Review: ‘Carry-On’: An Action Vehicle That Never Takes Off

In its mission in trying to become the face of entertainment, streaming juggernaut Netflix has put a substantial foot in the distribution game. Starting in 2013, Netflix has distributed hundreds upon hundreds of films to bolster its catalog. But the company’s “Netflix Original” label acts as no seal of quality. For every critically-acclaimed darling nested deep within Netflix’s pantheon, there are hundreds of mindless and purposeless flicks. For every beloved film like The Irishman, there are hundreds of films like Carry-On.

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Review: ‘Black Adam’ vs. The Hierarchies of Power

Black Adam has had a very, very interesting production history. For those uninformed, the film is more or less Dwayne Johnson’s passion project, which he’s been cooking for nearly 15 years. He spent a long time trying to convince producers that the Black Adam character had enough depth to carry his own movie, and such skepticism seemed completely warranted. To explain Black Adam’s DC comic book origins briefly, he is the archnemesis of Shazam, and serves as his mirror image in every way, except Black Adam is EVIL. When Shazam already has a movie of his own, the redundancy of Black Adam is unavoidable. The MCU gets its fair share of criticisms about producing homogenized content, but they’re not out there doing anything as egregious as producing films for both HULK and RED HULK, which is the equivalent of what DC has done here. Walking into the theater for Black Adam, audiences have one question—simply put, why does a Black Adam movie even exist?

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