5,000 years after he was endowed with the power of the gods, Teth Adam (aka Black Adam), played by Dwayne Johnson (Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, Moana), has been awakened in the hopes that he will again be the savior of his homeland, the fictional country of Kahndaq, that he was rumored to have been in his day. However, not everyone celebrates his return, and Amanda Waller, played by Viola Davis (The Woman King, Peacemaker), has dusted off the Justice Society in order to reel him in.

With James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Peter Safran (The Suicide Squad) taking over WB’s DC properties, Black Adam will be the fourth from the last DC film set within the Snyderverse, with Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Aquaman 2 rounding it out. So let’s go on a journey together to discover if this is a good thing or not.

Black Adam Review

The color palette is beautiful, with loads of earth tones contrasting nicely with the blues and greens of the costumed heroes and their powers. Also, the second half of Black Adam’s first fight scene is awesome… right up until they awkwardly try to squeeze in some Deadpool-esque comedy and cap it off with a PG-13 payoff.

Unfortunately, the CGI is often on par with She-Hulk, regularly resembling a video game cut scene. So, any cool factor gained by something like melting a truck mid-flight into nothingness is lost the moment the jarring graphics kick in.

Speaking of underwhelming, let’s talk dialogue and general behavior. You’ve got jokes that land like flaming German dirigibles and characters doing and saying things we’ve seen and heard ad nauseam in other films. Seriously, the script reads like someone asked ChatGPT to write a superhero screenplay based on every other superhero movie released in the last decade.

Don’t believe me? I actually did that. Here’s what the open-source AI gave me:

Act 1
– Introduce the protagonist, a normal person with a relatable problem or flaw
– Establish the ordinary world, including job, home life, and relationships
– Introduce the inciting incident
– Introduce the mentor figure

Act 2
– Show the protagonist struggling with their powers
– Introduce the villain
– Show the hero getting stronger and helping others
– Raise the stakes

Act 3
– Hero and villain face off
– Hero overcomes flaw
– Hero wins
– Return to normal life, but changed

Congratulations, you’ve now seen Black Adam.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. The filmmakers do try to differentiate this one. Black Adam’s motivation is unlike that of 90% of his superhero peers, and his near-total apathy—including his indifference to all the murder he commits—is certainly more villainous than heroic. Unfortunately, this twist doesn’t make the film more exciting or engaging.

It’s hard to feel invested when your lead character doesn’t care. The Rock plays him like Schwarzenegger’s Terminator in T2, but without the charm or charisma, which is odd, since easy charm is sort of Johnson’s whole thing. Don’t get me wrong—he’s not bad. He’s not much of anything. Mostly, he’s just there, drifting from one weightless CGI battle to another while wearing the same bored, mildly annoyed expression.

His character arc is barely an arc at all. He goes from not caring about anyone to kind of caring about two people. It’s nowhere near enough to sustain your interest.

It’s really kind of a slog. At one point, thinking we were nearly done, I checked the runtime—only to find over an hour still left. Avatar: The Way of Water (aka James Cameron’s three-hour ego stroke) didn’t feel as long as this two-hour, nearly non-stop action flick.

The Rock is joined by the forgettable Adrianna Tomaz, competently played by Sarah Shahi (Old School), and her obnoxiously chipper son, played by Bodhi Sabongui (A Million Little Things). He’s supposed to be the emotional heart of the movie, but the performance feels off—either because the character is poorly written, or because Sabongui plays him like he’s five years younger than he looks. Probably, it’s a bit of both.

People just don’t behave like this. He’s boyishly and cartoonishly hopeful because the movie needs him to be, not because it makes sense. He spends most of the film trying to convince Black Adam to be a hero by annoying him into it—and it works… because he vaguely reminds Adam of someone from his past.

That kind of forced behavior defines Black Adam. Remember that scene in Superman Returns where a bad guy empties a chain gun at Superman, then pulls out a handgun like that’ll make a difference? That’s every fight scene here until the final ten minutes.

In one scene, Black Adam takes out a dozen enemies in the (actual) blink of an eye while another peppers him with bullets. When the guy runs out of ammo just as Adam finishes, they have a little Old West-style showdown. Guess who wins?

But Adam isn’t the only hero. Enter the Justice Society—a self-proclaimed force for “global stability” who somehow sat out the events of Justice League and the occupation of Kahndaq by a paramilitary gang mining a suspiciously named element (Eternium… no relation to Vibranium… or Unobtainium).

The Justice Society (because Heaven forbid we say “of America” anymore) includes Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Atom Smasher, and Cyclone. Hawkman, played by Aldis Hodge (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back), is basically Batman with nth metal wings. His job? To kill any momentum the film manages to scrape together by constantly getting into very one-sided alpha contests with Black Adam, only to suddenly admit he can’t beat him.

Dr. Fate, played by Pierce Brosnan (Die Another Day, Eurovision Song Contest), mostly dishes out mystical exposition and serves as a delivery system for MacGuffins. Thankfully, Brosnan’s natural elegance and the film’s best costume design give the character some credibility.

Then we’ve got Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo, Charlie’s Angels) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell, Trinkets)—the two most useless characters in a movie packed with them. Atom Smasher is there for comic relief (but is never funny), and Cyclone is… a green fart cloud. That’s her thing.

Eventually, after an hour and a half of noise, the main villain shows up. Yep—three-quarters of the movie goes by before we meet the real antagonist. He’s a generic Intergang terrorist chasing a magical relic that will give him demon powers and make him Hell’s champion. There’s a fight. Stuff happens. The movie ends.

WOKE REPORT

Whitewash Bad. Blackwash…Not So Much

• Hawkman and Cyclone were blackwashed, while Atom Smasher was brownwashed, almost certainly because only comic book nerds have ever heard of the characters, and someone at WB likely said that diversity had to be diversified for the sake of diversity. That being said, the actors do as well as anyone could with such poorly conceived and written characters.
• It is deliciously ironic that a movie that went to such great lengths to have a diverse cast casts the lead Middle Eastern character with a Samoan actor.

Progressive Word Salad

• At one point, the phrase, “…Neo-imperialist enforcer, from halfway around the world, sent here to steal my country’s natural resources, strip-mine our sacred lands, pollute our water, oppress our heritage” is espoused by a person of color to a caucasian soldier (who is also a cartoon bad guy…big surprise).

Truth, Justice… All That Stuff

• What was once The Justice Society of America in the comics has been streamlined to simply The Justice Society for the film. It’s still a U.S. team serving U.S. interests, but including America in the name must have been offensive to a couple of Leftist weiners, so now it has to be omitted from the movie.