Black Adam

For starters, this review - and a few others over the next couple weeks - is quite delayed. I was on my "postponed" honeymoon in Italy, enjoying all the wine, gelato, pizza, and pasta my stomach could muster (spoiler: a lot). There's several good reviews coming up, just be patient as I catch back up on life and Rath's Review stuff!

Working in order, Black Adam was up first on my movie to-do list. As is the case with most films starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, my excitement is there, but tempered. As much as I like the guy and his other business ventures, his films have rarely exceeded "good" on this site. 

But still, Black Adam has been in the pipeline for 15 damn years, which is absurd, and is finally here at a time where the DC universe feels like its in shambles, and that's saying something. I could write a whole article about that, so I won't go into it here, but I find the timing of Black Adam to be peculiar though at this point I'm not sure it really matters in the grand scheme of the DC timeline. 

I have a lot to say about Black Adam which should make this review very easy, but also hopefully organized. It's a strange onion to unravel as it's a collection of some very messy, practically bad "things", and a bunch of other things that work so damn well I'm surprised they're all in the same film. 

The biggest flub here - especially after 15 years - is the horrendous screenplay. Many people have cited the writing...sure...but the real issue is the whiplash-inducing screenplay that moves from one part to the next without any breathing room and often very awkward transitions or reasonings for plot advancement. Throughout the entire movie, I felt almost an anxiety with how awkwardly things we moving along. It felt like a collection of things happening strung together with a handful of thin subplots and it was honestly (and weirdly) uncomfortable. We're given insanely beefy exposition dumps about the country of Kahndaq and its history, while also breezing by all the mythology of gods, wizards, and connection to Shazam, which Johnson himself has pretty much outright ignored his famous opponent with his sights set on a higher...ahem...hero (which has likely already been spoiled for you by Johnson himself). From there, we're introduced to a litany of characters as if they're pre-established heroes in this universe and then the remainder of the film leaves the motivational plot arcs to an increasingly annoying teenager. Removing all the messiness, this is a standard superhero film, despite promises of Black Adam being a total anti-hero. He's an anti-hero in the essence that he kills people, not in his motivations so...there, I guess. If anything the 15-year baked story continues to show how good Marvel is at this stuff, even if Phase 4 hasn't really been a highlight. 

"The name's Fate. Dr. Fate"

One wrong move and that suit
is ripping from tip to tail!

But then here's the strange part: nearly everything else in Black Adam I loved, or at the very least, enjoyed. Our cast of heroes is a lot of fun, and even the weakest of the bunch (Noah Centineo's Atom Smasher) has his moments. A large reason for all of this is the casting itself - Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate was a masterstroke IMO - but their powers are actually interesting and well utilized. More on that later, because this cast is worth resting some laurels on and I'd be intrigued to see more of each of them. Aldis Hodge as Hawkman feels like a very solid choice and needed more backstory, even just a bit, but hopefully there will be more in the future. And of course you have Dwayne Johnson who's enigmatic as Black Adam, wearing a skin-tight suit without padding because well...dude doesn't need any. He's a presence on the screen and despite his film's issues, he is definitely not one of them. 

Black Adam's strongest bullet point is its action however. That's a huge win for DC as I found their action can tend to be boring and uninspired, so the fact it's stellar here is exciting. Black Adam's introduction scene, to the tune of "Paint it Black" no-less, is iconic and one of my favorites of the year, and from there I enjoyed the brutality of the rest of it. There's also some very cool powers and combination of powers with the Justice Society heroes. Even better is it's all provided through some excellent special effects that rarely feature bad spots. 

"How am I so damn rich? You'll never know!"
(at least not in this movie)

By the end of it all, I enjoyed Black Adam more than my final score indicates because my rating has to take into consideration how damn messy and poorly put together this screenplay is. Luckily Black Adam is "saved" by some inspired casting, The Rock himself, and some bone-crushing action. Strangely, it almost feels like a new cornerstone from which DC could build a lot from, so there's a positive future there too, and here's hoping that WB top brass actually gets their s**t together and lets the plan have some time to unfold. 

CONS

• The screenplay is super rough...it was giving me anxiety how awkwardly the film was moving from one scene to the next
• Annoying teenage kid as key plot point 
• DJ...why you gotta go and ruin the post credits scene before the film even came out? 
• Generic story (through all the mess) that isn't memorable...basically designed to just get a bunch of players on the board for future stories
• 50/50 hit rate with jokes. Atom Smasher in particularly fell flat almost 100% of the time

PROS

• Strong casting for the most part. Aldis Hodge and definitely Pierce Brosnan require more future screen time
• Dwayne Johnson definitely embodies Black Adam, no doubt about it. He's a strong anchor in his own passion project
• Original score often pretty good, sometimes great
• Impressive special effects
• Brutal, awesome action. Delightful surprise here and it applies to all the heroes

 

Rath's Review Score | 6.5/10