DC has scored some decent productions with The Suicide Squad (the latest film, not the first one), Peacemaker and, to a lesser extent, Joker (I still don’t like it, but everybody else seemed to) and The Batman (It was OK). But when DC goes really big, they tend to blow it—and such is the case with their latest cinematic bed-shitting, Black Adam.
Black Adam has no idea what it wants to do with its title character (Dwayne Johnson, sometimes known as The Rock when wrestling is involved). Is Black Adam a villain? Is he a hero? Is he mean? Is he nice? Does he have a big, golden heart in the end, or is he just a big moronic dickhead? Neither the script nor director Jaume Collet-Serra have any idea what to really do here; you can sense that they directed Johnson to just play it neutral.
The result is a central character with zero charisma and next to zero emotions. He’s the Terminator without James Cameron propelling him—a big dumb nothing floating around in the sky, acting like a super sourpuss and draining the film of all positive energy. This thing is dull.
And because this is a DC movie, it needs to be bombastic, CGI-heavy and convoluted to boot. Black Adam reluctantly fights the forces of evil alongside a poor man’s Justice League (called the Justice Society) involving a flying Hawkman (just like Marvel’s Falcon), a big-helmeted psychic guy (sort of a combo of Professor X and Magneto), an atom-crusher guy who grows big (like Ant-Man when he went giant in Civil War) and a woman called Cyclone who is, you guessed it, just like Storm. These characters are the ragtag team trying to give the film a fun Marvel vibe—but instead, the spastic action reminds of the worst of the Transformers movies. Black Adam fits very much into the mold of most DC comic-book movies in that it totally sucks on just about every conceivable level.
This is an extension of the Shazam universe without the fun. The post-credits scene suggests something far more interesting may be coming than anything in the movie before it. Perhaps next time they will figure out the formula, balance out the vibes and deliver something coherent?
Ha ha ha! I crack myself up sometimes! That shit ain’t happening.
Black Adam is playing at theaters across the valley.
