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Black Adam Review: బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ రివ్యూ: బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ సినిమా ఎలా ఉంది? డీసీ ఈసారైనా హిట్టు కొట్టిందా?

డీసీ కొత్త సినిమా బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ ఎలా ఉందంటే.

జావుమే కొల్లెట్-సెర్రా

డ్వేన్ జాన్సన్, సారా షాహి, పియర్స్ బ్రాస్నన్ తదితరులు

సినిమా రివ్యూ : బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ (ఇంగ్లిష్) రేటింగ్ : 2.75/5 నటీనటులు : డ్వేన్ జాన్సన్, సారా షాహి, పియర్స్ బ్రాస్నన్ తదితరులు సినిమాటోగ్రఫీ : లారెన్స్ షేర్ సంగీతం: లార్న్ బాల్ఫీ నిర్మాతలు : డీసీ ఫిల్మ్స్ దర్శకత్వం : జావుమే కొల్లెట్-సెర్రా విడుదల తేదీ: అక్టోబర్ 20, 2022

డీసీ ఎక్స్‌టెండెడ్ యూనివర్స్‌లో లేటెస్ట్ సినిమా బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ గురువారం థియేటర్లలో విడుదల అయింది. ఈ ఫ్రాంచైజీలోనే ఎక్కువ హైప్ ఉన్న సినిమాల్లో ఒకటిగా ఇది రిలీజ్ అవుతుంది. సినిమాల్లో డీసీ భవిష్యత్తును నిర్ణయించే ప్రాజెక్టుగా దీన్ని అభివర్ణిస్తున్నారు. ఏకంగా 200 మిలియన్ డాలర్ల (మనదేశ కరెన్సీలో సుమారు రూ.1,620 కోట్లు పైనే) బడ్జెట్‌తో ఈ సినిమాని రూపొందించారు. మోస్ట్ వయొలెంట్ సూపర్ హీరో సినిమాగా దీన్ని రూపొందించినట్లు ట్రైలర్లు, టీజర్ చూస్తే తెలుస్తోంది. మరి ఈ సినిమా డీసీకి కొత్త ఊపిరులు పోసిందా? హిట్ కొట్టి తీరాలన్న ఫ్యాన్స్ కోరికను బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ తీర్చిందా?

కథ: ఐదు వేల సంవత్సరాల క్రితం భూమి మీద కాందాక్ అనే నగరం అత్యంత అభివృద్ధి చెందిన నాగరికతతో ఉండేది. కానీ కొత్తగా అధికారంలోకి వచ్చిన రాజు ఆన్హ్ కోట్ (మర్వాన్ కెన్‌జారీ) ఎటర్నియం అనే లోహం కోసం ప్రజలను బానిసలుగా చేసి తవ్విస్తుంటాడు. ఆ లోహంతో చేసిన కిరీటం ధరిస్తే శక్తులు వచ్చి ప్రపంచాన్ని ఏలవచ్చనేది తన కోరిక. కానీ కొందరు ప్రజలు దాన్ని వ్యతిరేకిస్తారు. వారిని రాజు క్రూరంగా చంపేస్తాడు. అయితే వారిలో ఒకడైన టెత్ ఆడమ్‌కు (డ్వేన్ జాన్సన్) షాజామ్ శక్తులు వస్తాయి. తనకు, రాజుకు జరిగిన యుద్ధంలో రాజు చనిపోతాడు. కోట నాశనం అవుతుంది. ఐదు వేల సంవత్సరాల తర్వాత ఆ కిరీటం కోసం కొందరు తిరిగి వెతకడం ప్రారంభిస్తారు. అలాగే టెత్ ఆడమ్ కూడా తిరిగి వస్తాడు. ఆ తర్వాత ఏం జరిగింది? టెత్ ఆడమ్, బ్లాక్ ఆడంగా ఎలా మారాడు? జస్టిస్ సొసైటీ ఎవరు? ఇలాంటి విషయాలు తెలియాలంటే సినిమా చూడాల్సిందే!

విశ్లేషణ: మార్వెల్, డీసీ వంటి కామిక్ బుక్స్ ఆధారంగా వచ్చే సూపర్ హీరో సినిమాల్లో కథ గురించి పెద్దగా ఆలోచించాల్సిన అవసరం లేదు. ఎందుకంటే అందులో ఉండే కథలు, పాత్రలు ఆల్రెడీ సూపర్ హిట్. వాటిని మనం ఎంత ప్రభావవంతంగా చూపించామనే దానిపైనే రిజల్ట్ ఆధారపడి ఉంటుంది. ఈ విషయంలో జావుమే కొల్లెట్-సెర్రా సక్సెస్ అయ్యారు. సినిమాను యాక్షన్, మ్యూజిక్ నిలబెట్టేశాయి. ప్రారంభంలో కాందాక్ నగరం నేపథ్యంలో వచ్చే సన్నివేశాలు మనకు కేజీయఫ్‌ను గుర్తు చేస్తాయి.

సినిమా అంతా చాలా ఫాస్ట్‌గా రేసీ స్క్రీన్‌ప్లేతో సాగుతుంది. అనవసరమైన సన్నివేశం ఒక్కటి కూడా కనిపించదు. ముఖ్యంగా బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ తిరిగొచ్చాక యాక్షన్ సన్నివేశాలు వరుసగా ఒకదాని తర్వాత ఒకటి వస్తూనే ఉంటాయి. ప్రేక్షకుడికి ఆలోచించుకునే గ్యాప్ కూడా ఉండదు. కళ్లు చెదిరే యాక్షన్ సన్నివేశాలకు, అద్భుతమైన బ్యాక్‌గ్రౌండ్ మ్యూజిక్ తోడయింది. దీంతోపాటు బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్‌లో కామెడీ కూడా బాగా పండింది. తనకు రాసుకున్న వన్ లైనర్ పంచెస్ బాగా పేలాయి.

అయితే బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్‌తో వచ్చిన చిక్కేంటంటే... ఇది మొదటి సీన్ నుంచే ‘నేను ప్రజలను కాపాడటానికే పుట్టాను. నా పనే అది.’ అనే సాధారణ సూపర్ హీరో సినిమా కాదు. ‘ప్రజలను కాపాడటం నా పని కాదు. అది హీరోల పని.’ అనేది బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ అజెండా. తను విలన్లతో పోరాడేటప్పుడు ప్రజలు చనిపోయినా పెద్దగా పట్టించుకోడు. రెగ్యులర్ టెంప్లేట్ సూపర్ హీరో సినిమాలు ఇష్టపడేవారికి ఈ కొత్త ప్రయత్నం అంతగా నచ్చకపోవచ్చు. కానీ యాక్షన్ సీక్వెన్స్‌లు, మ్యూజిక్ కోసం అయితే ఈ సినిమాను ఒకసారి కచ్చితంగా చూడవచ్చు. సినిమాలో ఒక సర్‌ప్రైజ్ ఎలిమెంట్ కూడా ఉంది. సినిమా అయిపోగానే బయటకు వచ్చేయకుండా పోస్ట్ క్రెడిట్ సీన్ వరకు వెయిట్ చేస్తే అదేంటో తెలుస్తుంది.

దర్శకుడు, హీరో తర్వాత ఈ సినిమాలో గుర్తుండిపోయేది సంగీతం అందించిన లార్న్ బాల్ఫీ. తను అందించిన నేపథ్య సంగీతాన్ని సినిమా అయిపోయాక కూడా మర్చిపోలేం. జాన్ లీ, మైకేల్ సేల్‌ల ఎడిటింగ్ చాలా క్రిస్ప్‌గా ఉంది. సినిమాలో అనవసర సన్నివేశాలు అసలు కనిపించవు. విజువల్ ఎఫెక్ట్స్ అబ్బురపరుస్తాయి.

Also Read :  'కాంతార' రివ్యూ : ప్రభాస్ మెచ్చిన కన్నడ సినిమా ఎలా ఉందంటే?

ఇక నటీనటుల విషయానికి వస్తే... ‘బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ పాత్ర చేయడానికే నేను పుట్టాను.’ ఈ సినిమా ఒప్పుకున్నాక డ్వేన్ జాన్సన్ తన సోషల్ మీడియాలో షేర్ చేసిన పోస్ట్ ఇది. చెప్పినట్లే ఆ పాత్రలో తను జీవించేశాడు. బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ పాత్రలో ఉన్న రఫ్‌నెస్, కేర్ ఫ్రీ యాటిట్యూడ్, డెప్త్ అన్నిటినీ స్క్రీన్ మీద చక్కగా ప్రెజెంట్ చేశాడు. ఒక రకంగా చెప్పాలంటే ఇది డ్వేన్ జాన్సన్ వన్ మ్యాన్ షో. డాక్టర్ ఫేట్ మాత్రలో కనిపించిన పియర్స్ బ్రాస్నన్ ఆకట్టుకుంటాడు. ఈ పాత్ర మార్వెల్ క్యారెక్టర్ డాక్టర్ స్ట్రేంజ్‌ను తలపిస్తుంది. కానీ కామిక్స్ పరంగా చూసుకుంటే డాక్టర్ ఫేట్‌నే ముందుగా ఇంట్రడ్యూస్ అయింది. మిగతా పాత్రల్లో నటించిన వారందరూ ఆకట్టుకుంటారు.

ఓవరాల్‌గా చెప్పాలంటే... యాక్షన్ మూవీ లవర్స్‌కు బ్లాక్ ఆడమ్ కచ్చితంగా నచ్చుతుంది. అయితే రెగ్యులర్ ఫార్మాట్ తరహా సూపర్ హీరో సినిమాలు చూసేవారికి ఈ యాంటీ హీరో నచ్చుతాడో లేదో చూడాలి.

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టాప్ హెడ్ లైన్స్

ట్రెండింగ్ వార్తలు

ట్రెండింగ్ ఒపీనియన్

వ్యక్తిగత కార్నర్

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Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra , and featuring a remarkable lead performance by Dwayne Johnson , the spiky and majestic "Black Adam" is one of the best DC superhero films to date. This tale of a gloomy, seemingly malevolent god who reappears in a long-occupied Middle Eastern nation rejects most of the choices that bland-ify even the good entries in the genre. For its first third, it presents its title character—a champion who challenged a despotic king thousands of years earlier—as a frightening and unknowable force with a bottomless appetite for destruction. Known by his ancient moniker Teth-Adam, his reemergence from a desert tomb proves both a miracle and a curse for people who prayed for someone to defend them against corporate-mercenary thugs who have oppressed them for decades and strip-mined their land. 

Throughout the rest of its running time, “Black Adam” leans into the inevitability of Adam’s evolution toward good-guy status, condensing the transformation of the title character in the first two “Terminator” films (there are even comic bits where people try to teach Adam sarcasm and the Geneva Conventions). "Black Adam" then stirs in dollops of a macho sentimentality that used to be common in old Hollywood dramas about loners who needed to get involved in a cause to reset their moral compasses or recognize their worth. But the sharp edge that the film brings to the early parts of its story never dulls.

Adam initially seems as much of a literal as well as a figurative force of nature as Godzilla and other beasts in Japanese  kaiju  films. It’s initially hard for the people in Adam’s path to tell if he’s good, evil, or merely indifferent to human concerns. One thing’s for sure: everyone wants Adam to help them prevent a crown forged in hell and infused with the energy of six demons from being placed atop the head of someone in Intergang, a global corporate/mercenary consortium whose interests are represented by a two-faced charmer ( Marwan Kenzari ).

Decades ago, Humphrey Bogart played a lot of cynical men who insisted they weren’t interested in causes, then changed their minds and took up arms against corruption or tyranny. Viewers still love that story, and Johnson has updated it many times during his career, most recently in “ Jungle Cruise ,” in which he played a character modeled on Bogart's riverboat captain in "The African Queen." He channels vintage primordial acting by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger but also poet-brute performances like Anthony Quinn's strongman in " La Strada ," and infuses the totality with his unique charisma. "Black Adam" confirms that he’s studied the classics and cherry-picked bits that seem to work for him. There are even tenderhearted moments of regret and recrimination that seem inspired by 1950s moral awakening pictures like “ On the Waterfront .” 

The latter are usually triggered by three “civilian” characters who appeal to Adam’s presumed innate (though submerged) goodness. One is Adrianna Tomaz ( Sarah Shahi ), a university professor, resistance fighter, and widow of a resistance hero who was killed by the colonizers. Another is Adrianna’s cheerful and indomitable son Amon ( Bodhi Sabongui ), who zips around the bombed-out city on a skateboard that seems to have as many secondary uses as a Swiss Army Knife. And then there’s Adrianna’s brother Amir (comedian Mohammed Amer), who livens up a standard-issue earthy everyman role.

Somehow, though, the script by Adam Sztykiel , Rory Haines , and Sohrab Noshirvani resists the temptation to wallow in unearned sentiment. Nor does the movie insist, despite the evidence, that Adam and the superheroes brought into to confront him ( Aldis Hodge ’s Hawkman, Noah Centineo ’s Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell ’s wind-manipulating Cyclone, and Pierce Brosnan ’s dimension-hopping and clairvoyant Dr. Fate) are wonderful people who have pure motives and always mean well. In conversations about motivations and tactics, nobody is entirely right or wrong. The movie's edge comes from its determination to live in moral gray areas as long as it can. 

It also comes from the violence, which is presented as the inevitable result of the characters’ personalities, ambitions, and duties, rather than being associated with any particular code or philosophy. That framing, plus the sprays of blood and images of people being impaled, shot, and crushed, pushes the movie's PG-13 rating to the breaking point like “ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ” and “ Gremlins ” did with the PG rating nearly 40 years earlier. There were several walkouts at the “Black Adam” screening this writer attended, and in every case, it was somebody who brought a child under 10. 

In fairness, they may not have expected the movie to begin with a flashback that climaxes with a slave at a construction site getting gut-stabbed and thrown off a cliff, and a boy being threatened with beheading, or for the title character to obliterate an army with electrical bolts and his bare hands seconds after his first appearance. Nearly every other scene—including expository dialogue exchanges—is set against the backdrop of a chaotic city whose residents have been hardened not just by the occupation, but by the catastrophes that are unleashed whenever super-beings clash, which ties into recurring scenes and dialogue about what it means for a small country to be invaded and occupied by outsiders who set their own rules and are indifferent to daily life on the ground.

Film history buffs might note the studio that originated the project: the Warner Bros. subdivision New Line. It rose to prominence with horror films, grew by releasing auteur-driven, down-and-dirty genre pieces and dramas (including “ Menace II Society ” and “ Deep Cover ”), and got into blockbusters with the original “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. You can see that lineage reflected in many scenes and sequences of this film, which is PG-13 in fact but R in spirit. “Black Adam” immediately announces what sort of film it is by weaving in quotes from the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” (the melody of which is referenced in Lorne Balfe ’s score) and musical as well as visual snippets from “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”—key works from artists whose best work invites you to root for people who move through their worlds like threshers. 

The film’s director honed his mayhem chops in horror movies, then in R-rated thrillers in which Liam Neeson brutally dispatches adversaries. Collet-Serra makes a PG-13 film feel like an R by cutting away or jumping back from the nastiest violence, but letting us hear it (or imagine it when people watch from a great distance). He also does it by insisting, through actions as well as dialogue, that individuals, even superhuman ones, do things for multiple, often contradictory reasons. (A boy’s bedroom is filled with superhero posters and comics, and when a “good guy” and Adam fight in there, they burn and tear through DC’s most recognizable icons in a way that rhymes with scenes of the city's historic monuments being toppled or pulverized.)

Fidelity to basic film storytelling keeps "Black Adam" centered even when it's doing ten things at once. The film is packed with foreshadowings, setups, payoffs, twists, and surprises, and is filled with well-defined lead and supporting characters. One standout is Brosnan, who delivers a moving portrait of an immortal who is tired of seeing the future and thinking back on his past. Dr. Fate looks at those who can live in the present with a mixture of melancholy, wisdom, and envy. 

Another is Johnson, who has real acting chops but in recent years has often seemed to be constrained (maybe intimidated?) by his lucrative image as the people’s colossus. He’s as minimalist as one could be when playing a god. He takes a lot of his cues from the screen star that the film quotes most often, Clint Eastwood , but he also seems to have learned from action-hero performances by stars like Neeson, Toshiro Mifune , Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Charles Bronson , who understood that the camera can detect and amplify faint tremors of emotion as long as you act with the film—not just in it, and never against it. The peak is a fleeting moment when Johnson lets us know that something deep inside Adam has changed by glancing in a different direction and softening his features. It's maybe half a second. It’s not the kind of acting that wins prizes because if it’s done well—as it is here—you feel as if it happened in your mind rather than on the screen. 

The politics and spirituality of the movie are just as committed and consistent. Even when the story flirts with Orientalism or incorporates simplistic Western heaven-and-hell imagery, “Black Adam” never loses track of what Adam represents in our world: autonomy, liberation, the possibility of redemption and renewal, and a refusal to be defined by however things have always been done. 

The result sometimes plays like the DC answer to the pop culture quake that was “ Black Panther ,” serving up a Middle Eastern-inflected version of the Marvel film’s Afro-Futurist sensibility, and letting its setting stand in for any place that was colonized. But its politics are more clearly defined and less compromised. “Black Adam” is staunchly anti-imperialist to its marrow, even equating the Avengers-like crew sent to capture and imprison Black Adam to a United Nations “intervention” force that the people of the region don’t want because it only makes things worse. The movie is anti-royalist, too, which is even more of a surprise considering that the backstory hinges on kings and lineage. 

"Black Adam" is a superlative and clever example of this sort of movie, coloring within the lines while drawing fascinating doodles on the margins. In its brash, relentless, overscaled way, Collet-Serra's film respects its audience and wants to be respected by it. "Black Adam" gives the audience everything they wanted, along with things they never expected.

Only in theaters today.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Black Adam (2022)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, intense action and some language.

125 minutes

Dwayne Johnson as Teth Adam / Black Adam

Aldis Hodge as Carter Hall / Hawkman

Pierce Brosnan as Kent Nelson / Doctor Fate

Noah Centineo as Al Rothstein / Atom Smasher

Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz / Isis

Marwan Kenzari as Ishmael Gregor / Sabbac

Quintessa Swindell as Maxine Hunkel / Cyclone

Bodhi Sabongui as Amon Tomaz

Viola Davis as Amanda Waller

Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt

Mo Amer as Karim

• Jaume Collet-Serra

Writer (based on the characters created by)

• Bill Parker
• Adam Sztykiel
• Rory Haines
• Sohrab Noshirvani

Cinematographer

• Lawrence Sher
• Michael L. Sale
• Lorne Balfe

Latest blog posts

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

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... Read all 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. 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.

• Jaume Collet-Serra
• Adam Sztykiel
• Rory Haines
• Sohrab Noshirvani
• Dwayne Johnson
• Aldis Hodge
• Pierce Brosnan
• 1.8K User reviews
• 283 Critic reviews
• 41 Metascore
• 1 win & 12 nominations

• Black Adam …

• Atom Smasher …

• Adrianna Tomaz

• Skinny Teth Adam

• The Champion

• Emilia Harcourt

• Mrs. Farmer
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Rock On: The Life and Times of Dwayne Johnson

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Did you know

• Trivia Jordan Peele was originally offered the chance to direct the film when it was first announced in 2017, but Peele declined, saying, "I'm not a fan of superhero movies and I'd hate to take that chance away from a director who is passionate about them."
• Goofs At one point, they state the crown weighs 23 pounds. However, in several places in the movie, people are carrying/lifting it like it weighs a few ounces.

Hawkman : In this world, there are heroes and there are villains. Heroes don't kill people!

Teth-Adam : Well, I do.

• Crazy credits The Warner Bros logo is made of Kahndaq's eternium metal, and through lightning strikes it changes to the New Line Cinema logo.
• Connections Featured in The Observant Lineman: DC Fandome LIVE (2020)
• Soundtracks Bullet with Butterfly Wings Written by Billy Corgan (as William Corgan) Performed by The Smashing Pumpkins Courtesy of Virgin Records Under license from Universal Music Enteprises

User reviews 1.8K

• Dec 18, 2022
• How long is Black Adam? Powered by Alexa
• October 21, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• New Zealand
• Black Adam France
• Official Facebook
• Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Warner Bros.
• New Line Cinema
• DC Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $195,000,000 (estimated)
• $168,152,111
• $67,004,323
• Oct 23, 2022
• $393,452,111

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 5 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos
• IMAX 6-Track

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Watch Black Adam with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Black Adam may end up pointing the way to an exciting future for DC films, but as a standalone experience, it's a wildly uneven letdown.

With lots of action, solid effects, and a story you don't have to be a comics fan to follow, Black Adam is one of the best DC movies to date.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Jaume Collet-Serra

Dwayne Johnson

Aldis Hodge

Noah Centineo

Atom Smasher

Sarah Shahi

Adrianna Tomaz

Marwan Kenzari

Movie Clips

More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles..

‘Black Adam’ Review: Dwayne Johnson Plays an All-Powerful DC Villain Who Can Be Talked Into Heroism

Set in the imaginary Middle East country of Kahndaq, this meaty, feature-length teaser reframes a fan-favorite 'Shazam!' baddie as an antihero, though his greatest battles are still to come.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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SPOILER ALERT: The following review contains mild spoilers for “ Black Adam .”

Popular on Variety

After all, this summer’s “DC League of Super-Pets” wrapped with Krypto (Clark Kent’s companion, also voiced by Johnson) meeting Black Adam’s pet basenji, with whom he debates the meaning of “antihero”: “It’s basically exactly like a regular hero, except way cooler. You make up your own rules, and then you break them.” The prospect that the superegos attached to these two canines might one day collide transforms the spectacular (but otherwise pointless) one-off/origin story that is “Black Adam” into a feature-length tease. The payoff is still to come, but here, audiences are presented with the moral and emotional backstory for a future showdown.

“Black Adam” is built around the notion that Teth Adam, as he’s referred to for most of the movie, isn’t evil so much as really, really angry. The surprisingly serious-minded (but still plenty pulpy) project deprives Johnson of his greatest superpower — his sense of humor — while giving the now-straight-faced star a chance to play a character with some interesting contradictions. His instinct is to kill anyone who upsets him, and yet, he can still be reasoned with. This flexibility will prove crucial, since there’s a far more malevolent (if not especially memorable) character scheming to liberate Kahndaq, the fictional quasi-Egyptian country where the film takes place.

It’s an unusual move for DC to base an entire superhero feature in the Middle East — although it’s a homecoming of sorts for Johnson, whose film career kicked off playing the Scorpion King in “The Mummy Returns.” Doubly daring is the way “Black Adam” aligns our sympathies with the locals, who call upon an ancient hero to help overthrow the white mercenaries extracting precious Eternium from their land. In the film’s “300”-style prologue, the powerful mineral is responsible for transforming a lowly slave into a practically godlike figure — with the help of several wizards.

Flash forward to the present day. Tired of living in a state of oppression, a group of rebels led by tough gal Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) go looking for a legendary crown made of Eternium. Co-written by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, “Black Adam” features a lot more action than most DC movies, cramming the exposition into a series of supercharged set-pieces — including an early “Tomb Raider”-like sequence wherein Adrianna and three accomplices explore a cave, recovering the crown and unleashing Teth Adam from his millennia-long imprisonment.

Looking thoroughly annoyed, his neck thick as a banyan tree trunk, Johnson levitates into the first of many confrontations, blasting blue lightning from his fists. Bullets bounce off his bald dome; bazookas barely slow him down. Collet-Serra has studied everything from “The Matrix” to “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” basing his visual style on favorite tricks from more original films. Half the reason it’s so hard to take comic book movies seriously stems from lazy devices like Eternium and wizards, which “Black Adam” accepts without the slightest hesitation.

The movie is essentially “Shane” on steroids, set in the Middle East instead of the Old West, but still seen through the eyes of a young boy — Adrianna’s comic book-obsessed son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), in this case — who idolizes a figure of questionable morality. As with “Shane,” sticking a kid in the middle of the story brings the entire project down to a middle-school-level intellect. And yet, except for the recent Batman movies, that’s how most of the DC films feel.

The most out-of-place characters here are the quartet representing the JSA. Adrianna rightly questions why Hawkman and friends should show up now, after a villainous organization called Intergang has been exploiting them for years. Black Adam may be billed as an antihero, but by the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he’s more helpful to these Kahndaq freedom fighters than the JSA. Fight scenes involving Hawkman, Atom Smasher and Cyclone pose strange challenges, considering their powers, while Doctor Fate at least gives the visual effects team some fun tricks to animate.

No one’s allowed to upstage Johnson, however — not even a bulging demon named Sabbac who appears near the end. Clearly, the film’s whole purpose is to give Black Adam a suitably grand introduction on the assumption that he’ll be pitted against a more deserving adversary soon enough.

Reviewed at Dolby screening room, Burbank, Oct. 17, 2022. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 125 MIN.

• Production: A Warner Bros. release of a New Line Cinema presentation of a Seven Bucks, Flynn Picture Co. production. Producers: Beau Flynn, Hiram Garcia, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia. Executive producers: Toby Emmerich, Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Chris Pan, Walter Hamada, Adam Schlagman, Geoff Johns, Eric McLeod, Scott Sheldon
• Crew: Director: Jaume Collet-Serra. Screenplay: Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani, based on characters from DC created by Bill Parker, C.C. Beck. Camera: Lawrence Sher. Editors: Mike Sale, John Lee.
• With: Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Mohammed Amer, Bodhi Sabongui, Pierce Brosnan.

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msepa 1 204 days ago

Tushar raj 353 days ago, surya manupati 433 days ago.

The power regime in DC was about to shift but James Gunn shat on it. Why bring Henry Cavill back as Superman if you're gonna cancel them anyway. And peacemaker actors are in the movie which isn't cancelled. Great.

Ranadip Madhu 103 505 days ago

Wonder Black Adam Vs super man ;)

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Black Adam First Reviews: Action-Packed and Powered by a Charismatic Dwayne Johnson

Critics say the film suffers from a villain problem and a lackluster script, but a scene-stealing pierce brosnan, lots of action, and the hint of something new in the dceu powers it forward..

TAGGED AS: dceu , First Reviews , movies

Almost 15 years after Dwayne Johnson first announced interest in playing the character, he finally makes his debut as Black Adam in the DCEU this week. But is the movie, eponymously titled Black Adam , worth the wait, the promise, and the anticipation? The first reviews of the superhero spectacle are mixed, but those that get what the movie is and who it’s for praise the positives enough to disregard any shortcomings.

Here’s what critics are saying about Black Adam :

Does it live up to expectations?

Johnson has been attached to the Black Adam role for nearly two decades… His love for the DC Universe shines through the film and his passion pays off well throughout. – Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate

Those who have been waiting for this adaptation long since Johnson first expressed interest back in 2007 will not walk away disappointed. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

If The Rock smashing more things than he usually can as human characters sounds like a good time, Black Adam delivers. – Fred Topel, United Press International

Given the number of years this project was in development, and how it was promoted to shift the balance of power in the DC Universe, it’s disappointing that the end result is so unremarkable. – Eric Eisenberg, Cinema Blend

How well does it fit into the DCEU?

Black Adam isn’t a full-on course correction for the DCEU, but it is an encouraging new installment in this larger universe. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

Black Adam feels like the first project in years to take from multiple parts of this universe while also focusing on setting up something big for its future. – Gregg Katzman, CBR

Though we’ve prayed DC would move on, there are more than echoes of the Snyderverse here. – John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

A strong entry into the DCEU. – Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate

As much as Black Adam is a darker take on Shazam, it also repeats the missteps of lesser DC movies. – Fred Topel, United Press International

It’s not awful, especially when compared to many of the other DCEU films, but it’s far from the game-changer it claims to be. – Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Does it feel like any other movies?

The film plays like 2018’s Venom in multiple ways, focusing on brutal action sequences and a mixed tone of dark moments and humor. – Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate

The movie is essentially Shane on steroids, set in the Middle East instead of the Old West. – Peter Debruge, Variety

One movie that’s clearly a model for Black Adam is Terminator 2: Judgment Day . – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

(Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures)

How is The Rock as Black Adam?

The Rock delivers one of his best performances. He put his heart and soul into this role. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

An absolutely terrific performance by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, [the movie allows] him to flex his trademark muscular showmanship and combine that with character-driven appeal. – Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

Johnson keeps up his enchanting screen presence as he lands old-fashioned one-liners and brutal action all with complete passion. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

Johnson also breathes just enough emotion and empathy into the character. – Gregg Katzman, CBR

Johnson is grandiose as Black Adam, leaving his charismatic movie star stamp in every scene. This is perfect casting from more than a physical standpoint. – Jeff Nelson, Showbiz Cheat Sheet

No matter what one might think about this Black Adam movie as a whole, The Rock grabs your attention and keeps it no matter what he’s doing. Johnson is the man. – Todd McCarthy, Deadline Hollywood Daily

His charisma and brooding stares can only take the film so far. – Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Black Adam is perfect for Johnson’s action-figure frame. He just deserves a better first superhero outing than this. – Brian Truitt, USA Today

The problem isn’t that Johnson can’t act — he definitely can! — the problem is that he doesn’t want to. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

What about the Justice Society?

The Justice Society of America nearly steal the movie right from underneath [Johnson] as the film gives them a satisfactory introduction, leaving us wanting more from all of them by the end. – Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan’s portrayals of Hawkman and Doctor Fate are both equally brilliant. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

Brosnan is a natural in the role of Fate and it’s a wonder how no one tapped on his talents sooner for a superhero role. Hodge is just as great in the film. – Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate

Pierce Brosnan [is] the standout, even if his character reads like a second-rate Doctor Strange. – Peter Debruge, Variety

Brosnan steals every scene he’s a part of, and the actor is brimming with charisma. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

On the whole, members of the JSA are dealt short shrift, leaving [them] severely underdeveloped. – Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell’s Atom Smasher and Cyclone feel like they stumbled in from another movie. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

(Photo by ©Warner Bros.)

How is the action?

Black Adam features a lot more action than most DC movies. – Peter Debruge, Variety

The visual spectacle just keeps coming at you for two hours, and the effects are all so stupendous that you could begin to take it for granted. – Todd McCarthy, Deadline Hollywood Daily

This movie is packed with action. When we say that, we mean it is pretty much non-stop action for the entire movie. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

Every fight sequence packs a punch, and the film gets extra creative when utilizing Doctor Fate’s powers. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

Collet-Serra manages to make these action scenes exciting in everything from Adam wiping out large armies to a hand-on-hand fight through an apartment with Hawkman. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

There is no wit, no thrill, and no slickness to the action. – Witney Seibold, Slashfilm

Does the film have a worthy villain?

The villain doesn’t do much of anything except provide us with a pretty cool battle, so we will take it — reluctantly. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

Unfortunately, there isn’t much depth to the big bad, and he’s ultimately there to offer a ton of action in the final act. – Gregg Katzman, CBR

It’s just a shame that the main villain isn’t stronger here because it does overshadow some of the bombastic action on display. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

The single most forgettable villain in comic book movie history. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

How is the script?

The screenplay is so action-orientated that it almost completely leaves out the necessary room for characters to breathe. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

The script of Black Adam is arguably the weakest part of the film. Character arcs can feel paper-thin and predictable. – Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate

The character development is shallow. – Eric Eisenberg, Cinema Blend

The script does little to help non-DC-scholars here, briefly alluding to nanobots and relics and the Justice Society of America as if other movies had introduced them already. – John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

Does the movie get political?

The picture’s overarching themes – dealing with colonialism and our desperate need for heroes to speak out against tyranny during bleak times – are affecting and effectively crafted. – Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

There’s enough complexity in the post-colonial politics of Kahndaq to engage adults. – Peter Debruge, Variety

It’s an interesting setup: American “heroes” coming to a foreign country to stop the local hero from protecting the citizens. But if you’re hoping Black Adam will get into the complexities of that, this is not that movie. – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

Moviegoers may have trouble finding escapist pleasure here, given the knotty global issues the movie raises but doesn’t fully process. – John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

Will we leave feeling hopeful for the DCEU?

Black Adam will help DC fans restore their faith in the DCEU. – Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky

Black Adam might not change things single-handedly, but it certainly feels like the start of a new era of DC movies. – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

What it sets up for the future of the DCEU is exciting and not to be overlooked. – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

The film’s whole purpose is to give Black Adam a suitably grand introduction on the assumption that he’ll be pitted against a more deserving adversary soon enough. – Peter Debruge, Variety

Perhaps this is a new way forward for the DCEU, but do we really need them to do exactly what the MCU is doing? – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

Black Adam opens everywhere on October 21, 2022.

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Black Adam Review

The DC Film universe has, for nearly a decade now, been pinballing between the lightness of Shazam! or Wonder Woman and the grim violence of Batman v Superman . With Black Adam , Dwayne Johnson and director Jaume Collet-Serra attempt to offer a grand unified theory of DC, mixing family-film tropes with a protagonist who straight-up murders people. The result is sometimes a mess, but it’s a generally entertaining one.

As is traditional, a complicated prologue set in 2600 BCE introduces a superpowered hero who then disappears. Cut to the present day, and the vaguely scholarly freedom fighter Adrianna ( Sarah Shahi ) goes to visit an ancient tomb (as is also traditional). She reads out an inscription and whaddya know, lightning strikes to release Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson) to battle the enemies who threaten her, and their shared homeland of Kahndaq. Adam is so powerful, however, that soon Viola Davis ’ Amanda Waller gets the Justice Society involved. They’re led by flying fighter Hawkman ( Aldis Hodge ) and magic user Doctor Fate ( Pierce Brosnan ), who bring newbies Atom Smasher ( Noah Centineo ) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) to stop this new threat.

There’s never much doubt where all this is going. Black Adam clearly isn’t that bad, given how he bonds with Adrianna (a largely undeveloped character) and her likeable son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui). And the Justice Society, while rightly accused of only caring about Kahndaq’s plight when a superpowered being arises there, are clearly well-meaning. There’s obviously going to be a greater threat to come. But first Collet-Sera stages some fun, destructive action scenes to allow Adam and the Justice Society to strut their stuff in. Brosnan’s a standout: his powers are extremely Doctor Strange-y, down to the glass-shattering of reality, but he has a fatalistic sense of the future and a lightness of touch that feels fresh. The film also wisely doesn’t pretend that Black Adam is ever in much danger: it’s only a question of how angry he gets, and who's hit in the crossfire.

The film’s greatest strength, which runs like a current through it, is the sense that superpowers can be terrifying.

Still, that weird contradiction remains: Johnson, Collet-Serra and their team want edge, but without alienating family audiences. So you get massive action scenes without any obvious civilian casualties, and godlike powers without consequence. It’s all nicely shot in low-lying sun and dusty vistas, but it suffers from the weightlessness that gives superhero movies their bad name: great power, no responsibility.

The film’s greatest strength, which runs like a current through it, is the sense that superpowers can be terrifying. Johnson, far stiller and more stony-faced than usual, shows a sort of bemused amorality, and his killing of bad guys seems as natural as breathing during his impressive introductory scenes. The idea of a superhuman who fights for his oppressed people is also a solid one, and an interesting challenge to the usual small-c conservative superheroes who just save a few individuals from baddies. Black Adam may not make his world better, not yet, but he shows the potential to shake up the DC Universe in ways that may yet succeed in uniting its disparate elements.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• October 21, 2022
• Dwayne Johnson as Teth-Adam; Aldis Hodge as Carter Hall/Hawkman; Noah Centineo as Albert "Al" Rothstein/Atom Smasher; Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz; Marwan Kenzari as Ishmael Gregor; Quintessa Swindell as Maxine Hunkel/Cyclone; Bodhi Sabongui as Amon Tomaz; Pierce Brosnan as Kent Nelson/Doctor Fate

Home Release Date

• January 3, 2023
• Jaume Collet-Serra

Distributor

• Warner Bros.

Movie Review

Everyone probably has moments they’d like to take back. We say the wrong thing. We do the wrong thing. We hurt someone’s feelings or make things harder than they should.

But few of us, have destroyed a city in an unguarded moment.

The same cannot be said of Teth-Adam, would-be protector of the ancient civilization of Kahndaq.

 About 5,000 years ago, he was granted (in a roundabout way) staggering powers by the Council of Wizards in an effort to check the megalomaniac Sabbac and his demon-powered crown. And while he did indeed check Sabbac—checked him right into whatever afterlife awaited him, in fact—he wasn’t exactly surgical in his strike. If Sabbac was a wildfire in serious need of quenching, Teth-Adam was a hurricane, exacting his own sort of disaster.

The wizards looked at the wreckage of Kahndaq, shook their heads sadly and decided to imprison Teth-Adam for eternity. After all, we can’t have a demigod with anger management issues running around, can we?

‘Course, if they were really serious about keeping Teth-Adam locked up, maybe they shouldn’t have carved the “get out of jail” spell on the door. But that’s just me.

Now, 5,000 years later, Kahndaq is still dealing with its share of problems. It’s controlled by an organization called the Intergang, and its leader is looking for the crown of Sabbac, which (as mentioned) grants its wearer with all sorts of demonic powers. Intrepid archaeologist Adrianna Tomaz and her small band of helpers aims to find the crown before he does, so she can hide it away again. (Perhaps under the sofa cushions.)

In an odd twist of fate (I’m beginning to think these wizards are extraordinarily bad planners), the crown was stored in the very same place where Teth-Adam was. So when the bad guys catch Adrianna with the crown, she releases Teth-Adam and … things get messy.

Moreover, Teth-Adam’s not one to kill scores of people and then just slink back to his prison. No sirree. He’s got a new epoch to explore! People to meet! Buildings to destroy! And given that the Intergang leader still wants the crown, perhaps it’s just as well. Can’t have that crown falling into the wrong hands.

But across the ocean, the Justice Society learns of Teth-Adam’s escape. They, like the wizards of old, know he’s not a nice guy. So they zip over to Kahndaq, hoping to drag the supercharged fella back to jail—before Teth-Adam really starts flexing his muscles.

Positive Elements

Teth-Adam (whom Black Adam is called throughout most of the movie) is an antihero. And we’ll talk loads more about those “anti” tendencies in the sections that follow. But he has some heroic tendencies, too. Adrianna notes that even when she first released him, Teth-Adam’s first instinct was to protect her son, Amon. It’s not the last time Adam protects him, or his mother—and indeed all of Kahndaq celebrates him as their very own “champion.” After millennia of foreign rule, they feel like they need one.

But the Justice Society—especially its leader, Hawkman—reminds Teth-Adam that heroism requires more from us.

“Heroes don’t kill people!” Hawkman tells Teth-Adam.

“Well, I do,” Teth-Adam deadpans.

But Hawkman is ultimately right, of course. If we claim the higher ground, we must walk the higher path.

Adrianna is a loving mom—even if some of the decisions she makes out of that love can be a bit questionable. All the members of the Justice Society are willing to risk their lives for a greater good—and to save each other.

[ Spoiler Warning ] Teth-Adam was not the person the wizards originally chose as their champion. That’d be his son. And indeed, that son proved to be far more worthy of the powers granted to him—serving as protector, champion and all-around good guy. But when bad guys tried to kill Teth-Adam, his son sacrificed his powers to heal his pops—and the son was killed soon thereafter, leaving Teth-Adam in possession of some very nasty abilities and a very serious grudge. Teth-Adam acknowledges that his son was the real hero, not him. And that boy, through his sacrifice, might be the movie’s real hero, too.

Spiritual Elements

When Hawkman suggest that Teth-Adam kneel before their authority (which, admittedly, was a poor choice of words), Teth-Adam says, “I was a slave before I died. Then I was reborn a god. I kneel before no one.”

It’s just one reference we hear to gods and the like in Black Adam . Teth-Adam is classified as a “demigod” once, for instance, and someone says he has “god-like powers” elsewhere. Someone belittles these lowercase “g” forces in the world. “They say the gods control us,” she says, “but we’re the ones who are always burying them.” We do hear someone casually reference an even higher power—saying “God willing.” But that’s the sole reference we get to a truly almighty being.

That’s a little odd, when you think about it, because the movie’s real villain is plucked straight out of the Christian Gehenna.

The crown of Sabbac is imbued with the power and attributes of six demons (the names of which we see very briefly flash on screen), and its wearer turns into a huge demonic entity. He sports horns, manipulates fire and even has a pentagram carved into his chest. The crown’s creator was “obsessed with black magic,” we learn, and his successor brings forth armies from literal hell (which look like skeletons with glowing innards).

One of the Justice Society’s heroes is a guy named Doctor Fate, who’s described as a wizard that wears a helmet several million years old. The helmet gives him the power (among other things) to see into the future, and he often references fate as if that force itself was a god—in control of all things. Doctor Fate acknowledges that the future can be changed. But he also suggests that the ability to see several futures has also made him something of a moral relativist. “You cease to believe in absolutes” he says.

We see a brief glimpse of an afterlife granted by (according to the one entering said afterlife) “the gods.” Teth-Adam says that he condemns people to “the eternal sleep of the damned.” We should note that a couple of the superheroes here have backstories that are explicitly spiritual (and pagan) in the comics that the movie doesn’t really get into.

Sexual Content

Superhuman characters wear form-fitting garb, and a few men are seen shirtless.

Violent Content

Violence is Teth-Adam’s first and, in some ways, only response to any sort of stimuli. And he wastes little time before he starts killing people. He grabs someone by the neck, holds them Darth Vader style and watches as his victim essentially melts. Though that scene’s not bloody, we do see the victim essentially dissolve and skeletonize before the skeleton, too, turns to dust.

It’s the movie’s introduction to Teth-Adam’s violent excesses. Several other bad guys are killed before the antihero even leaves his prison chamber (most electrocuted, some thrown against rock walls). Outside, he obliterates a well-armed force—grabbing missiles in mid-air and sending them flying back to the trucks that sent them, ripping apart helicopters and even sticking a grenade in someone’s mouth. Explosions rip through the desert landscape. Corpses lie everywhere. Again, it’s not bloody, but the casualty count is significant.

Elsewhere, Teth-Adam drops people from dizzying heights or throws them across several zip codes. Some of these victims are saved—at least temporarily—by Hawkman. But clearly, Teth-Adam has little regard for the lives of those who oppose him. He talks about snapping someone’s neck 5,000 years ago, and in a flashback we see the cataclysmic blast that nearly wiped out the civilization that Teth-Adam was apart of. Hawkman bluntly tells him that he’s “murdering” people.

But, of course, when the Justice Society tries to take Teth-Adam into custody, they get swept into his mayhem anyway. Most of their battle takes place in the middle of a city. Cars are hurled and buildings are destroyed. And while we don’t see any casualties, we can guess that not everyone escaped injury.

Elsewhere, people are zapped into painful nothingness. Characters are sometimes skewered by various weapons (though the characters being mainly superheroes, some fare surprisingly well). We see several fights and beatdowns, and Adrianna’s son is nearly shot and killed. A boy is peppered with arrows and dies. Someone’s throat is apparently slit. A character is nearly beheaded before mysteriously vanishing. People dispatch hordes of skeleton-creatures rather handily. Teth-Adam is wounded by a bit of Eternium (a very powerful metal in the DC universe).

Crude or Profane Language

About five s-words and a clutch of other profanities, including “a–,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p-ss” and the British profanity “bloody.” God’s name is misused once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Other negative elements.

Amon, Adrianna’s son, can sometimes feel disrespectful. Characters lie.

While not explicitly negative, Black Adam does seem to nod at some subtle socio-political commentary. Intergang runs checkpoints that (especially given the movie’s Middle Eastern setting) call to mind Israeli checkpoints of Palestinian communities. Kahndaq’s fervent desire for self-determination might call to mind Palestine, as well—but also might remind people of the Arab Spring of 2010 or 2011. Kahndaq’s less-than-cordial welcome of the Justice Society (DC’s full title, the Justice Society of America, is never given here) might also point to American and allied operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And certainly, Teth-Adam reveals himself to be a champion against foreign intervention of any kind. “Not your country, not your choice,” he tells Hawkman at one point. Again, not necessarily negative, but whether it is or not might be dependent on what you think of a whole range of real-world issues.

The central question of Black Adam (of which the titular character, in the DC comics, has been Shazam’s prime villain for decades) is a simple one: What, exactly, makes a hero?

For Amon, Adrianna’s teen son, the answer is simple enough: power and cultural/national affinity. That’s the case for much of Kahndaq, as well, a people who nearly worship Teth-Adam as a savior, in spite of his excesses.

“The world doesn’t always need a white knight,” someone tells us. “Sometimes it needs something darker.”

But does it? It seems like an argument that Boramir might offer in The Fellowship of the Ring —an argument to use Sauron’s One Ring, this corruptive thing of evil, rather than destroy it.

Compromise very often leads to corruption. But in the guise of the ever-likable Dwayne Johnson, Black Adam makes its charismatic case that the world sometimes does need something darker. When Hawkman tries to take some bad guys in alive for questioning, Kahndaq’s residents boo. When Teth-Adam summarily murders them, they cheer. Hawkman can sometimes come across as a pharisaical goody-goody, unequipped to deal with life’s messier moments. “It’s [Black Adam’s] darkness that lets him do what heroes like you cannot,” he’s told.

“I guess we’ll see,” Hawkman says—alluding to a bevy of future DC movies where Black Adam may be a villain, or a hero, or both.

The film technically condemns Teth-Adam’s excesses while encouraging the audience to, at least in part, excuse (and maybe even applaud) them. It’s just one friction point in a movie full of them, both aesthetically and ethically.

Black Adam also feels both rushed and shallow—another DC attempt to wow us with action and bombast without ever grappling with the characters wearing the capes, the men and women under the masks. The content falls well in line with what we’ve come to expect from superhero fare; but its spirituality is dark and its morals seem conflicted.

“I’m no hero,” Teth-Adam tells us. And while I’d wholeheartedly agree, the movie itself doesn’t seem so sure.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Black Adam review: New superheroes and villains rise, but the slog remains the same

The DCEU expands with its B team, promoted to an underwhelming movie of its own.

Senior Editor, Movies

Being steeped in comics lore is a very different thing than being emotionally invested in a movie. Suffice to say, there are people — many people — who have been anticipating a Black Adam spinoff for years. But apart from a fleeting end-credits scene which we won't spoil here, none of the film's DC Comics-derived characters, major or minor, will be recognizable to nonfans. The fact that they haven't gotten franchises of their own speaks not to unearthed gold but the restless, insatiable appetite of today's superhero industrial complex (a phrase actually uttered in Black Adam 's dialogue), now moving onto the crumbs. It's a bit like wandering into another family's heated domestic argument already in progress.

If you just go with it, though, you'll get a pre-chewed experience that's vaguely familiar and generic, but with a subversive zag or two that shouldn't be discounted. Black Adam (now in theaters) begins with a breathless, boy-narrated rush through thousands of years of history sketching the fictional Middle Eastern country of Kahndaq; before your eyes glaze over, the takeaways are: oppressed slaves, glowing blue crown of power, a hero will rise, etc. Today's Kahndaq — sun-blasted, overcrowded, specked with military checkpoints and British-accented soldiers — indicates the anti-colonialist movie that Black Adam sometimes gestures at (as forcefully as a multimillion-dollar product from a global media conglomerate can).

When that hero does rise, floating ominously above the city, he's Teth-Adam ( Dwayne Johnson ), immortal, accidentally freed from his prison tomb, and not hip to today's morality, never mind its wokeness. Johnson has gone on record about his longtime obsession with the character, yet, in a paradox more interesting than the movie itself, he's distinctly unsuited for the role, despite his build. As an actor, the Rock has been not merely serviceable but terrific in parts that lean on his speed and slyness. ( Michael Bay , of all people, got something subtle out of him in 2013's underrated Pain & Gain .) "Glower!" you'll yell at the screen, but Johnson's not the glowering type.

The viciousness feels unearned; Black Adam bends over backward to link its antihero to Clint Eastwood's iconic Man with No Name, but apart from a few flashes of PG-13 gore (signature-free Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra grasps for the vibe of Terminator 2: Judgment Day ), the film is unusually toothless. It doesn't help that the plot brings on a whole host of nobodies — Doctor Fate! ( Pierce Brosnan ), Cyclone! ( Quintessa Swindell ), Atom Smasher! ( Noah Centineo ), Hawkman! ( Aldis Hodge ) — all of them bent on trying to take down the one mildly interesting presence in the film. Black Adam is what happens when artists say they want to go dark but don't really have the stomach for it. Cue scenes of humorless mid-air wrestling, shake vigorously, wait for the sequel. Grade: C+

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‘Black Adam’ Review: Heroism, but Paint It Black

Dwayne Johnson stars in this overstuffed superhero film about an ancient figure granted god powers.

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By Maya Phillips

Behold: the proselytizing superhero film! Listen as it cautions against moral absolutism! It is not the hero movie we need but, thanks to what’s now a tradition of beloved comic book stories shazam-ed into empty Hollywood schlock, it is the hero movie we deserve.

Which brings us to “Black Adam,” a dull, listless superhero movie that hits all the expected touchstones of the genre under the guise of a transgressive new antihero story.

We begin with a briskly delivered tragic back story involving a magical demon crown, a gaggle of wizards and a people’s rebellion in an ancient land called Kahndaq. We then skip forward 5,000 years to modern-day Kahndaq, a poor yet futuristic country that, for generations, has been under siege by various mercenary groups. Adrianna (Sarah Shahi), an Indiana Jones-esque Kahndaqi professor turned artifact hunter, is searching for the aforementioned diadem of doom, with help from her bumbling brother, Karim (Mohammed Amer), and hero-obsessed son, Amon (Bodhi Sabongui).

Adrianna summons Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson), the champion of ancient Kahndaq who was granted god powers by the same sorcerer who — surprise! — transformed the teenage Billy Batson into the red-spandex-wearing capester Shazam (Zachary Levi) in that 2019 DC action-comedy .

But Black Adam has some rage issues and an inconvenient habit of zapping baddies to death with his lightning powers, so of course, according to the rules of superhero franchises, a superteam must unite to confront him: Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), a meek genius in colorful threads who can manipulate the wind; Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), a rookie hero who’s just trying his best; Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), a Doctor Strange type in a knight helmet; and Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), the leader of this so-called Justice Society of America (not to be confused with the Justice League of America).

Afflicted by the all-too-common Overstuffed Hero Movie Syndrome, “Black Adam,” directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, flies past exposition and speeds through character introductions and back stories — for those who even get back stories — leaving us with a hero epic that fails to build emotional stakes or vivify its characters enough to make us care.

At least we’re promised gritty no-holds-barred action, right? Think again: That promise is mercilessly broken with an orgy of crude special effects set to an intrusive, tonally idiosyncratic score including the Stones’ “Paint It, Black.” (Because he’s Black Adam, get it?)

And if you thought the time of action movies using slow-motion as a crutch was over, “Black Adam” has bad news for you. Even fight scenes with resurrected hell demons and villains torn in half like sheets of loose-leaf are rendered yawn-worthy and downright juvenile.

It doesn’t help that our antihero is as exciting as, well, a flying rock in a cape. Johnson floats through scenes with his furiously furrowed brow and an expression stubbornly frozen between consternation and confusion. He, and the film, can capture neither the seriousness nor the humor it aspires to; Johnson attempts to cover up his signature lighthearted comedic delivery with a stony deadpan that sucks all levity from each scene he’s in.

Centineo and Amer are saddled with the responsibility to provide comic relief as goofy sidekick types, but both hit the same flat notes. Adam’s comedic beats, on the other hand, are limited to his lunkheaded responses to the other characters’ coaching on proper hero etiquette (“Catchphrase, then kill,” he repeats densely after Amon).

The hero tips are essential to the film’s pontificating about justice and its lumbering setup of Adam as the alternate hero for an age that requires more nuanced codes of integrity and more aggressive action. Heroes like Superman and Aquaman are out being saviors, but they have conveniently overlooked Kahndaq, Amon says to Adam, suggesting that even the world’s finest do-gooders can be selective and unfair when it comes to fighting evil.

“There are only heroes and villains,” says Hawkman, a character who, despite Hodge’s solid performance, is unbelievably saddled with this reductive mind-set; that way, the movie can remake the same point it spends two hours repeating. “The world doesn’t need a white knight; sometimes it needs something darker,” Doctor Fate says, presenting the film’s thesis — which, by the way, was more eloquently expressed 14 years ago in “The Dark Knight.”

If, as the credits roll for “Black Adam,” you’re still stuck wondering what defines a bad hero or a good antihero, know that at least the film clarifies one thing: What makes a bad hero movie.

Black Adam Rated PG-13 for bad guys meeting violent, untimely ends. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters.

Maya Phillips is a critic at large. She is the author of the poetry collection “Erou” and “NERD: Adventures in Fandom From This Universe to the Multiverse,” forthcoming from Atria Books. More about Maya Phillips

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“Black Adam,” Reviewed: Dwayne Johnson Emerges from a Tomb and Finds Nothing

By Richard Brody

There’s nothing so wrong with “Black Adam” that it should be avoided, but nothing—besides the appealing presence of Dwayne Johnson—that makes it worth rushing out to see. The movie’s many small flaws—and even its few small virtues—arise from its one big problem, namely, its positioning in the DC corporate-cinematic empire. It isn’t worse than many of the big-budget C.G.I. superhero spectacles that have more or less taken over studio filmmaking, but it accumulates the genre’s—and the business’s—bad habits into a single two-hour-plus package, and only hints at the format’s occasional pleasures. “Black Adam” feels like a place-filler for a movie that’s remaining to be made, but, in its bare and shrugged-off sufficiency, it does one positive thing that, if nothing else, at least accounts for its success: for all the churning action and elaborately jerry-rigged plot, there’s little to distract from the movie’s pedestal-like display of Johnson, its real-life superhero.

It begins with an immense backstory of mumbo-jumbo, set in 2600 B.C.E., in a fictitious Middle Eastern or North African land called Kahndaq, where a tyrant named Ahk-Ton (Marwan Kenzari) enslaves his subjects to dig for a mineral called Eternium with which he’ll forge a superpowered crown. One young subject, however, rebels and exhorts his countrymen to revolt; he is endowed with his own superheroic power that’s summoned with the word “shazam,” and, in the resulting melee, Akh-Ton is killed and his palace is blown to rubble. Flash forward to present-day Kahndaq: it’s occupied by a paramilitary crime ring called Intergang, and a trio of dissidents led by an archeologist named Adrianna (Sarah Shahi), and helped by her teen-age son, Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), are searching, among remote subterranean ruins, for the crown in the hope of its aiding their resistance. When Intergang follows and attacks them there, she summons (“Shazam!”) the hero of 2600 B.C.E., Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson), from his four thousand-plus of years in an underground tomb. He emerges and lays waste to the assailants.

But this seemingly invulnerable liberator, who catches R.P.G.s and hurls blue thunderbolts, is viewed with suspicion by the American agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, reprising this role from the two recent Suicide Squad movies). In order to stop him, she unites the so-called Justice Society—Carter Hall, a.k.a. Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), who’s endowed with wings and a beak; Kent Nelson, a.k.a. Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), who, by means of his golden helmet, can see the future; Maxine Hunkel, a.k.a. Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), who swirls up devastating green windstorms; and Al Rothstein, a.k.a. Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), who can expand to the size of a city walkup, or taller. (Al’s uncle gets a seconds-long cameo, and it’s one of the movie’s few highlights: Henry Winkler.)

That’s where the movie’s philosophical dimension comes in. Teth-Adam is an angry man, still seething over what happened in ancient Kahndaq, and his mores are atavistic, with no compunctions about the use of violence, the practice of killing, the collateral damage of mass destruction. (He also sees a TV set for the first time—which, with primeval wisdom, he blasts to smithereens.) But the Justice Society protests: they believe, as Hawkman says, in “due process,” and they warn him to lay off the “extrajudicial killings.” Try as they might, they can’t rein the invulnerable fighter in by force, but, when he himself recognizes the danger posed by his rage, he allows himself to be reëntombed—and gagged—in order not to utter the magic word again. Then a brutal revenant from early Kahndaq seeks—with the aid of smoldering, ancient zombies—to restore Akh-Ton’s dynasty, and the Justice Society needs Teth-Adam back.

In contrast to the 2019 movie “ Shazam !,” which treats its premise with an apt silliness that yields an unusually amiable superhero comedy, “Black Adam,” sparked by its historical backstory and its enduring implications in current-day political conflict, has a thudding earnestness that its specifics belie. Thus, Davis and Hodge offer performances of grand severity (Davis’s diction alone could smash concrete) that belong to the Shakespearean movie in which neither has yet been cast. Brosnan coasts charmingly in a role that offers him nothing but elegant manners; Swindell and Centineo are part of a Y.A. romance that’s itself entombed in anticipation of a sequel. As for Johnson, he has the star power and the physical prowess to hold attention with minimal fuss, but the role itself, with its tragic implications and mighty gestures, is rote and empty. (I’m still waiting for Johnson to find his way into another movie that offers him as exuberant a showcase as did “ Pain and Gain ”; his talent is far greater than most of his vehicles, no pun intended.) Teth-Adam’s struggles with himself, the weight of his memories, the rise of self-awareness, even the simple fact of his encounters with a new world (trivialized in a single line of dialogue) turn the hero into a mere plaything of the rickety plot, which appears to add its byways as part of a just-so story crafted to yield a franchise.

If the wry details that glitter on the movie’s surface—such as Amon’s effort to teach Teth-Adam the proper use of a catchphrase, or Teth-Adam’s introduction to the concept of sarcasm—stand out in memory, it’s because the substance that it attaches to dries up and blows away like the ashes of half the universe at the end of “Avengers: Infinity War.” What “Black Adam” lacks is the sense of a point of view; even the Russo brothers’ armchair-army bluster in Marvel epics suggests a greater sense of personality, of personal commitment and aesthetic attitude, than the synthetic enormity of “Black Adam.” Jaume Collet-Serra, the movie’s director, comes off as a skillful coördinator whose connection to the very essence of superheroes, their fantastic natures and outsized powers, seems merely technical, a problem to be solved rather than a realm of limitless possibilities.

Those limitless possibilities are part of the reason that superhero movies aptly wore out their critical welcomes very quickly. As ultra-high-budget tentpole productions meant for international consumption, these films have production demands that tend to dominate the imagination of direction, with only a few notable exceptions, such as “ Ant-Man ,” “ Black Panther ,” and “ Man of Steel ” (or, for that matter, brief exceptional interludes within unexceptional films, such as “ Doctor Strange ”). There’s something morally deadening and aesthetically depressing about the bottomless toy chest of C.G.I. being reduced to the toolbox of cinematic bureaucracy.

It’s no less numbing to find material meant for children retconned for adults—and, in the process, for most of the naïve delight to be leached out, and for any serious concerns to be shoehorned in and then waved away with dazzle and noise. With no discernible artistic perspective, “Black Adam” offers a moral realm that draws no lines, a personal one of simplistic stakes, a political one that suggests any interpretation, an audiovisual one that rehashes long-familiar tropes and repackages overused devices for a commercial experiment that might as well wear its import as its title. When I was in Paris in 1983, Jerry Lewis—yes, they really did love him there—had a new movie in theatres. In the U.S., it was originally titled “Smorgasbord” (and later reissued as “ Cracking Up ”); in France, they adored him so that they released it as “T’es fou Jerry”—“You’re Crazy, Jerry.” “Black Adam” could be retitled “You’re a Superhero, Dwayne”—it’s the marketing team’s PowerPoint presentation extended to feature length. ♦

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