Review of Black Adam (2022) by Subtleknife — 25 Oct 2022

TLDR: Black Adam is the latest film in the DCEU franchise starring Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan. Black Adam isnt bad, but it isnt amazing.

The acting is passable in this film. I don’t mean that negatively towards any of the performances. I feel everyone was doing the best they could with the script they were given. My only small complaint is Dwayne Johnson plays himself like he does in everyone of his movies. This has a certain charm, but it would have been nice to see Black Adam sound and feel a bit different to Dwayne Johnson. The script is my biggest problem with the movie. It needed more time in the writing room. A lot of themes are half baked which is a shame. For instance, there are hints at a deeper friendship between Dr Fate and Hawkman but this is never really developed. Furthermore, Black Adam is supposed to be an antihero. This could have created a really interesting dynamic but it stopped short. I never felt any sense of the character being anything but a hero. He only killed people trying to kill him and they were obviously already bad. An opportunity was missed here.

The movie suffers from an overreliance on CGI like most modern superhero movies. What is worse, there were a few times in the film where the CGI was noticeably bad. If you are going to rely on CGI, then you need to ensure it is not obvious. To sum up…it is tolerable. It wont win any Oscars or Razzies and I don’t feel like a wasted my money on buying a ticket…especially with the after credits cameo. But, I was more excited during the cameo than I was in the whole film. I only hope a sequel would take full advantage of the character of Black Adam as this movie certainly has not.