So, I had a lot of time off over the holidays. Did I get any writing done?

Um, no. That’s going to be a big negative.

What I did do was read some books, do family/holiday stuff, and practice my new trombone. That’s right, I got a trombone for christmas from my very loving and soon to be very sorry husband. I also watched a few movies. Let’s talk about one of those movies in particular.

Prepare yourself, for this epic rant because I didn’t know how angry I was until I started talking about it to Ross that night after I watched Black Adam.

There’s alot going around about how this bombed and how everyone is getting recast to reboot DCEU . . . again.

This movie wasn’t horrible. It was just the same shit DC does with all there live action movies. Its the same problems that all the other movies had – with the exception of Wonder Woman (2017) and Man of Steel (2013). I would like to pay particular homage to Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Trilogy – a complete character/story arc which is now the exception, rather than te rule. In Black Adam, DCEU treated its audience like they were stupid and that they would consume anything they threw at the masses.

This is incorrect and, quite frankly, insulting.

You have to tell an actual fucking story. You can’t just throw some characters into the movie without backstory, build-up, goals, motivations, or -most importantly- conflicts and think that its going to work. Because it won’t.

You know why Marvel movies/content work so well? Because people sat down and figured out what story they wanted to tell and DID THE FUCKING WORK. They laid the groundwork for new characters, and items, concepts in each subsequent film or show. They built a narrative that drew people in. Even if not every movie or tv show is a hit, they build upon each other. Marvel, under Kevin Feige, built actual storyboards to continue a story through multiple films instead of this disjointed nonsense that the DCEU keeps presenting.

DCEU seems to refuse to do this. They just throw a bunch of shit at you without the cohesion of an actual narrative and bank on the decades of comic book devotion to carry the rest. The reason that there is such devotion to these comics is because of THE STORIES THEY TOLD! If the comics pulled this shit, DC would have collapsed decades ago.

James Gunn can recast anything and everything several times over. Here’s a little secret, though. The problem isn’t the actors. The problem is the story telling. You’re not delivering a product that people want to buy regardless of the packaging. Packaging (aka actors) only get you so far.

Black Adam was the same shit DCEU has been throwing at us for years now.

Here’s another thing that pissed me off.

Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate was a chef’s kiss of casting and DCEU WASTED HIM! Literally wasted him. Wasted the character. Wasted the actor. I can’t even express to you how appaled I was by the end of that movie.

They didn’t even explain Hawkman. They didn’t explain why this dude had giant wings attached to his back and could fly. They didn’t explain why he lived in a palatial english type estate in Lousiana. They did nothing, not in this movie or any other movies to lay the ground work for this. And let’s be honest. The only interesting shit about Hawkman is Hawkgirl and she was no where in site.

They put together a group of people for this world saving mission with no introductions to ANY of them. And somehow, Amanda Waller is involved. . .

Black Adam was just one more shitshow in a long line of lazy shitshows that came from the DCEU. I keep watching these movies in the hopes that they’ll finally get it right. The animated movies are so good! DCEU just can’t seem to translate that animation narrative to the live action movies and that’s sad. They have so much material to work with and they seem to be ignoring it.

And in a Covid world, you have to put out a really good product that has me itching to see it to get me in a theatre. Sorry DCEU, but your movies just don’t rate.