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Black Adam Movie Review

Black Adam is a 2022 superhero film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Dwayne Johnson. It is the eleventh film in the DCEU and their worst one so far.

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“Black Adam, what have your powers ever given to you?

Nothing but heartache“

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Nearly 5.000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods and imprisoned just as quickly, Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world. This effectively functions as a spin-off to ‘Shazam!’, which was one of the best DCEU movies so far. The movie has nothing to do with that endearing and funny flick, so this is why the two aren’t even comparable.

The Rock wanted to make this movie for years, and it blew up in his face unfortunately. He looks great in the suit and he sold his action sequences very well as expected, but let’s just say that his acting skills here are very mediocre. For a role that meant so much to him, you would be surprised to find him so muted and lacking his usual charisma. It is one of his worst performances so far.

The character also did not work. The Arabian mythological elements failed both the character and the overall story as the filmmakers did nothing meaningful with them. They never decide whether he is a villain or a hero and that indecisiveness hurt the story significantly. Others fared even worse as all are underdeveloped and forgettable with the exception of Sabbac, who is this all-powerful villain with multiple powers and majestic wings. He looks badass and some of his fight scenes were super cool, but the character himself again was underdeveloped.

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Black Adam fails in terms of storytelling as this is your very standard, but messily executed origin story that simply did not work. None of the plot points were particularly appealing to me and the overreliance on action sequences felt egregious in this instance as the movie was so loud and bombastic that it had no time to breathe. The action ranged from pretty good to downright bad with the worst offenders being reminiscent of the final destruction in ‘Man of Steel’.

The effects fared even worse. This is your typical DCEU film with gloomy darkness and terribly uninventive and boring VFX work that at times did not even look serviceable. The movie was shot, edited and directed in such an unremarkable way that it simply felt like a pointless excursion. There were moments of fun humor, but that was too sporadic in this overly serious movie that also lacked any themes or messages to latch onto. This movie will probably signal the end of the DCEU as we know it judging by poor box office results and we will be all good for it. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s so basic and mediocre that it’s not worth talking about more.

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