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It’s time to go back to that old phrase “style over substance” because Black Adam is functionally the textbook definition of the phrase. There are some cool visuals, but the majority of the movie, the connective tissue between the cool moments, is confusing, silly, and repetitive. There is an attempt to add emotional resonance to the scenes, however it just falls flat every time. Black Adam may not be the worst movie to come out this year, but it certainly is a forgettable experience and may ultimately feel like a letdown for fans.
Black Adam follows Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson), the champion of Kahndaq who is freed by Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) into the modern world while seeking out an ancient artifact that contains the power of Sabbac. Discovering the arrival of the new rogue metahuman, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) dispatches the Justice Society of America (Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher, Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate, and Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone) to attempt to bring him into custody.
The first issue with this movie is that it feels like someone handed an edgy teenager the rights to make a Shazam movie without any oversight. Black Adam is Shazam but he kills people and has a black suit. The villain Sabbac is an even edgier version of Black Adam to the point where he would not look out of place on a 1980s heavy metal album that would draw the wrath of the PMRC as he is the physical embodiment of six literal demons directly from Hell. To that end, every decision in the movie is about making Black Adam look cool. The Justice Society is utilized as a philosophical foil over whether or not the heroes should kill, but Black Adam routinely just beats the tar out of them over the course of the movie and the only person who can beat him is himself. Compare that to Shazam!
and, again, the two have identical power sets and their powers are derived from the same place, and it makes Black Adam
just feel silly.
The second issue is a common one with DC films, they try to do continuity in the same way the Marvel Cinematic Universe has, however they do it without the planning or anything that goes into actually executing that. For example, in Aquaman they explicitly reference the events of Justice League when the plot of the movie is that this is Arthur Curry’s first time in Atlantis. Here, the movie keeps continuity with Shazam!, the rest of the Snyderverse, and The Suicide Squad/Peacemaker, however the more they try to do it, the more it conflicts with itself and muddies the waters of the movie. The Justice Society serves a dual function in this way because Peacemaker ended with the termination of the Task Force X program, however a major action set piece takes place at a Task Force X prison that is active and holding villains in it. For the sake of the movie and the character Amanda Waller, it would make infinitely more sense for her to dispatch a third (fourth technically based on the events of The Suicide Squad) team of villains to try and take Black Adam into custody. The post-credit sequence, while admittedly cool, does lean into this issue because the character that shows up is there at the behest of Waller which begs the question as to why they weren’t dispatched to capture Black Adam in the first place or to help defeat Sabbac who is literally trying to bring Hell to Earth with an invasion of legions of the damned.
Black Adam is the definition of a poorly written character, defined entirely by how strong he is and how cool he looks and acts, leading to a movie that suffers as a result because it is defined entirely by showcasing this. The costume designs are cool and the way Cyclone and Doctor Fate’s powers are portrayed look cool, however when major character moments happen between Doctor Fate and Hawkman or Black Adam himself is delving into his back story, the moments all fall flat. It’s not the worst DC film, but it’s also not as good as Shazam!, Wonder Woman, or Aquaman. That said, it will probably be on HBOMax in a few months which is probably the best way to experience this movie.
Final Rating: 6.5/10
