DCEU Review Series
Black Adam
2022
Director: Juame Collet-Serra
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The film opens with a prologue about slavery and freedom and how what turns out to be Black Adam’s son got his powers from the Wizard Shazam. We’re then brought to present day in a fictional Arabic city which represents all the crappy Arabic cities in the world. It is run by Intergang which has financial backings from Apokolips in the comics. Black Adam is resurrected and crazy action goes down. He takes out an entire army in seconds.
Amanda Whaler pops on screen and starts talking to Hawkman about the Black Adam appearance. We then get the boring ass DC ensemble cast introduction of the Justice Society. For some reason DC is obsessed with character introductions whenever Amanda Whaler is a character in their films. Why, why, why do they insist on doing this? It’s absolute torture and ruins films. Stop dumbing down your story for the audience. If you’re writing is good, they’ll figure it out as the story progresses.
There’s a bunch of slow exposition which is vaguely attempted as character development. The director does his best to try and keep in interesting by moving the characters and actors around. It’s flashy smoke and mirrors trying to distract from poor writing.
The Justice Society shows up and squares off against Black Adam while he’s doing his anti-hero thing. Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman is a complete copy of Anthony Mackie’s Falcon from the MCU but let’s not dig too deep into that. The Mackie impersonation makes Hodge’s character very likable. The people of the city side with Black Adam instead of the Justice Society which makes sense because he’s actually fighting Intergang instead of saving them.
Throughout the film we’re riddled with this annoying kid Amon Tomaz who basically reminds Black Adam of his son. So Black Adam keeps saving him. Also, Tomaz mother has some crown which will resurrect some evil yada yada McGuffin. Every time Black Adam saves him, the kid appreciates it but has to toss some criticism at Black Adam. Maybe don’t put yourself in danger all the time and Black Adam won’t have to save you, ever think of that dumbass?
The film does not disappoint with the action which is what makes this a fun watch despite some weak story telling. Amon Tomaz gets kidnapped. Black Adam works his anti-hero mojo to try and find him and it pisses off most of the Justice Society. They find the magic crown in the process. The crown is to be offered as a trade from Amon Tomaz, during the exchange crap goes down and Amon Tomaz gets hurt but he’s basically okay. This leads to the full backstory and we learn Black Adam’s son was the true hero and he gave his power to his dad which resulted in his son’s death. Black Adam bugs out, kills his oppressors, gets imprisoned by the Shazam wizards.
Black Adam agrees to go into captivity via the Justice Society but the bad guy hasn’t been defeated yet. So we all know he’s going to bust out and comeback to save the day. The question is how clumsily will this derivative plot point occur. The evil King Sabbac rises up and the Justice Society cannot handle it. Dr Fate sacrifices himself and convinces Black Adam to bust out of the cage he’s been in for like 15 minutes and fight Sabbac.
Black Adam and Hawkman fight Sabbac together and destroy him. The city is saved. Black Adam vows to protect the city. The credits roll, the mid credit scene Amanda Whaler has things to say to him about bullshit which doesn’t matter. Henry Cavil’s Superman makes a cameo, instead of just his stunt double in a suit like in Shazam, implying we’d have some cool showdown between the two in another movie. It never happens. Instead it’s the last appearance to-date of Henry Cavil as Superman since DC decides to burn off their next few films and reboot their franchise from scratch at its conclusion.
Black Adam certainly has its flaws but overall it’s not a terrible film. The theme of having a hero who needs to do bad things is a horrible theme. That’s what hurts this film. The message is hard to support and also so heavy handed. You can respect an anti-hero like in The Suicide Squad but having the need to justify a character’s actions makes for poor writing. Bad guys can be bad and do good things. If Black Adam was just a guy who distributed justice on his own terms without a boring lecture on his need to do so, it would have been a much better film for it.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
