A film review by Craig J. Koban October 28, 2022

BLACK ADAM ½ 

2022, PG-13, 125 mins

Dwayne Johnson as Teth Adam / Black Adam  /  Aldis Hodge as Carter Hall / Hawkman  /  Pierce Brosnan as Kent Nelson / Doctor Fate  /  Noah Centineo as Al Rothstein / Atom Smasher  /  Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz / Isis  /  Marwan Kenzari as Ishmael Gregor / Sabbac  /  Quintessa Swindell as Maxine Hunkel / Cyclone  /  Bodhi Sabongui as Amon Tomaz  /  Viola Davis as Amanda Waller  /  Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt  /  Mo Amer as Karim

It's staggering to consider that one of the fundamental problems with BLACK ADAM - the latest DC Comics inspired blockbuster, based on the Otto Binder and C.C. Beck created character of the same name from way back in 1945 - is not a messy and convoluted origin tale, assaultive CGI overload, a jam packed story with too many characters jockeying for attention, or lazily adhering to genre troupes, but rather that it utterly squanders its lead star's natural and effortless on-screen charm in the titular role.  

I'll give Dwayne Johnson serious credit: (a) He's easily one of the most likeable celebrities out there, (b) he's an unqualified master of pre-release marketing and pushing his brand, and (c) he knows what he wants and he definitely works for it.  As a self professed Black Adam fanboy, I can certainly understand why this film for him has been a long gestating passion project for a decade-plus (that, and with The Rock's gargantuan frame, he more than plausibly looks the part of - full name - Teth Adam).  The issue, though, with BLACK ADAM is that he's rendered here as a robotic, borderline Terminator-esque anti-hero throughout most of the film and, as a result, is kind of a personality black hole.  This betrays Johnson's obvious talents - albeit limited - as a performer, which is his easy-going affability and charismatic presence.  Like an Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, Johnson has been mostly wise in his career to pick roles that properly harnesses his skillset, and in BLACK ADAM he gets it half-right.  Beyond the required hulking stature that he brings to the table, this role regrettably neuters his other abilities.   

Maybe that's why director Jaume Collet-Serra (who previously worked with Johnson on the just okay JUNGLE CRUISE and previously to that made a handful of mediocre to decent Liam Neeson thrillers) understood the need to surround his lead star with a bounty of other stars playing various heroes from DC Comics.  Unfortunately, that has the negative side effect of further reducing Adam himself as the weaker link in his own solo film. This leads to obvious questions from me - and many a DC Comics fundamentalist, I assume - as to why Adam just didn't figure in as an adversary in SHAZAM 2, seeing as both characters are inexplicably linked as a hero/villain tandem throughout comic history (they both had the powers of various Egyptian gods being bestowed upon them, after all).  Obviously, Black Adam has been retconned in recent history as a murky anti-hero versus a black and white super villain, but relying on the former elements here - and in a middling and mostly uninspired solo entry that's needlessly stuffed with members of the Justice Society - simply doesn't have the impact that the makers wanted.  I'm guessing that Johnson didn't want to play villain to Zachary Levi's hero and wanted a film all to himself, but, still, what a bloody wasted opportunity to expand upon the creative good will and strong world building of the first SHAZAM.  BLACK ADAM really feels like a qualitative trade down by comparison to that 2019 film.   

And, man oh man, there's an awful lot of sluggish expositional waters that this film has to wade through to introduce this character, his origins, his world, and how he figures into the larger DC cinematic universe.  The film opens 5000 years in the past (buckle up, because there's a lot of explaining to do here) to the fictitious Middle Eastern nation of Kahndaq, whose king has enslaved his people (he also sports the mystical Crown of Sabbac, which gives the wearer unlimited powers).  After trying to stage a slave revolt against this madman, a young slave has a chance meeting with the Council of Wizards, one of them being the same one that granted young Billy Batson the powers of Shazam in his own solo film.  When the on-the-run slave child screams "SHAZAM" he's transformed into Teth Adam (Johnson), who very quickly decimates the king and ends his reign of terror on the people of Kahndaq.  Life is good. 

Or...maybe not.  

The story flashes forward to the present day and poor Kahndaq is under the military occupation of the vile Intergang, with one lone resistance fighter and Lara Croft-ian archaeologist freedom fighter Adrianna Tomaz (a spunky and well cast Sarah Shahi) and her portly wisecracking brother sidekick in Karim (comedian Mo Amir) try to constantly fight through the weaponized might and rule of their nation's new oppressors.  Her son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) displays great resourcefulness and relish in sneaking through military checkpoints to aid his mother's pursuits of ancient artifacts (and, yes, the aforementioned crown from centuries ago).  Adrianna does discover the whereabouts of the crown, but in doing so accidentally awakens and frees Teth Adam from his entombed slumber.  He has to very quickly acclimate to modern day society (how he speaks fluent English and has a modern day American accent is never explained) while easily crushing his way through every Intergang soldier that gets in his way.  Amon and his family try to befriend the confused Adam and plead with him to be the savior of Kahndaq, but he's a hard nut to convince and crack.  News of Adam's mass Intergang murdering exploits reaches the Justice Society, comprised of (role call) Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Hawkman (Aldris Hodge), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), who are all tasked by Amanda Waller (the same one from THE SUICIDE SQUAD) to take Adam down.  That doesn't go as planned. 

Despite its messy and jumbled narrative, BLACK ADAM scores some points for the comic book genre on a level of cultural representation and for its attempts at some intriguing socio-political themes at the heart of its story.  It's a rare thing in the stacked super hero film genre to see entries that are ethnically diverse, and BLACK ADAM commands some respect in this regard in the way it has heroes of Middle Eastern descent (albeit of a fictional country).  Also, the core of the story is about how Kahndaq is ruthlessly ruled over by forces from other outside nations, which lends an anti-imperialist/colonist thread to the proceedings that's fairly fresh as far as these kinds of films go.  Black Adam is considered the ultimate all-powerful God-like champion of the people of Kahndaq, but outside foreign forces like the Justice Society deem him as a dangerous entity that needs to be taken down.  This builds to an uniquely intriguing scene that has Adrianna chastising Doctor Fate and company for doing next-to-nothing to deal with her nation's Intergang problem for years, but now all of sudden they're showing up to take down what they perceive as an enemy in Adam.  In her mind, the Justice Society is making things worse, not better, and this whole subtext gives BLACK ADAM a relatable and timely dramatic weight.   

Alas, a thoughtful dissection of these very themes does get lost in rapid succession when the film becomes more infatuated with its numbing spectacle and action (to be fair, that's one of the reasons to see films of this ilk).  I definitely got a kick out of seeing DC Comics B-listers like Hawkman and especially Doctor Fate appearing in the flesh here, and Brosnan in particular is well cast and brings some emotional heft to a film that's often sorely lacking in it (his character's powers are also compelling for how he becomes possessed by his mystical helmet that grants him abilities that would make Doctor Strange blush with envy).  There's a modicum of giddy enjoyment when BLACK ADAM embraces its comic book-iness in showing Adam go toe-to-toe with various members of the Justice Society (but, gee whiz, how many more cities do we have to see get destroyed in super hero extravaganzas?).  The film certainly shows its budget on the screen and looks spiffy and polished, but Collett-Serra perhaps gets way to self-indulgently fixated with the non-stop chaos and noise of the picture, oftentimes with the screen looking like Jackson Pollock paintings of CG excess.  Oftentimes, there's so much happening on screen and thrown at us that it becomes eye straining, which rears its ugly head when the director gets too punch-drunk happy in using too many gimmicky tricks, like spastic editing, relentless slo-mo shots, and so many artificial looking effects that it starts to strain the senses.  BLACK ADAM is drenched in stylistic overkill, much to its detriment.  This is also a crazily violent super hero film that pushes the boundaries of its PG-13 rating and is not entirely for all audiences.  Black Adam is not a squeaky clean character, to be sure, but he's presented as an enthusiastic mass killer.  At least other super hero films like DEADPOOL - also about an ethically questionable anti-hero with an itchy trigger finger, of sorts - embraced its more appropriate R-rating.     

The darker elements of the character are done no favors either when the film tries to inject some forced humor into the proceedings, like how young Amon tries to teach this centuries old outsider how to fit in and be cool in modern day Kahndaq (the silliness of these scenes seem to be in conflict with the type of badass drifter heart that the film is trying to attain with the character).  The soundtrack is peppered with on-the-nose tunes as well, like the Rolling Stone's PAINT IT BLACK, and to drive home Adam's authority-defying nature a moment of him watching THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY on TV appears briefly, which reverberates later on when Adam has a Mexican standoff with a bunch of Intergang thugs (kind of cool, but not really suspenseful, seeing as Adam has super human speed and could kill these guys in a millisecond, but...never mind).  Everything comes to a head with a beyond obligatory finale involving all of the characters unavoidably combining forces to face off against a hastily introduced CG demonic monstrosity that has direct ties to the newly discovered Crown of Sabbac. Oh, and the heroes have to fight hundreds of other CG demonic monstrosities that the main CG demonic monstrosity set off.  Sigh.  It's yet another comic book film third act with a lot of bombastic sound and pixelized fury, but not much in the way of tension or stakes.  Without spoiling much, the chief villain here in the story seems more like an afterthought than a well developed and properly engineered antagonist.