Between A Rock and a Hard Place

Heroes don’t kill. Or at least that’s what Black Adam tells us, seemingly having forgotten that arguably this same universe’s most famous hero, Batman, himself was beating criminals to a bloody corpse not five years prior. That Black Adam is predicated on the will-he-won’t-he of Dwayne Johnson choosing good or evil should speak to the level of surprises in store with the DCEU’s latest superhero wank. It is, after all, The Rock we’re talking about here. We know who this man is. Or rather who he always present himself as. We’re hardwired at this point to know what kind of characters he (almost exclusively) plays and which he does not. He’s groomed beyond the point of being hairless. Family-friendly to the point where he’s never had a sexual interest in any movie that I can remember. The man is a walking, talking PR creation. Threateningly non-threatening. Only the clueless or culturally-apathetic will be left to wonder which way this is going to turn out. Spoiler alert, it’s just a matter of time before this ostensible antihero becomes a slave to the reluctant hero formula.  Read More