Black Adam Movie Review: Ambivalent Approach Mars Origin Story

The much awaited Dwayne Johnson produced film Black Adam has hit the screens but its ambition of energising the young DC fans is up for challenge. Black Adam has a near 5000-year legacy that is awoken by incidents that affect his home city Khandaq.

One understands the DC comic book origins but the lack of consistent development and distinctive character traits in the script and the over-abundance of VFX make this experience an uneven one.

Black Adam wields overwhelming force and only the JSA (Justice Society of America - a sort of Junior Justice League) has the combined power to maybe contain him. Now, why the JSA has to be part of this exercise at franchise development, is anybody's guess.

There's no concrete reason for Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) to butt into Adam's exclusive business, and the attempt to veer him off course feels like an ego feed rather than strictly necessary.

This half-hearted attempt at creating challenges for the overwhelming might of Black Adam is one of the haphazardly put-together script's many weaknesses.

The narrative raises many issues but there's no resolution to be had for most of them. Even the vicious Intergang that controls Khandaq, exists only to shore up the oppression.

Everything here is pretty much vague and inconclusive. Hints of a connection to various DC franchise superheroes are all very well, but if the origin story itself fails to drum up interest, what chance do the follow-ups have?

Jaume Collet-Serra, the director who hasn't risen in esteem from his B-grade action film oeuvre, doesn't have it in him to make this experience more than passably entertaining.

Dwayne Johnson has a strong presence but his attempts at levity fall flat and the rest of the actors fail to make their presence felt strongly.

The plotting is rather wayward, scatter-brained to be precise, for most of this film's runtime. The flashy pyrotechnics fail to heighten the action thrills and the jokey tone feels rather amateurish.

While 'Shazam' the invocation is uttered quite frequently, Zachary Levi's boy-turned-hero from David F Sandberg's immensely likable 2019 film, fails to show up. And that's a huge disappointment for those looking to balance out this revved-up, blistering saga of powerful superheroes trying to be one-up on each other instead of banishing evil from the world - with some genuine charm and humour.

Even the attempt to go darker by having Black Adam don the anti-hero mantle and then offering some redemption fails to garner interest.

While kids might yet be enthused by the flashy factitiousness of this origin story, there's not much for an intelligent adult to hold on to here!