It was only a matter of time before Dwayne Johnson got into the superhero game. With his larger-than-life personality – not to mention, physique – it seems like a natural fit. Sure, he’s played quasi-superheroes in the Fast and Furious franchise, Jumanji, G.I. Joe, and others. But never a true superhero. Enter Black Adam.
This should mark a momentous turn for the DC movies. Whether fair to compare the two or not, they’ve been behind the 8 ball compared to Marvel every step of the way. Getting a huge star like Johnson on board could go a long way to start swinging things in their favor. And it could be going that way. While critics have mostly been less-than-impressed, fans have embraced Johnson’s anti-hero origin story, to the tune of an 89% approval on Rotten Tomatoes (flawed, of course, but still) and a weekend box office return reported to be tracking in the $65 million range. Unfortunately I side with the critics on this one, as Black Adam, while not a complete failure, settles in as another missed opportunity for DC.
The story starts thousands of years ago, 2600 BCE, in the fictional city of Kahndaq. Teth-Adam (Johnson) and his people have been enslaved by King Anh-Kot, tasked with mining Eternium, an all-powerful substance that will allow the King to create the Crown of Sabbac, an all-powerful relic. After staging a slave revolt, Teth-Adam receives the same powers bestowed upon Billy Batson in 2019’s Shazam!. With those powers, he is able to defeat the king. But the wizards who granted him the powers deem him unworthy, as Teth-Adam’s rage and revenge-fueled brand of justice doesn’t jive with how they do things. They imprison Teth-Adam, buried in a tomb deep in the Kahndaq mountains.
Present-day Kahndaq lives under a new oppressive regime, the Intergang crime syndicate. College professor and resistance fighter Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) seeks the Crown of Sabbac to keep it out of the hands of Intergang. In her search, she stumbles across Teth-Adam’s tomb, awakening Kahndaq’s long-dormant hero and champion. But Teth-Adam finds himself ill-suited to the modern world, and kills indiscriminately (except the movie makes him discriminate as he only ever savagely massacres legions of no-name bad guys). His presence, not to mention murder spree, draws the attention of the Justice Society, who arrive as the self-appointed world police to put Teth-Adam back in his prison.
But they face resistance from Kahndaq’s residents, who see Teth-Adam as true hope to free them from the Intergang. This is where the main conflict comes from, which makes for unclear stakes at play. With the Crown of Sabbac in play, there’s the potential for literal Hell to be unleashed on Earth, though the (severely under-developed and barely-introduced) bad guys only seem focused on ruling Kahndaq. Along with that, Tomaz doesn’t seem to care about the potential global consequences, but rather just with keeping Kahndaq free. Either one of those makes for a reasonable story. But so much of the movie splits its time on both, that Black Adam feels extremely high stakes and shockingly low stakes. It makes for a jumbled tone that never finds its footing.
But what about the other signature aspects of superhero movies? The action is okay, with a handful of cool, massive set pieces, but nothing you haven’t seen before. And with how insanely powerful Teth-Adam is, there is never any tension. When he’s catching rockets and flying and throwing helicopters, seeing idiot bad guys fire endless bullets at his bullet-proof body gets real old real fast. There is one fun slow motion sequence that is now standard fare in any movie featuring a character with super speed. That’s fine for one scene. But there is so much slow motion in Black Adam that I couldn’t be certain Zack Snyder hadn’t secretly directed it. Aside from the one scene that works, the slow motion detracts from the action every time it shows up – which is A LOT.
Let’s get to the big guy himself. I like Dwayne Johnson. The Fast movies are some of my favorites, he’s hilarious in his brief role in The Other Guys, he’s perfectly suited for certain types of roles. He’s a limited actor, but he’s generally enjoyable in his movies, because most movies know how to use him. Black Adam does not. He’s one of the most naturally charismatic people on the planet, and his best roles lean into that. Black Adam strips him of all of what’s helped make him one of the biggest stars we have.
This characterization of Teth-Adam at least makes sense, given where he come from and his brutal backstory. But it makes Johnson ill-suited to the role. It makes the few moments of levity he does have come across as very forced and awkward. When your main – and titular – character is so off, it makes the rest of the movie an uphill battle.
The rest of the cast is okay at best, but there are a couple bright spots. Aldis Hodge as Hawkman and Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate are far and away the best parts of the movie. They have great chemistry, and you immediately believe that these two characters, brand new to the DCEU, have a long and storied friendship. Likewise, Shahi is mostly fine, but her character is pretty one-note. It’s a valiant note, sure, but it doesn’t always make for an engaging character. Quintessa Swindell provides some fun as Cyclone, one of two new members to the Justice Society, but the story doesn’t give them a whole lot to do.
With some of the cast being a highlight, the bad characters are bad. Tomaz’s son, Amon, plays a major role. But from the jump, he’s shoved into the “obnoxious, annoying self-appointed kid sidekick” role. Bodhi Sabongui, who plays Amon, is fairly new to acting, so I don’t want to be too hard on him. But a bad performance is a bad performance. And it sticks out even more when he has such a prominent role.
As much as I didn’t like the Amon character, Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher might be the worst character. Along with Cyclone, Atom Smasher is the other team member. He basically solely exists for comedic relief, except nothing he says or does is funny – an unfortunate running theme for the rest of the attempts at humor. Aside from Shazam!, humor has never been a strong suit of the DC movies. And that trend continues here.
While Black Adam manages to be so-so at best, it does hint at some potential down the road for DC. If Black Adam can lean a little more into Johnson’s strengths as an actor, that would go a long way toward improving future portrayals or Black Adam sequels. The Justice Society has potential too, if they can firm up the team members and find a more solid cohesiveness and tone for them.
But that doesn’t do any good for Black Adam. Like so many of the DCEU entries, it’s a hodgepodge of decent, bad, and very bad. The end result is far from a “bad” movie, but there’s just nothing here to make it stand out from the crowded collection of superhero movies.
Score: 59/100
