Black Adam Review (Pros & Cons)

Well guys, here we are. This is it. After 15 years of actor teasing, fan speculating, pessimistic pondering, and excitement revitalizing announcements, we've finally made it to the day where we can officially say "Dwayne The Rock Johnson has a Black Adam movie out in theaters." Think about that for a second. There are kids that were in Junior High School when the Rock was in talks to be working on a Black Adam movie who are literally now old enough to be years deep into college. So, with all of that time and effort that went into not only getting this thing officially green lit, but made with the creative vision and quality production worthy of the source material, how did it fair in the end? Considering that my history with the Black Adam character from previous DC Comics works is a bit limited (albeit just enough to understand why he's a big deal), let's take a look and see how this movie launches the character's first live action theatrical debut

Black Adam As A Character Works Fairly Well

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson does a great job in the titular role of Black Adam bringing a sense of intimidation factor to the character with a little leg room for the signature smirking charisma that he's known for in most of his roles. Black Adam never came across to me as jokey or “too charismatic” but instead felt like a cold, brutal, and powerful entity worthy of taking seriously. This is one of those instances where it’s not just the story and production component telling me that a particular character should be seen as a big deal, it’s the performance itself that successfully sells it out of the gate. Now don’t get me wrong; the writers do a a pretty solid job in constantly positioning Black Adam in several situations where his god-like powers get to shine in visceral ways. Seeing the manner in which this character both dishes out damage and simultaneously absorbs incoming attacks by his enemies effortlessly, you can tell that the production team is happy to show him off as this badass champion protector figure. 

Initially, I thought the story behind Black Adam's origins and journey was just passable at best with nothing necessarily exciting or particularly intriguing to latch onto. That is however until a major twist later on in the movie reveals his actual history regarding how he was chosen to become who he is and the identity of the true champion’s connection to him. It's during this revelation in the narrative that I started to truly become invested in his character beyond just enjoying the spectacle that he offered with his power set. I think it’s an interesting plot twist that adds a dramatically compelling family layer to our titular lead being more than just an all-powerful god-tier warrior repeatedly thrown into action scenes. Another thing that I appreciated about this cinematic iteration is the fact that they never just switch him into becoming a superhero to appease the wider casual audience. Black Adam remains consistent from beginning to end as someone with his own brutal sensibility of enacting justice while adjusting to the ways of the present day modern version of his nation.

He’s neither a typical superhero nor is he a straight forward villain. He’s instead portrayed as a powerful protector who lives by his own code following his own agenda. However, he’s still open minded enough to support other people in need that cry out to him while hearing out other solutions given by other heroes. Emphasis there on “hearing other heroes out” as he may or may not decide to just disregard or even threaten them directly. I feel this paints Black Adam as an intriguing “wild card” thrown into the wider DCEU where other characters are going to have to figure out how to work with him or debate on whether or not they should even allow him to be in his position. Perhaps this is what The Rock meant when he kept repeatedly saying that "the hierarchy of power in the DCEU is about to change" during the movie's marketing phase. Well, you know what? I can actually feel that concept being represented here by the end of the movie. 

There’s also the element of him watching over an entire nation that actually celebrates his brutality which I think is particularly interesting and sets him apart from a lot of your other traditional heroic figures. Also, on a side note, many of you guys reading will likely know that I’m a huge character design nerd from several of my other reviews. Black Adam’s suit here is pretty simplistic and I never really took notice of it in the comics because of this generic minimalistic appearance. But you know what? With the Rock's screen dominating physique and personality, I think he makes it work perfectly fine. Now...if only we could've gotten some attempt at an accent to match the character's background. Just saying.

Pierce Bronson as Dr. Fate

Earlier during the movie's promotional campaign where character announcements were officially being released by the studio, one of the names that stood out to me the most was the JSA's inclusion. This was a DC Comics team that I’ve only ever seen in live action through the prism of the CW Network (the Legends of Tomorrow and Stargirl series which did their own respective iterations). I never thought that Hollywood would ever pay any attention whatsoever towards any other team outside of the Justice League iconography, so their inclusion was a personal excitement building surprise for me. However, where my excitement levels really elevated was the announcement of Dr. Fate who was a character that I’ve only had a very limited exposure to but was always intrigued by. A video game or two, an Easter egg in a live action series like Constantine and Stargirl, and a few animated appearances was essentially my history with this DC Comics hero. Well, here enters the Black Adam movie which finally brings him into the live action movie space for me to fully be acquainted with.

So, how does the movie do in present this character with a vast mythology from the source material and a huge fan following? Honestly, from just the first few moments of showing him fully display his capabilities, I immediately thought that he was one of the coolest characters in the entire DCEU franchise who deserved his own solo outings. His character could have easily just looked and felt like a copycat of the MCU’s Dr. Strange, and yet, because of Pierce’s restrained performance in addition to his visually dazzling powers and helmet focused lore, Fate was able to successfully stand out on his own. Though I’m sure you can still make some obvious parallels to Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme, this didn’t bother me at all especially considering the character predates Strange in the comics. There’s also a noticeable sense of history and wisdom surrounding Dr. Fate particularly due to his knowledge of the future that effectively built a screen stealing allure during his appearances.

Aside from Black Adam, Dr. Fate ended up being a personal favorite of mines. As for the other JSA members, they’re...okay at best. Hawkman’s formidability and leadership role is well defined, Atom Smasher isn't given too much to do here outside of being the clumsy comedic relief but at least his transformation looked great (though I could’ve done without the Deadpool looking CGI animated mask), and Cyclone was serviceable enough as an extra world building side hero insert. No one annoyed me nor did anyone felt completely out of place, terribly adapted, or utterly wasted (admittedly I’m not entirely connected to their other adaptations outside of the Justice League Unlimited series). But if I did have to throw in a nitpick here, the JLA doesn’t seem to be the effective and celebrated team of heroes as I’ve always thought of them from their TV appearances. But considering the particular team set up here, you do kind of understand why. Still, I think it would've been good to show the original team's legitimate formidability prior to facing Black Adam.

Is There Anything Worth Geeking Out Over?

Overall, I'd say the Black Adam movie did a decent enough job at presenting the various abilities for each of the comic book characters being adapted at least from a VFX standpoint. Though the action direction itself is a bit of a mixed bag, most of it kinda works to highlight what these individuals of god-like power are capable of. 

However, I will point out that there are a couple of scenes where certain powers like Cyclone’s wind manipulation didn’t translate too well due to how visually chaotic it appeared onscreen. There’s also a statement to be made regarding both Cyclone and Atom Smasher’s position in the story as side heroes showing up with hardly much of any impact to the wider scope of things. But that’s really as far as my negatives go for them.

Where the excitement comes is when Black Adam gets to fight the JSA and even Intergang (another DC Comics pull that caught me off guard) proving to be highly unstoppable despite their best efforts. I had quite a bit of fun getting to see this particular villain (sorry anti-hero) shown off in such a formidably powerful fashion as I’ve always imagined him to be. 

I couldn’t help but excitingly think about how a Black Adam vs the Justice League battle would be and that’s exactly where my comic book fan mind should go. Speaking of which, the mid-credits scene was definitely worth getting excited about, and to be honest, I wish I could’ve just watched that movie right away. It’s the one scene where the theater audience and myself collectively lost our minds and started cheering. Please DC…please make this happen. Don’t tease us like this and decide not to deliver. Last but not least, we can't talk about a comic book movie without at least addressing the fan service elements imbued. There were a few visual Easter eggs to iconic Black Adam comic panels and covers that definitely got a smile out of me considering I always seem to be a sucker for any live action comic book property that pays homage in this fashion.

Questionable Action Scene Sensibilities

Despite the visual FX work being decent enough during the big action set pieces, there is an occasionally excessive use of slow-motion that became a little distracting to me. Now I do want to point out that this particular complaint doesn't carry over to every scene where some form of bullet time cinematic presentation is being utilized. For example, there are moments where it works fairly well to show off Black Adam’s super speed perspective emphasizing just how supernaturally elevated he is. Unfortunately, there are also other scenes that had no benefit of using that cinematic sensibility whatsoever beyond just dragging out a particular fight or desperately trying to appeal to the mass audience's action scene fix. But this isn't just a Black Adam problem but something that stretches out across other titles within the DCEU franchise as well. This leads me to believe that this is a franchise creative decision that may or may not have been influenced by Zack Snyder's stylistic choices with his DC titles. Either way, this style of action just really isn't my cup of tea.

To make matters even worst for me, there are a few song choices inserted during said action scenes that should’ve been completely omitted from the movie. Something that the CW Network DC Comics shows also used to do that I absolutely despised which was inserting these loud obnoxious pop songs in some of their action scenes instead of just allowing the natural tone of the scenes and a more fitting score to carry them out.

This doesn’t happen every time in Black Adam (thank goodness), but there were a couple of scenes where I immediately thought “Come on guys, is that really the song that you wanna play now?”. 

Things That I Could’ve Really Done Without

Something that I wasn’t expecting to see implemented was a family component being utilized around Black Adam. To be honest, this entire component felt a bit distracting to me at times and I could've done without this entire subplot being involved. At the center of this distraction lies a superhero fanboy child character that left me on occasion imagining what the movie would've been like had he been omitted from the narrative. It felt like an artificial feeling way to solidify that Black Adam does indeed exist in the wider DCEU and it doesn’t help that some of the kid’s interaction scenes were slightly bordering on the line of annoying. Not quite over the line…but uncomfortably close. And if you think just the mere idea of this kid being in the movie to reference the superhero side of this world feels a little forced, wait until you see a particular fight scene that takes place in his highly decorated fanboy memorabilia room. I think this was the particular action bit that had me mentally checking out a little.

There’s also a moment where the central villain brings about his forgettable canon fodder minions which the movie decides to emphasize its theme of a city rising up to fight off foreign invaders. It's at this point where things shifted from questionable creative choices to downright cringe inducing due to one problematic element. The movie very quickly sacrifices any semblance of a threat revolving around its antagonist with these newly introduced minions just to make the city's community rising look "powerful and motivating".  As a result, we get a very cheesy scene where logic gets thrown out of the window for the sake of a message that could've been stated in a much more realistic and potent manner. Thankfully it doesn’t take up too much of the movie’s duration but it’s also something that I couldn’t simply ignore.

The DCEU Villain Problem Continues

Black Adam unfortunately offers up yet another lackluster or disappointing villain for the DCEU much like Wonder Woman’s Ares, Suicide Squad’s Enchantress/Incubus, Batman V Superman’s Lex, the theatrical release of Justice League’s Steppenwolf, WW84’s Cheetah, and the list goes on. However, I didn’t completely dislike the villain here since the storytelling surrounding him was decent enough to barely get a pass for me. But at the end of the day, this was not a villain worth getting excited over or deeply intrigued by whatsoever. You still have Black Adam fighting some one dimensional CGI model as your big boss fight and it’s no where as memorable or impactful as what several other comic book movies have dished out over the recent decade. Honestly, thinking about Black Adam's more villainous roles in certain iterations, I think there's an argument to be made with their being a much more compelling story to tackle if they unapologetically just made him a villainous presence that slowly learns to become something more. 

Black Adam’s Greatest Villain Is Its Editor

Black Adam’s greatest sin for me, from a filmmaking standpoint, has nothing to do with who from the wider universe should’ve showed up or whether or not things naturally fit into the DCEU. I say that only because I'm very much aware of the countless of fans that will leave this movie complaining about a particular character that’s completely absent in the story. For me, this movie’s greatest sin is actually its sensibility to hurry along to the end telling its grand scale story like a bullet point presentation rather than a well paced fantasy epic. The editing felt like the story was being told to me as a flashback montage by the character Luis from Marvel's Ant-Man movie. I guess in that regard, Black Adam is the spiritual DC-Marvel crossover that no one asked for. The entire thing just sped through to the credits almost as if there was a more extensive version that got significantly cut down to appeal to a younger generation's attention span.

 

Call me old fashion, but I’m a fan of letting scenes where something interesting or significant is taking place actually have time to breathe so that the audience can fully soak in all of its nuanced details. Don’t get me wrong, unlike Suicide Squad and BVS, I don’t feel like anything pivotal was necessarily missing, but I did feel like there were character driven scenes that should’ve been given more time whereas others could’ve been cut down or omitted completely. I believe, to my earlier point, that this is why the movie feels like it’s just filled with constant action for many viewers. It’s because there’s rarely much time for characters to feel like people with thoughts and emotions to process and not just heroes on a big explosion-filled mission. I wouldn't be surprised if the DCEU follows the tradition with this movie of later releasing glaringly improved extended cuts that should've clearly been the theatrical release version. 

How Can Something Feel Dated The Moment That It Releases?

Aside from the editing, another big problem with Black Adam can be found deep within the core of the movie’s existence. This being its tragically dated directional sensibilities. Everything from the specific scenes being emphasized in the trailers to the visual style of the action scenes and overall writing feels like a late 2000’s DC Comics response to Ironman. Black Adam is as generic as it comes for a superhero blockbuster leaning on all the bare minimum requirements of that particular era while unfortunately bypassing all of the more game changing and progressive titles of the mid to late 2010s. For a movie that's been in talks for roughly 15 years now, I'm started to wonder if anything actually changed over the course of the creative process.

Rating: 7/10