Black Adam had a long, fraught struggle in development hell, taking more than a decade to make it to the screen. Its journey on the silver screen hasn’t been smooth either: its early reviews were decidedly mixed, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 39%. Honestly, the film isn’t as atrocious as the score suggests, or even a sloppy, shlocky film that coasts by on the shoulders of its lead performance like the Venom movies. However, it doesn’t stay in your mind long after you’re done watching it.
In 2600 BC, a young boy from Kahndaq becomes a divine champion and rebels against his oppressive king, who’s mining in search of the magical mineral Eternium, which can be used to forge a powerful object called the crown of Sabbac. In the modern day, archaeologist Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) tracks down the location of the crown, which also happens to be the tomb of Kahndaq’s champion, Teth Adam. Soon, she’s apprehended by agents of Intergang at the tomb, an international mercenary faction that has all but taken over Kahndaq. So Adrianna frees Teth Adam from his tomb, hoping that he will not only help her escape her current predicament but also free Kahndaq from its current oppressors.
Teth Adam’s violent methods soon draw the attention of a team of superheroes called the Justice Society, comprising Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo). Hawkman, in particular, disagrees with Teth Adam’s approach to problem-solving, and soon his team comes to blows with Teth Adam.
Black Adam tries to be a superhero movie with teeth, and it’s an admirable effort that doesn’t always succeed.
The film tries to tackle the question of whether superheroes should use excessive force against people that deserve it, but it leaves the question up and then dispenses with it, partially approving of Teth Adam murdering nameless goons and even insisting that he’s a hero despite his body count. The secondary theme of a Middle-Eastern country that has been long held under the bootheels of a revolving door of oppressors stands out in a superhero film, although the resolution is too simplistic for such a complicated issue. But then again, maybe that’s too much expectation of nuance in a mainstream superhero film.
The action is enjoyable and even crosses into memorable territory every now and then. The sheer power and invulnerability of Black Adam are highlighted well in the first couple of fights, and the battle between Adam and the Justice Society is a good old-fashioned superhero spectacle. Jaume Collet-Serra, who worked with Dwayne Johnson in Jungle Cruise, provides competent direction, using clever tricks to imply R-rated violence in a movie with a PG-13 rating. Cyclone’s powers are depicted with mesmerizing visuals, and she has good chemistry with Atom Smasher. Unfortunately, both heroes are underutilized to the point that they could have been cut out of the movie without any significant changes to the plot.
Dwayne Johnson is often accused of simply playing himself in all of his movies, but with Black Adam, he does make an effort.
It’s a very stoic, imposing character who doesn’t ooze with charisma like Johnson’s other roles. Adam’s backstory is interesting, but the movie fails to leverage it well enough to make Adam’s character truly compelling. Hodge turns in a good performance as Hawkman, but he’s mostly in the movie to be the moral policeman who gets his butt-handed to him by Black Adam. Pierce Brosnan turns in a good performance, but the film tries to do too much with his character without doing enough to endear him to the audience. Sarah Shahi does well with a limited role, but the child actor playing her son, Bodhi Sabongui, is painfully bad.
Black Adam benefits from the recent, flawed slate of MCU properties such as Thor: Love and Thunder, which makes this film look almost great by comparison. However, Black Adam mostly hovers around the above-average grade, and sometimes, it struggles to stay there. It’s not the worst introduction to the Black Adam character. Unfortunately, with James Gunn’s major revamp of the DCEU on the way, Black Adam doesn’t seem to be included in any plans for the near future. All that hype and social media savviness has resulted in nothing, it seems.
Well, Dwayne Johnson can always do his own superhero movies, or even cross over into the opposite camp and do a Marvel movie. Let’s see what he does next.