Black Adam
2022
*½
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Pierce Brosnan, Bodhi Sabongui
As the good guys and the bad guys attempt to locate the Crown of Sabbac, an object of great power, in the modern day Kahndaq, they reawaken Teth-Adam, a former slave with the powers of Shazam!. The US government sends out Justice Society to deal with the situation. The 11th release in the DC Extended Universe is not able to revive this consistently underwhelming superhero franchise. Zack Snyder is no longer in charge, but this looks and feels like many of the previous movies in the series. The runtime is almost entirely dedicated to noisy, weightless, and stakeless CGI destruction. The script, if there is one, is inept and the characters are barely sketched. The main villain is forgettable and the Justice Society features four superheroes with impressive powers but zero personality. In fact, Hawkman, Atom Smasher, Cyclone, and Doctor Fate are just second rate versions of the well-established Marvel characters Falcon, Ant-Man, Storm, and Doctor Strange, respectively. Dwayne Johnson, usually such a charismatic screen presence, is a dull shadow of himself in this one.
Army of the Dead
2021
**½
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, Garret Dillahun
Zack Snyder takes a break from the DC universe to launch a new zombie heist movie franchise. The city of Las Vegas has been walled in after it was overrun by zombies. A few days before the government is about to nuke it, a ragtag group of mercenaries enter the city to break into a casino vault. Like he did with Watchmen, Snyder sets up the scene with a terrific title sequence, and it's all a slow downhill from there onwards. However, the movie is more entertaining than I expected, but it is terribly formulaic (simultaneously in two genres) and needlessly long. Followed by Army of Thieves, which is a prequel spin-off.
Wonder Woman
2017
***
Director: Patty Jenkins
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, Lucy Davis, Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock
An Amazonian warrior princess named Diana leaves the all-female island of Themyscira to find and kill Ares, the Greek god of war, to bring peace to the world. The brave but naive woman enters our world at the end of the First World War, just when a German General and his chemist attempt to delay the inevitable by deploying a new deadly gas. Wonder Woman briefly appeared in the dreadful Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Her own movie is a major improvement on the previous releases in the DC Extended Universe, but far from a masterpiece. This is a long and unevenly paced origin story, but at the end of it, I'm still not sure I understand who the character is and what her powers are. I'm not sure Diana knows it herself. However, at its best the movie offers a nice mix of humour, romance, drama and action. The climactic battle is very disappointing, though. Patty Jenkins was clearly tutored by Zack Snyder in her overuse of the speed up and slow down effect. Gal Gadot is a gorgeous statuesque screen presence, but I'm not sure she can act. Based on the DC Comics character created by William Moulton Marston. Followed by Wonder Woman 1984.
Justice League
2017
**
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons
Following the death of Superman, Bruce Wayne assembles a team of superheroes, which includes Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. They take on Steppenwolf, who plans to unite the powers of the three Mother Boxes, which were once divided between the Amazons, Atlantaen, and humans. After the entertaining anomaly of Wonder Woman, the DC Extended Universe is back to its underwhelming self. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice were artistic and commercial flops, but for some reason Zack Snyder is still at the helm. To his credit, this boring mess was partly reshot by Joss Whedon, the man behind The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, possibly two of the clunkiest spectacles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The superhero team and their respective abilities are poorly defined, the villain lacks any personality, the dialogue is mostly a collection of big rousing speeches, and Ben Affleck's performance is terribly wooden (Batman is so permanently depressed that even his mask has frown lines). Wonder Woman and Flash provide the few enjoyable moments during the two hours. Like he has demonstrated before, Snyder's idea of an action set piece is to create a murky and artificial CG world, and then smash things up for what seems an eternity. It's more than ten years since he made his name with 300, but he still overuses the speed up and and slow down trick as though it was invented yesterday. Warner released the director's original vision as Zack Snyder's Justice League in 2021.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
2016
*½
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot
Following the destructive climactic battle in Man of Steel, Bruce Wayne and many others have doubts whether Superman's intentions are purely benevolent. Young Lex Luthor manipulates this situation to pit the two superheroes against one another. The Marvel Cinematic Universe releases have made billions in the recent years. Now DC Comics joins the game with its DC Extended Universe. The second movie in the franchise is no better than the first one, although it brings together two of its biggest superheroes, with guest appearances from the likes of Wonder Woman and Flash. It's plot-heavy, bloated and seemingly endless at 150 minutes, and it continues in the same murky style as Man of Steel and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. There are a few powerful dramatic moments along the way, but the action set pieces are by and large forgettable. The inevitable fight scene between Batman and Superman is just stupid.
Man of Steel
2013
**
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe
Following the commercial disappointment of Superman Returns, the DC Comics franchise reboots once more. Warner Bros. has hired David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, whose dark and gritty trilogy revitalised the flagging Batman series, to breathe new life into the character, and Nolan does his best to suck all fun out of another superhero. This is a long, boringly angsty, laughably earnest and utterly joyless superhero action blockbuster. The story starts on Krypton, where Scientist Jor-El sends his newborn son Kal-El to safety just before the planet implodes. Some thirty years later on Earth, Kal-El (now Clark Kent) has become a reclusive loner in his attempts to hide his superhuman abilities, but his cover is blown with the arrival of the Kryptonian bad guy General Zod (who proves that English truly is a universal language). Henry Cavill, with only a few lines of dialogue, makes no impression whatsoever as Superman, the always reliable Amy Adams has nothing to work with as Lois Lane, and the chemistry between the two never materialises. For the rest of the time, Zack Snyder swamps the screen with CGI to stage repetitive set pieces of insane destruction. When the hero and the baddies duke it out, it is not enough that they fly against the walls, they crash through them, bringing the buildings down in the process.
Watchmen
2009
*½
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson
In the alternate 1985, Nixon starts his third term as President while the world is on the brink of nuclear war. Superheroes have been outlawed, but now someone has murdered one of the original Watchmen. This adaptation looks as though it left nothing out of the much revered comic book by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Zach Snyder has created a 160-minute jumble of ideas in which nauseating violence, unintentional humour and complete bafflement alternate with one another. And what is the relevance of the whole story in 2009 anyway? Extra half a star for the title sequence.
300
2007
**½
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham, Dominic West, Vincent Regan, Rodrigo Santoro, Tom Wisdom, Johnny Lewis, Riley Keough
A fictionalised account of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when 300 Spartan warriors (clad in sandals, capes and leather briefs) defended Greece against the Persian army, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Like Sin City, this frame-for-frame adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book was shot entirely against green screen. The sets, locations, special effects, and abs were all created on the computer. Zack Snyder's heavily stylised epic turns everything to 11; it seems like every action scene is in slow motion and each line of dialogue is shouted. The film doesn't have a dull moment, but it is remarkably silly and infantile.
