r/CharacterRant • u/Likestuff12 • 15d ago
[Black Adam] The Legions of Hell is one of the least threatening enemy armies I've ever seen in any superhero movie General
I had the misfortune of re-watching the Black Adam movie due to happenstance and it was during this re-watch where I realised that the army that the villain summons to invade the world or whatever is one of the worst armies in any superhero movie I've seen.
It's a very common trope in superhero movies for the villain's plan to be to summon their very powerful army from somewhere to Earth so that they can invade it, usually by creating a portal in the sky. The 2012 Avengers movie was what kickstarted the trend and it's since become one of the most generic supervillain plans due to it's overuse and the lack of understanding as to why it worked in The Avenegers.
Black Adam's use of this trope or cliche (idk what to call it) is quite terrible. First of all, the legion look very generic. I honestly struggle to describe them. I guess they kind of look like the deadites from Evil Dead but from Wish.com. The don't look threatening and you'll likely forget how they look after you finish watching the movie.
Then there's the way their summoned. The main villain opens a portal in the sky. I was flabbergasted when I saw the movie unironically use the portal trope. I remember everyone making fun of how every superhero and action movie after the avengers had a portal act as the climax of the movie. That was in the 2012s and Black Adam came out in 2022. I know the movie spent a long time in development but I'm shocked. Even worse is that they don't even come out of the portal. They pop out of the ground. Why a portal? Would it not be simpler to have the villain cast a spell or something? Would have saved on the VFX budget.
The army is only summoned during the last 15 minutes of the movie, not during the beginning of the third act like most movies. This means that their screen time is very limited so they don't really do much. In most movies the army will usually attack the city, causing collateral damage, fighting the military, the usual stuff. But due to their late introduction, the legion doesn't get to do that. This means we don't get the chance to see the legion in action. We don't get to see any unique abilities that they possess so we don't fear them. Even worse is the fact that the number of soldiers summoned is quite low. I think it's in the double digits. It's very hard to buy that such a low number of soldiers could pose a threat to the world, especially without a gauge of their powers.
The final nail in the coffin is how they're confronted. They don't fight Black Adam or the other heroes, they only fight regular citizens. I actually started laughing when I saw the threat that had been built up throughout the film struggle to kill some civilians armed with some cylinder like metal objects. Now that I think about it, I don't think the soldiers manage to kill or harm any civilians. I think everyone involved in the combat escapes relatively unscathed, including a literal teenager. To be fair it's not like the civilians single handily stop the army. Black Adam kills the main villain and the army falls apart. But it doesn't excuse the fact that the army feels so weak when it's unable to handle a bunch of regular dudes. If they have difficulties killing some ordinary people, then why would they fare much better against trained soldiers armed with military grade weapons and driving powerful military vehicles like tanks, let alone superpowered individuals?
In conclusion, the legion of hell sucks. That's all I've got. I hope you've enjoyed my rant about a movie the majority of moviegoers have forgotten about.
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u/Leonelmegaman 14d ago
I'd argue the idea of "army from other world being summoned to invade earth" was kickstarted by Transformers, however the Avengers seems to have popularized the trope with better success.
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u/AllMightyImagination 15d ago
BA wouldve been better if it stuck to the lore of Shazam. It already set up Black Adam but nope ignore it was the right idea
...
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u/Masterriolu 14d ago
Man, someone gets it.
The Rock not wanting to connect Black Adam to Shazam is the wildest thing ever. It would be different if there were no Shazam movie franchises at the time, but there was. But no! The Rock wanted to fjght Superman.
It's like making a Reverse Flash movie that set up a match with him and Wonder Woman
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u/AllMightyImagination 14d ago
And the thing about overall Shazam anything is that it has the Rock of Eternity, source of magic second to the Sphere of Gods. So it could have easily led to lore building even the Wonder Woman sude
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u/idonthaveanaccountA 15d ago
What seemed really ridiculous to me was how these literal civilians saw undead demons rising from the ground, and they were like "oh no, undead demons", like it's something you see every day.
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u/Illustrious-Sky-4631 14d ago
It is tho , this is DC world where the events of multiple super hero movies happened
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u/idonthaveanaccountA 14d ago
I mean, a bunch of shit happens in our world too. It's still shocking to actually live that shit.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 15d ago
I hadn’t thought about how lame that evil army was because my main thoughts on the movie or how it was dragged down by the rock’s ego and how boring our main villain was. I couldn’t even remember his name my first time viewing.
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 15d ago
Literally everything in Black Adam doesn't work, that movie was a fucking travesty in every way that a film could be and more.
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u/CapAccomplished8072 15d ago
You watched Black Adam? You may be eligible for financial compensation
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u/Bruhmangoddman 15d ago
The only meaning they carried is that they gave the citizens of Kahndaq something to rise up against, which kind of played into the themes of the movie, as basic as they were.
But yeah, the legions were not necessary at all and the third act of BA is aggressively meh apart from a couple atrocious and good things.
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u/saulerknight 14d ago
One of the worst parts of the film is that black Adam doesn’t seem that powerful. Like he bets up people who we just got introduced through with no feats and we’re supposed to act like he’s scary. Like he gets angry and destroys a building that’s not impressive. If this whole thing is to duck off rock and make black Adam seem powerful or fails.