Yes, I'm talking about the Rock again.

So couple of things. First, what is it with Dwayne Johnson recently that I'm talking about him two days in a row? Second, it's happened. I've become an old. 

Pictured: me, evidently.

Don't worry gun fans, he's still going to
use guns, they just won't be real ones. He'll still
be shooting tons of people for years to come.

Allow me to explain. Just the other day I was reading about Dwayne the Rock Johnson's pledge to stop using real guns in movies because using real guns in movies is incredibly reckless and totally unnecessary and for some reason it's taken a fatal on-set accident to point that out. And then today, I read this thing about how Johnson is playing the supervillain Black Adam and the movie is going to try and get away with as much murder as possible and still be PG-13. And I mean, I don't know, it this what it's come to?

"Kids still like edgy, right?"

-Garcia, keeping his

finger on the pulse

According to the film's director, Hiram Garcia, fans can expect a murder-filled adaptation of the comic:

"Black Adam is edgy, right? That's gonna be a PG-13 movie where it was very much like, say, The Dark Knight, where that pushed the edges of PG-13. I think we do that very much with Black Adam. We have a very high kill count for our movie."

-Hiram Garcia, gushing

like a severed artery 

Pictured: also me. Although that one's no joke,
I think I'm really going to need readers soon.

And this is where the "I'm an old" part comes in. I don't know that there was a point in my life where I was looking for more violence in movies. Possible when I was like, an early teen or something? I don't know, it's just not something I remember caring about. But as I get older, I'm finding myself more and more uncomfortable with it. Maybe it's age, or maybe it's because the real world has gotten so much more aggressive lately, who can say? Maybe I'm just violenced out at a time when a lot of popular entertainment relies really heavily on violence.

I'm not super-familiar with Black Adam as a character beyond the fact that he's a Shazam villain, which makes this a spin-off of that film. So is a high body count a selling point? In this movie that's a spin-off of a movie about magical kids who transform into, I don't know, magical adults? Or Power Rangers. I'm not sure. I think there were wizard involved...doesn't matter. This is the movie whose sequel needs a high body count?

I actually thought the movie was pretty fun, just not super memorable. 

Just because it's super-violent doesn't mean
they won't have time for comedy. Like Black Adam
buying beer for his nemesis. Who's also a minor.

I know that violent, edgy, comic book things are in. The Boys, Venom, Joker. I suppose that the idea is that it's time to subvert the squeaky clean super hero tropes and do something grittier. And that's fine, except we've been getting grittier since Tim Burton's Batman. We get it. Superheroes are flawed. At some point squeaky clean becomes subversive. But my point, if I have one, is that why is director Hiram Garcia foaming at the mouth about how violent his new movie's going to be?

Did he think that Black Adam fans would hear that it was going to be PG-13 and so he's out doing damage control? Because if that's the case, I think the question is less why is Black Adam PG-13? and more what's wrong with these blood-thirsty comic fans? And what's more is when did I become Emily Littella?

From Saturday Night Live? In the 70's? I-What? No I didn't watch
it in the 70's. I'm not that old...I have YouTube thank you very much.