Black Adam Movie Review – A True Turning Point for The DC Universe

Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods and imprisoned just as quickly-Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.

Overview

Honestly, back when Black Adam was announced and a trailer was shown for the movie, people immediately wrote it off because it was Dwayne The Rock John and DC Comics. It was only the true fans of DC that got excited about the movie. I was one of those, I’ve been excited to see this movie for countless years now.

I feel like this movie did a fantastic job of setting up a new era of DC movies going forward. They’ve opened the door for more magic, mystic, and “out there” movies with this movie being heavily focused on magic.

The idea of introducing the Justice Society into the DC Extended Universe was sort of written off because of everything that has gone on surrounding the Justice League over the past couple of years. I’ve seen people say they are trying to replace them when in fact this movie does a great job of establishing this as a separate group.

The setting for this movie is perfect. Kahndaq was shown to be a much more civilized and corrupt city were as per the movie, international mercenaries and essentially terrorists come to earn money, do illegal stuff, and more.

I don’t want to say that the city of Kahndaq is similar to Wakanda because it is not but Kahndaq gave me the same vibes as Wakanda. What I mean by this is simply the history, the culture, the representation, and more. I truly loved seeing all of this and what it meant to the people of Kahndaq.

Story

I went into this pretty much with an empty mindset. I watched the trailers but everything else revolving around the story I stayed away from. The story was great for the most part. I enjoyed it, could it have been better? Sure.

I did enjoy the fact that this story was essentially people wanting a champion to return so that they can return to the correct ways that Kahndaq was known to be. I enjoyed that. What I slightly didn’t enjoy was the villain’s arc.

The story in my opinion spent a fair amount of time establishing both Black Adam and the Justice Society, as well as Adrianna and her son. I felt like with the Justice Society you got the two heavy hitters in Hawkman and Dr. Fate who had some decent introductions while Atom Smasher and Cyclone were shown and quickly moved on. It showcased that the latter two are not essentially “big time” yet.

While the movie was serious, it showcased a lot of important stuff within the city of Kahndaq, I do like how we had some comedic lines of dialogue and moments throughout. It wasn’t forced, it didn’t cringe, it was just right. It’s hard to do that in movies as of late, Thor: Love and Thunder was a big mistake on the comedic front.

Characters

Onto characters. I loved every single one of them. Especially Dr. Fate and Hawkman. I’ll begin with Black Adam. This was exactly what I expect from Black Adam. I expected this ruthless, no-mercy, strike-first mentality, and Dwayne delivered that in every single scene he was in, especially his opening scene.

The Justice Society was perfect. It showcased that while all of them are heroes, there is a level system to it. Obviously, Hawkman and Dr. Fate are veterans. They’ve done this hero thing for a long time. Cyclone is early in her hero career while Atom Smasher is literally just joining into this. The man didn’t even have his own suit.

Adrianna played by Sarah Shahi was really interesting. She felt like an important character in this overall story and she was overly done. She knew the city of Kahndaq wanted a champion and was willing to put her own safety to get that done.

More character’s I would like to visit within the DC Extended Universe is Intergang. This operation was essentially the villain of the story. This movie set them up as an established army. I want to know more about it. How did they get so big, how did they get some of the technology they used?

For the full cast list, you can visit IMDB by clicking here.

Hype

The hype around this movie has been crazy within the past week or two. While I’ve seen mostly positive stuff from tweets, videos, posts, and more, there have been certain groups that want to drive the hype down and essentially kill the movie hype.

They’ve been pushing the narrative that the movie sucks because of the critic score, but the audience score speaks volumes. As well as the box office numbers. The audience score is 90% and the movie earned $140 million on the worldwide box office opening weekend.

Favorite Moments

1. The debut of Black Adam. It was fantastic. One of the best action sequences in a DC movie for a long time. It was brutal, crazy, explosive, action-packed, and none stop destruction by Black Adam. The camera work in this sequence was godly.

2. The introduction of the Justice Society. Each member had their respective entrance. It showcased that some heroes can be wealthy, like Hawkman. It seems like he has billions. While Dr. Fate has his own wealth too while Atom Smasher and Cyclone don’t have much.

3. Atom Smasher becomes six stories high and stops Black Adam with his hand until Black Adam gets even angrier and punches Atom Smasher and knocks him out instantly. Atom Smasher was such an interesting character.

4. Any fight scene and dialogue between Black Adam and Hawkman. Their “feud” was perfect. It felt raw, it felt real, and it felt personal. They went back and forth pretty much all film and I was hooked on all of it.

5. Dr. Fate vs Sabbac. This fight scene was the will of magic, who was most powerful, and who was more skilled. This was Dr. Fate’s “goodbye”. He saw Hawkman’s death throughout the movie but while he saw that he also saw the way to stop it from happening, to “sacrifice” himself. This scene was great, it showed how powerful Dr. Fate was. He manages to hold a magic field, he managed to replicate himself, and managed to speak to Teth Adam, and teleport a replica to his containment cell to release him, all while fighting Sabbac.

6. I think that the end credit scene was a big shock to everyone. Superman is back and this time isn’t a shadow or headless like he was in Shazam 1. Henry Cavill was there and even spoke and teased a showdown between Superman and Black Adam. This is why the Rock fought for Superman, This is why The Rock will save DC Comics.

Dislikes

1. I would have liked to see more backstory on the Intergang. I feel like they established themselves decently well throughout the movie, I feel like we could have got a lot more scenes with them. I want to know how they became to be.

2. Amanda Waller. I like her, she’s a fantastic character and Viola Davis is unmatched when it comes to being evil. She’s perfect, however, I feel like we should be seeing more of her. Since The Suicide Squad, we’ve seen Amanda Waller show up in projects via a zoom call and leave. Slightly annoying.

Recommend?

Would I recommend it? Hell to the yes. This movie is a new beginning for the DCEU. This movie opens doors for countless movies or series going forward and you will not be disappointed by it.

Verdict

Overall, a new direction for DC Comics with The Rock being involved. This movie was a wild, action-packed, exciting movie. This movie showcased properly culturally appropriated features while delivering a fantastic story. The characters introduced were perfect too.

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Rating: 9.1/10

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Black Adam is available in cinemas worldwide. You can visit here for more information on Black Adam.