Review of Black Adam (2022) by Testera — 23 Oct 2022

More of a rant against the superhero movies than a review.

I really hope for the sake of humanity that one day, once this whole superhero frenzy dies down, the film historians will look back at this time period (starting with the 2001 X-Men to whenever it ends) as an embarrassment and a low point in movie history. The common defenses for the superhero movies are "it's escapism", "they aren't meant to be serious", even though some of them take themselves far too seriously to the point of unintentional comedy (TDK trilogy, BvS, The Batman) and of course "if you don't like it, don't watch it".

Infantilization of cinema and keeping the adult children in a perpetual state of arrested development, validating their childhood obsessions and flattering their egos, studios know who their audience is and they don't respect you, not one bit. WB/DC has the dark and gritty™ so the viewers can say: "maybe I'm not wasting my time watching people in silly costumes fighting each other, look the movie is so dark and serious, it's a crime drama.", and to them that automatically makes it good.

Marvel movies are more light hearted which doesn't make them neither better nor worse, but there is a line for how much jokes and gags you can take before you start rolling your eyes.

Black Adam is one more nail in the cinematic coffin of Hollywood, too bad it won't be the final.

"I can't wait for the 16th reboot of Batman and Avengers 37!!!" - average moviegoer, probably.