Black Adam (2022)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Dwayne Johnson is arguably the biggest movie star in the world. He’s in a superhero movie. The ticket booth is now open.
Some pretty stellar visual effects keep the eye wandering around screen and greatly enhance the viewing experience.
Fans of the comic book… yay?
NO
Easily one of the worst films I’ve seen in the last several years.
There is no soul or heart to this movie. Just fights, spouting rhetoric, and some hackneyed, convoluted backstory that requires constant exposition and rule-setting throughout the film.
I BEG someone to find me 30 minutes after they see the film and tell me the plot and what any of this means.
OUR REVIEW
While there is a lot of hype around Dwayne Johnson’s leap into the world of superheroes, by his entering the DC Extended Universe through Black Adam, the hype is sadly just that. Hype. While Johnson fills out the role and looks the part, the movie is one of the most dispiriting and exhausting disappointments in recent memory.
As Johnson has become the biggest movie star in the world, he has also typically played things safe cinematically. As one of the most charismatic professional wrestlers in history, creating “The Rock” persona and turning that into superstardom, one would think that some of that charisma would carry into his long-anticipated foray into the superhero film. You’d be wrong. Despite The Rock/Dwayne Johnson being universally loved and recognized, why is he in a movie so joyless? Why does Johnson utter his lines with a choked-off, stunted, gravelly monotone cadence? I know we can’t have “The People’s Eyebrow” and whatnot, but to quote another member of the DC Extended Universe, “Why so serious?!”
If Johnson’s grunting vocalism isn’t a barrier to enjoying the film, then allow me to point to a convoluted 15-minute opening sequence which drowns viewers in encyclopedia-like levels of exposition. Should you survive that, then perhaps the film’s odd “dialogue,” consisting of people talking at one another and not directly to them, grows so wearisome you want to just surrender.
Or tap out…like The Rock forced many an opponent to do in WWE, circa 1998, with his variation of a move called “the sharpshooter.”
Point is: Black Adam quickly devolves into the worst film of the DC Extended Universe thus far. The film gets spun up in creating a staggeringly dense world and fails to make any of it matter.
So…what even is this thing about?
In a nutshell, Black Adam is a superhero/anti-hero origin story that introduces us to a 5,000-year-old Middle Eastern/Egyptian warrior named Teth-Adam (Johnson). Adam is brought into present day, when an archaeologist (Sarah Shahi) awakens him by uttering a chant while searching for a legendary crown. The Crown of Sabbac provides ultimate power to whoever wears it. We also learn of a mineral known as “Eternium,” which creates the power within the crown and can be weaponized against people.
A member from the villainous group known as Intergang has designs on the crown and those shenanigans trigger attention from Suicide Squad leader Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, appearing here via Google Meeting or Zoom or whatever…). She deploys the Justice Society of America (Editor’s Note: not the Justice League) to involve themselves in Teth-Adam’s resurrection. This adds a number of new superheroes into the mix, with zero character development outside of their superhero names tenuously relating to their superhero abilities.
I should mention here…Teth-Adam was bestowed with the power of “Shazam” as a young boy. Shazam, as a superpower, gives people the ability to keep Earth in balance. Shazam is also a character in the DC Extended Universe, portrayed in superhero form by Zachary Levi, and in wizard form by Djimon Hounsou. As others have pointed out, why isn’t Levi’s character in the film? The superhero, literally named Shazam, is nowhere to be found. I mean, wouldn’t two people with Shazam power be better than one?! Was he on vacation?
So what do we get in Black Adam? Lots of talking about stuff that feels like it is cribbing ideas from similar films and lots of fighting, And then some more fighting. And then even more fighting. Rhetoric is spouted. Johnson gargles out his lines. Since no one is ever actually having a conversation with anyone, people speak in the vicinity of one another.
Three writers, as credited here, were apparently unable to find a way to humanize any of this. Except for the singular guy who burst into applause when the end credits appeared during my preview screening, no one watching around me appeared to react to much of any of this because there just isn’t any context for anything happening on screen.
This new faction is loosely led by Hawkman (Aldis Hodge). Pierce Brosnan is here as Doctor Fate, a superhero archeologist struggling with hallucinations while clutching a magical gold helmet. Quintessa Swindell spins like a “Cyclone.” Then, a guy I referred to as “Not Deadpool” shows up with the name of Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo). I guess he can turn himself into a giant.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, whose resume includes films like Orphan, Jungle Cruise (starring Johnson), and not one, not two, not three, but four Liam Neeson action movies from the 2010s, I will concede that the visual effects work is rather impressive. Though that is a little like acknowledging that the perfectly staged house for sale in the neighborhood looks stunning, but then admitting that it only looks good because no one’s really living inside.
That house - like this latest failure in the DC Extended Universe - is all façade. There’s no there there. And Black Adam is about as soulless, empty, and unnecessary a superhero movie as you will ever see.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Quintessa Swindell, Marwan Kenzai, Bodhi Sabongui, Mohammed Amer, Jalon Christian, Uli Latukefu, Djimon Hounsou, Viola Davis.
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Written by: Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani
Based on characters created for the “Black Adam” DC comic book series by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck
Release Date: October 21, 2022
Warner Bros.