Movie Review - Black Adam

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Fantasy/ Science Fiction
Runtime: 124 minutes
Year: 2022
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Shahi, Noah Centineo, Quientessa Swindell, Marwan Kenzari, Bodhi Sabongui, Mohammed Amer, Viola Davis
 
Description: Nearly 5000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods and imprisoned just as quickly, Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice of the modern world.  

Review: Teth Adam (later Black Adam) received magical powers from the wizard Shazam thousands of years ago. He has used these powers for evil purposes, they imprisoned him for centuries. Now he is about to be set free.

“Black Adam” is the latest film in the DC Extended Universe, which seems to be revived. But is this becomes the new standard, there’s not much improvement in it for the studio.

“Black Adam” is a very messy film. The story goes down thanks to the script. The structure is way off. In many films, story technical flaws are forgivable. But in this case, it distracted tremendously from the pacing, and thus the entire movie experience.

It takes very long for the story to get going. The introduction of Black Adam himself is well done and pretty cool. But until near the end of the film, our main character has completely no motivation. He has no needs, no purpose, he just exists in the film. And the plot itself jumps back and forth. Initially they have to stop Black Adam, but soon they choose a completely different route, which does not really work. This is why the eventual ‘plot twist’ feels confusing and cheap, and why the film does not flow nicely. The entire film just feels like a collection of events.

Dwayne Johnson, always an entertaining actor, seems like a good choice for the role, but he doesn’t really feel comfortable in his role. He plays a very emotionless character. Which seems logical, with the backstory he has. This also gives the film a very serious tone. And there is nothing wrong with that, but when characters like Atom Smasher and Karim, purely in the movie for comic relief, are trying to break this tone with their jokes, it feels out of place.

There is also the introduction of a new superhero group called the Justice Society, consisting of Cyclone, Hawkman, Dr. Fate and the aforementioned Atom Smasher. Among them, it’s only Dr. Fate who really leaves an impression and is interesting enough to actually care about. That’s mostly due to actor Pierce Brosnan and his experience. We are supposed to feel something for Cyclone and Atom Smasher, who have no chemistry, when we are clearly looking at potential love interests. And Hawkman’s character was anything but original, but his costume was really cool though.

The film is entertaining enough, because of the high quality of action, something to be expected from the DCEU. Maybe an overkill of slow-motion scenes, but that’s something I could forgive.

Unfortunately,  the technical feats do not save “Black Adam”. The poor structure, lack of interesting characters and weak editing, make this for a very “meh” experience. Kudos to DC for shining the light on a lesser known superhero, sadly not very well executed. I went in with no expectations, came out feeling I could have also just watched it at home.

Rating: 2/ 5