I watched Black Adam (2022). I don’t know why – mild curiosity? Masochism? Latent Dwayne Johnson fandom?

Let’s start with character vitals:

• Strengths: Invulnerable, power of flight, super strength, super speed, teleportation, unassailable combat skills, shoots lightning bolts, literally a demigod.
• Weaknesses: 5,000 years old, so occasionally makes endearing anachronistic comments that are lightly funny but not really.

It’s never clear what exactly the conflict is or why the viewer is supposed to care. As Black Adam wakes, a group of superheroes is sent to confront him, but it’s never in question that they’re on the same side, and they only fight it out to prove the narcissism of small differences. Later there’s a token bad guy, and as you might be able to imagine, it’s a huge mystery as to whether the combined might of Black Adam and his new friends at the Justice Society will be enough to take him down.

There was a long period of MCU golden age over the last ten years where I thought that Hollywood had figured it out – the perfect formula of fan service, special effects, and quippy dialog that was reliably reproducible to make a film that fans liked and would land a solid ~8 on IMDB. Apparently not, or the at least the DC studios never got the memo.

Don’t worry, this hasn’t become a movie blog. Tomorrow, back to your regularly scheduled programming.