Rent Black Adam (2022)

Black Adam review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Here comes another anti-hero to the DCEU. The good news is that Black Adam represents a different dynamic than previous superheroes by being entirely driven by revenge and a desire to squash imperialism. The bad news is that he’s trapped inside a PG-13 movie that feels obliged to stick strictly with the superhero formula. The result is one of the DCEU’s passable entries but also is most frustrating for ALMOST being good.

Dwayne Johnson takes on the role of Black Adam which DC Comics fans have been pushing for many years. Well, the wish is granted and Johnson’s acting style fits about as neatly as you’d expect. Playing a fish-out-of-water wizard overlord, he’s an intimidating presence the way he first shows up and lays waste Intergang. After an exciting sequence of punching people at super speeds and zapping people with super electricity, he shows interest in his home of Kahndaq. Now under the control of the high-tech Intergang crime syndicate, Black Adam fights back violently and the occupied populace applauds his rebellion.

Challenging this violence is the Justice Society, an already assembled ensemble that has apparently been around in the DCEU for decades but was never worth bringing up until this point. This is a rocky introduction to how the film introduces the four members of Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Atom Smasher, and Cyclone. The film does little to explain Fate’s possession and manipulation powers, Hawkman’s origins of Egyptian and alien tech, Atom Smasher’s legacy of living up to his family line, or Cyclone’s pathos. More importantly, though, we don’t know how the Justice Society fully operates. This is particularly concerning when it appears that Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) recruits them in addition to her work with Task Force X. How deep does Waller’s Rolodex of heroes and villains go?

After some genuinely thrilling fight scenes and strong special effects, the topic of Black Adam’s violence and his perceptions of colonization leads to a debate with the Justice Society. This could be a great development if the rest of the film concerned Black Adam trying to remove intergang and subvert Waller’s rule, similar to what happened in The Suicide Squad. Sadly, these topics are mostly chucked aside when the third act focuses entirely on the demonic villain Sabbac. He’s a generic bad guy who wants to take over the world and the only way to beat him is to kill him by ripping the crown off his head and tearing him apart.

Some will note that this film feels like the DCEU getting back to reforming its ways by the inclusion of a certain superhero in the post-credit scene. This inclusion, however, is more baffling than exciting. It raises more questions about where the politics of these characters lie and seems more interested in whether or not this character could beat Black Adam. I don’t really care who could defeat him. I’m more interested in how Black Adam would handle Kahndaq in the modern age where American exceptionalism seems to be an increasing issue in the battle of heroes and villains. That might seem like a tall order but it’s something that Black Adam brings up, talks about, and then just kinda leaves that thread hanging.

Black Adam is an ALMOST-good DCEU entry. There are great ideas present and some great thrills thanks to the well-staged fights and the dry wit of Dwayne Johnson dominating this movie. So much of that potential is squandered by this film keeping things too simple and diverting what could’ve been an intriguing development in DC Comics movies to a bog-standard script of compelling action and lacking commentary.