Black Adam is the new DC Studios film and Dwayne Johnson stars as Black Adam who is given the power of the wizards from Shazam and is later imprisoned but 5,000 years later he is reawakened in his homeland of Kahndaq and it draws the attention of the Justice Society (Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell) who seek to stop him fearing the worst about what he will do to the world if not stopped.
Black Adam is not a bad movie but its also a very mixed bag of a movie that is also all over the place in terms of its script and first I have to start with Black Adam himself now Dwayne Johnson has been wanting to play this character for a long time and at times it kind of shows but there are also fair chunks of this movie where it feels like he’s in a strait jacket and just stands there all solemn and stern without any of the natural likeability and charisma Johnson has on screen and I wish one direction or the other had been picked and stuck with instead of having a bet each way with the character.
Next there’s the Justice Society, they have their moments for sure but all too often feel like a bad ripoff of the Avengers in the Marvel movies, Dr Fate in particular has some great moments and Brosnan is a lot of fun in the role but all too often it feels like he’s imitating Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr Strange same with Noah’s Atom Smasher who feels like a very bad imitation of Ant Man without any of the likeability and good humour Paul Rudd brings to that role.
Swindell’s Cyclone has some fun moments with her powers but she isn’t used as much as she should be while Hodge’s Hawkman deserves his own movie as he feels almost wasted in the role and deserves a lot better.
And lastly the storytelling here is a real mess, there’s this whole story about a magical crown and a kid and it really conflicts with the Black Adam vs Justice Society story and the two never really mesh together as a cohesive whole and like the other big DC film the Batman earlier this year this movie gets to a point where it naturally ends and you feel good and your ready to walk out of the cinema but then it throws on like a just discovered last reel a big action setpiece that feels totally unnecessary and I was bored throughout that whole finale.
And so that was Black Adam and its not terrible but it’s also very messy and scattershot as a movie and part of me is getting over all these superhero movies now, back in 2016 we had DC starting up, we had X-Men movies and we had the Infinity Saga near its peak now there’s no real competition anymore and these movies are starting to get very samey and dull very quickly, 2 and a half out of 5.
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