An entity with the power of the Gods is freed from his prison and begins a campaign to exact his revenge in Jaume Collet-Serra’s Black Adam.

This is a film that has reportedly been in the works for around 15 years. It’s a passion project for Dwayne Johnson who has managed to use his star clout to convince Warner Bros. to invest in this so here we have Black Adam. The character started out as a Captain Marvel -or Shazam!- villain but Dwayne Johnson’s involvement demands he be the lead so the concept turns into an anti-hero story of sorts with Johnson playing the title character becoming a hero on his own terms.

Dwayne Johnson is undoubtedly a massive star with whatever he appears in gaining attention by virtue of his involvement. He is an actor with proven range as evidenced by some of his earlier roles but in recent years he has been leaning on his star power and turning in performances that are largely interchangeable. That combined with his physical presence and very active public persona makes it difficult to see any of his roles as actual characters as he fails to disappear into them. This is, of course, nothing new. Actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean Claude Van Damme etc made careers out of being the tough action man at the centre of a film and audiences would be drawn to what they were guaranteed to bring to the table. Johnson is almost the modern equivalent, though this film does signify a departure from his typical cinema persona.

Oddly, Johnson departing from his standard persona is one of the things that lets this film down. Teth Adam -as he is known early on- is not an emotive character which means that Johnson doesn’t get to make use of his charisma. There is an emotional story behind Teth Adam that the film delivers but Johnson’s performance is so deliberately one-note that it doesn’t land in the way that it needs to. It does suit the character as a relentless vengeance-driven engine of destruction but there’s an emotional disconnect between what the audience is told about the character and how he expresses how he feels about it that makes it difficult to connect with.

Teth Adam is the least interesting character the film has to offer. His backstory is something the film takes a lot of time to flesh out and the script plays with how time and perspective alter historic events in mildly interesting ways but without a strong emotional connection to the eventual clarification, it falls flat. The rest of the time Teth Adam is an unstoppable force with no equal who becomes a folk hero because a lot of his rage is turned on those oppressing a Middle Eastern country. The film aggressively repeats Teth Adam being challenged, declaring how powerful he is and then proving how powerful he is. It very quickly becomes frustrating seeing him engage in countless fights he has absolutely no chance of losing. A couple of weaknesses are established but never made proper use of.

Black Adam does contain some interesting characters in the Justice Society. Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) are the team tasked with dealing with the emergence of Teth Adam and as a group, they work really well. Their interactions aren’t forced and the balance of experience across the group makes for a compelling dynamic. They also exhibit a strong variety of abilities that justifies their presence as a potential match for the threat they collectively face. Having them not seen as heroes by the people of the country was a nice touch though the question of heroes and their boundaries is never actually addressed. It also gets bogged down in the ever-raging debate over whether superheroes should kill without ever saying much about it.

Dr. Fate is fascinatingly enigmatic and Pierce Brosnan is excellent in the role. The character has more than enough mileage to carry a film of his own but he is used brilliantly in this. Hawkman has less depth but is interesting in how his view of justice differs from Teth Adam’s. It leads to a natural conflict between them as their worldviews become what they are fighting about.  Cyclone and Atom Smasher are largely considered collectively with Cyclone particularly fading into the background. Atom Smasher is very much a rookie with a lot to learn which is reflected in his making a lot of mistakes. Surprisingly, his rookie status is unresolved by the end which makes his inexperience feel more real.

Notably, the film doesn’t spend much time going into their origin stories as they aren’t relevant to the plot. Black Adam may be dubious in how it connects to other DC movies but it exists in a fully developed universe with superheroes and advanced technology with no time wasted developing that universe. The audience is trusted to accept the universe as it’s presented so it acts as a lived-in backdrop with a wider scope.

Other non-powered characters exist such as Sarah Shahi’s Adrianna, her son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) and her brother Karim (Mohammed Amir). They exist to represent the country as well as help Teth Adam on his journey to identifying as a protector. They work well enough as a representation of the setting and Amon in particular helps contextualise the universe the film inhabits. They don’t do much to rise out of their shallow narrative functions and sometimes get lost in the chaos.

Black Adam features a relentless onslaught of property-destroying set pieces where various parties try and fail to defeat the invincible opponent. A lot has been made of Johnson’s contractual inability to sustain serious harm in his starring roles and that’s certainly evident here. A lot of things make Teth Adam very difficult to relate to and invest in and his invulnerability is one of them. Invincible characters like Superman exist and face similar problems in having stories constructed around them. There are many stories where he is challenged in other ways like facing intellectual or emotional situations and the Henry Cavill movies tried to solve the problem by having him face opponents that could challenge him physically but Black Adam offers none of those things for Teth Adam. Nothing he encounters ever comes across as a credible threat to him so the narrative is built around him being inconvenienced by distractions he has to deal with in pursuit of his vague goal. The third act descends into the typical dull CGI opponent that also offers no credible challenge to him on any level. It’s all so empty and drawn out even if some of the individual sequences stand out as being enjoyable in their own right.

If more attempt had been made to tell a coherent heartfelt story rather than stuffing the film with lots of elements that don’t really go anywhere then Black Adam may have been more than the sum of its parts but the end result is a slog that wastes a lot of the potential it has by burying it under relentless white noise.

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Verdict

Black Adam is not without its merits or potential but it fails to be more than the sum of its parts and ends up as a slog that buries what potential it has under relentless white noise. Dwayne Johnson’s usual charisma is nowhere to be found as his Teth-Adam performance is deliberately one-note. It does suit the character as a relentless vengeance-driven engine of destruction but there’s an emotional disconnect between what the audience is told about the character and how he expresses how he feels about it that makes it difficult to connect with. He is the least interesting character in the film though the different takes on his backstory are intermittently compelling but the film doesn’t make good use of the idea. The Justice Society fare much better with Pierce Brosnan’s Dr. Fate, in particular, standing out. The non-powered characters work well enough but never really rise above their shallow narrative functions. The film is relentless with nearly non-stop property-destroying sequences where Teth Adam is never in any real danger. It also devolves into a dull third-act CGI opponent that represents no credible challenge to Teth Adam. It’s all so empty and drawn out even if some of the individual sequences stand out as being enjoyable in their own right. If more attempt had been made to tell a coherent heartfelt story rather than stuffing the film with lots of elements that don’t really go anywhere then Black Adam may have been more than the sum of its parts but the end result is a slog that wastes a lot of the potential it has by burying it under relentless white noise.

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