusting the diverse visions of a series of distinct filmmakers. Unfortunately, the most significant was Zack Snyder, and other filmmakers unfortunately operated under the shadow of Snyder’s work. During that period, that included “Man Of Steel”, “Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” and the lamentable, protracted “Justice League”.

Not to say I had a terrible problem with Snyder’s vision, buttressed by an interesting screenwriting team that involved “Argo” Oscar winner Chris Terrio. His DC world was populated by gods. They were angry, vain, disillusioned. They wanted to do right, but even Superman was learning the hard way that humanity would keep finding ways to let him down. I don't think Snyder properly illustrated these perspectives – he seems best suited to tableau rather than storytelling or themes. But look, I was a comic book reader as a kid, and Snyder gave us a movie where Batman fought Superman, and it felt as huge as it was supposed to be. Why should I be disappointed that it was also stupid, ridiculous and excessively over-serious? 

For a brief moment, it feels as if Jaume Collet-Serra’s “Black Adam” should fit into that familiar Snyder world. The movie begins with a prologue establishing the mythic power of a slave who rises up to enact unholy vengeance as the titular hero. It’s a setup that goofily but maybe even sincerely addresses the comic book hero canard head-on: what if great power eschews great responsibility? And so the oppressors of this ancient time are thoroughly dismantled by the violent glower of Dwayne Johnson, enough that we forget that this character just uttered “Shazam!”, the title of a more kiddie-friendly DC film from years ago.

The movie then shifts to modern day Kahndaq (brief note: NOT REAL), an occupied city that seems to have a very plausible relationship with America: the United States is aware of their cultural contrast, but all they have to offer are empty idols. As if such a concept wasn’t meta enough, the kids in this film explicitly love the Justice League and they have DC hero paraphernalia everywhere. Which is similar to “Shazam!” again in that I feel like the viewer has to wonder, who is making money off this stuff? How does the copyright work out? And is there a Steel action figure?

Military conflict awakes the seemingly buried Black Adam, who proceeds to cut a swath through the armed goons of Intergang, theoretically the colonizers in this specific situation. It’s awfully convenient when the bad guys are actual comic book villains – Intergang has supposedly clashed with Superman in the comics. Unsurprisingly, the American government, who has no real interest in Intergang, deems this slave uprising a threat. And now Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, eternally annoyed she has to play this character) taking a break from her Suicide Squads to form a Justice Society of America, in a series of sequences that feel like hasty rewrites.   

It's this middle of the movie where the plot shifts to become the strictest of formulas. Other seemingly invincible costumed characters show up to trade CGI fisticuffs with Johnson, which means this Kahndaq is about to be severely messed up. And so we get punch-out after punch-out, with the knowledge that eventually these characters will have to unite against a common enemy, who may or may not be powered by a magic MacGuffin. Play the hits, DJ.

One of the reasons why these superhero movies are so problematic is because there are too many masters to serve. No doubt, the production was given a list of characters that the brass would like to see in the movie. But comic book superheroes have persisted for so long because they are resistant to character arcs – they largely stay at the same level of virtue (or lack thereof). You’re forced, as a storyteller, to utilize characters you don’t need, and you have to twist them to fit your narrative. So you get a guy like Hawkman, a true Golden Age comic character from the earliest Justice League days, played by a talented and imposing actor (Aldis Hodge). And instead of being a showcase for him, “Black Adam” makes him into a winged narc who flies around with the expressed purpose of guilt-tripping the hero to not be a villain. You’re trying to launch a popular character and you’re trying to have him fit a storyline that doesn’t properly showcase that character, and then you accomplish neither, and Mr. Hodge ends up out of a job.

Dwayne Johnson was the star of the first “Institution Movie” I saw in prison. “Institution Movies” is shorthand for a DVD program (possibly soon to be obsolete in the age of streaming) where prisons programmed a newer film to run unedited on a certain channel for a few days in a row. Because there were so many TV’s to access, and because people generally were interested in seeing something “new”, you always had a chance to watch the Institution Movie with other inmates. Usually it was some fluffy blockbuster like “Jungle Cruise”, because the Zimmer Amendment ensured we’d have no access to R-rated movies. But every once in awhile, you’d get “Seymour: An Introduction”, a documentary Ethan Hawke made about an accomplished pianist. As the years went on, the answer for the scarcity of some DVD’s was met with the arrival of edited R-rated movies, some barely edited, and some chopped up with a hacksaw, courtesy of Swank Distribution, suppliers of the DVD’s. These edited versions, if they were published for commercial use outside of prison walls, would constitute a federal crime, I believe. This probably wasn’t the case, but if it was, would anyone have cared?

I remember sitting down for that first Institution Movie, “San Andreas”. For about two hours, it was my first real movie in a long time (I had previously spent sixteen months in holding). And I wondered, is this what all Institution Movies are? It was almost as if it was a real movie, but all the good parts were trimmed. I wondered if this was one of the more punishing aspects of prison.

In “Orange Is The New Black”, the book, the women talk about how it was a holiday whenever a Dwayne Johnson movie came on. It wasn’t just that they found him attractive, but that he was always playing good, sturdy, reliable dudes. A lover and a friend. The flipside of that, however, is that for a long time, coinciding with my prison stay, he was the exact same guy.

While I was down, Johnson starred in “San Andreas”, “Central Intelligence”, “Baywatch”, “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle”, “Rampage”, “Skyscraper”, “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”, “Jumanji: The Next Level” and “Jungle Cruise” (in addition to negligible appearances in “Furious 7”, “Moana”, “The Fate Of The Furious” and “Fighting With My Family” (I did not see Netflix’s “Red Notice” now will I)). This was a hell of a run of mediocrity for someone once considered the next Schwarzenegger. Because mine was a life of Institution Movies and basic cable marathons, I sat through an onslaught of Johnson experiences, in addition to the earlier would-be spectacles essayed by his stardom, including “Faster”, “Snitch”, “Hercules” and (maybe his best work by default) “Pain And Gain”.

Like the women from “Orange Is The New Black”, I too connected Johnson quite deeply to my prison experience. Dwayne Johnson meant lowered expectations, he meant disappointment, he meant the bare minimum of entertainment. Dwayne Johnson was an action experience that was actually just a coupon for a later action experience that would never materialize. After the fourth or fifth viewing of “Baywatch”, I could see little difference between Johnson and my captors. It was like a perverse Stockholm Syndrome. There are a lot of things I no longer want to do now that I am out, and “watching Dwayne Johnson” movies is high on that list.