Black Adam Disappoints The DC Universe

The Rock’s newest film, Black Adam, doesn’t meet the insane hype built around it.

Buildup

The newest film in the DC universe, Black Adam, stars none other than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. With months of intense hype building around the film, mainly from The Rock himself, the expectations for this movie were somewhat higher than usual. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat of a letdown, considering the film was essentially 2 hours of loud music soundtracks and action sequences.

Weak Storyline

The story follows Teth Adam (played by The Rock), who has superpowers but has been locked away for thousands of years. Obviously, someone releases him, and he gets a little out of control. Amanda Waller, who you may remember from the suicide squad, sends a team to contain Adam. The rest of the film follows the struggle between the two sides to get along while trying to save the world. The plot is relatively predictable, which surprisingly isn’t even the problem here. The main problem is the underlying storyline which looks pretty rushed and random. If they had spent more time building the flashback up and giving the audience a deeper understanding of the storyline, then the rest of the film may have been more meaningful.

Positives

Surprisingly, there were a couple of positives, starting with Dr. Fate, played by Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan creates a very intriguing and refreshing character to life, which helps cut through the chaos that goes on throughout the film. But it isn’t only him; you can also tell how seriously The Rock plays his character and how committed he is. He seems to care about having a lasting presence in the DC Universe. The other main thing that added to the film was the incredible action scenes. The choreography and VFX were pretty high quality, along with the blasting music that helped create epic scenes. However, they might have overdone this as several repetitive action-packed, music-filled scenes get a little old.

Negatives

Unfortunately, there are several negatives, primarily the rushed underlying storyline highlighted earlier. However, additionally, there is little to no development for the majority of the characters. The entire movie mainly focuses on Adam destroying things and fighting people. Most of the characters stay the same for the entire duration and don’t get their personalities, traits, or anything else significantly developed. There’s also a fragile villain arc that is pathetic. For half of the movie, the audience believes that Adam is the villain until the real villain joins the party halfway into the film. Eventually, the entire movie ends with a short and pathetic climax that’s highly unsatisfying. Usually, when movies are random, disconnected, and mediocre, the one thing that can save them is an abundance of comedy. However, the film had minimal humor, although the small bits here and there were somewhat funny.

Closing Critiques

At the end of the day, it’s a superhero film. It’s meant to be watched without too deep of an analysis, which is fair. At the surface level, you can see how the movie may be enjoyable to watch casually on the weekends with friends. But to anyone that really pays attention or is a comic buff, you’re going to be in for a long, loud, and chaotic two hours.

Raving Rating: 6.3