‘Black Adam’ Is a Superhero Vanity Project, and Little Else

In the modern struggle between story and intellectual property, Black Adam strikes crushing blows for the latter team. A superhero vehicle in which Dwayne “formerly Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson” Johnson tries to turn a comic C-lister into a global mega-star, it’s a mess of ambitions, playing out less like a story (or even a series of carefully crafted set pieces), and more like a sizzle reel of barely connected ideas. Set in the fictitious Middle Eastern—or North African? It’s not quite clear—kingdom of Kahndaq, it’s also Warner Bros.’ attempt to introduce a non-Western superhero to a world dominated by white Batmen and Supermen, but the resultant cultural mishmash only serves to make things murkier.

A prologue set in 2600 BCE arrives with half-hearted voiceover explaining the history of this fictional nation, its tyrannical king Ahk-Ton (Aladdin’s Marwan Kenzari), and the slave boy who rose up against him by borrowing powers from ancient wizards—the same powers as another DC superhero, Shazam, who has his own movie, too. Sounds and images zip by at breakneck speed, and while this can be forgiven for a condensed introductory sequence, it quickly becomes the movie’s aesthetic lingua franca when things shift to present day.

Kahndaq, now a modernized nation, is under the occupation of something called “Intergang,” an organized crime syndicate in the comics, now turned into a military force whose national allegiance (if any) is distinctly unclear. Intergang has been strip-mining Kahndaq for the rare magical resource Eternium, leading local sibling pair Adriana (Sarah Shahi) and Karim (comedian Mohammed “Mo” Amer) to search for Ahk-Ton’s powerful crown made entirely from the material, with the help of their sketchy ally Ishmael (also played by Kenzari; you do the math). A skirmish with Intergang at an ancient tomb leads to Adriana awakening the being who appears to have been Kahndaq’s revered savior all those years ago: the super-fast, super-strong Teth Adam (Johnson), who wreaks havoc on Intergang, and draws the attention of an American superhero task force called the Justice Society. This group comprises experienced heroes Kent/Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan) and Carter/Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), along with newcomers Maxine/Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Al/Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo).

Action ensues.

What ought to be a setup for a fun (if not engaging) battle of powers and perspectives soon devolves into plainness. Every quip, action beat, and dramatic moment feels homogenous, owing to a machine-gun pacing that makes Black Adam seem desperate to pack as much material as possible into its two-hour runtime, while letting absolutely none of it land. The film was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who collaborated with Johnson on Disney’s Jungle Cruise and has also made fun, trashy thrillers in the past (like The Shallows and House of Wax). However, anything Collet-Serra tries to bring to the table visually, whether through over-the-top action or even eye-catching staging, is quickly dulled; the film is distinctly “Collet-Serra” in its shots, but distinctly “studio machinery” in its cuts, with a rapid-fire edit that transforms scenes and sensations into a salad of sensory overload. It’s both too much to handle and too little to latch onto.

The problems cascade when it comes time for Adam to interact with the modern world after his resurrection. When an Intergang missile leaves him incapacitated, Adriana rescues him and hides him in the bedroom of her teenage son, Amon (Bodhi Sabongui). But when he awakens, he already seems to know English, which he speaks with an American accent—this can certainly be hand-waved through suspension of disbelief; it’s a superhero movie after all—and he has little curiosity about the way Kahndaq, and the world at large, have changed in the last 5,000 years. This robs us of the opportunity for scenes where we learn anything about him through his reactions or curiosities. Instead, his presence in modern day is geared entirely towards seeing how well he fits with the existing world of superheroes. Amon represents the point of view of the average comic book movie fan; his bedroom is littered with posters of the Justice League (The Flash, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, and so on), the existing superheroes of this fictional universe, whose merchandising resembles that of Warner Bros. movies and comic books in our world. At one point, Amon is even seen reading an actual DC issue of Wonder Woman. When Adam awakens, his only real friction with modernity is whether or not he’ll be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these other characters, and become a superhero in his own right, with his own costume and catchphrases, something Amon pushes him towards.

In a meta-textual sense, Black Adam is about whether or not Johnson will be able to turn the character—a Shazam villain in the comics, now entirely bypassing his connection to Shazam in the movies—into a cultural icon on par with Batman and Superman (Johnson produced the film, and was cast in the role back in 2007, so he certainly has the motive). However, this trajectory is weighed down by a stone-faced performance from Johnson, who can’t seem to decide whether he’s a conflicted anti-hero, with his numerous lines of dialogue about how he isn’t really a savior, or whether he’s George of the Jungle, with occasional hints of naivete as he gives his one-liners a test run. The plot centers on Intergang tracking down the magic crown in Adriana and Amon’s possession, on Adam protecting them with a scowl on his face—he may speak of reluctant heroism, but he’s quite willing— and on the Justice Society trying to contain Adam and his lightning powers (and eventually, on an eye-sore of a CGI villain introduced at the last-minute, as these things often go). However, the movie is really about Johnson trying to establish that he can play every kind of superhero at once, from noble savior, to fast-talking jokester, to conflicted brooder. He can’t, and the story is all the worse for it.

Certain oblique, semi-obscured shots in the prologue hint at some kind of twist about who Kahndaq’s savior really was. This information is all but obvious in the trailers, but more importantly, it’s information that directly informs the drama of Adam’s seemingly reluctant heroism, but it’s information that doesn’t actually come to light until an hour and a half into the movie. Until that point, Johnson’s monotonous delivery about how he isn’t actually a hero (while performing heroic feats) only serves to wheel-spin, as the barely comprehensible action continues to unfold.

There does, at least, exist some semblance of clashing perspective between Adam and the Justice Society, since the former readily kills Kahndaq’s invaders, while the latter (Hawkman especially) takes a no-killing approach, much to the chagrin of the local population living under Intergang’s thumb. But even this politically charged setup has little payoff by way of how the action or story unfolds. Kahndaqi characters laud Adam as a superhero of their own, and they mention how Western heroes like the Justice Society rarely help people in the region, and are willing to protect their oppressors, but this makes for an especially odd clash with Amon’s whole deal, as a kid who worships Western superheroes and is trying to mold Adam in their image.

As characters, the Justice Society don’t have much to work with. The fresh-faced Atom Smasher (who grows six stories tall, and is rather clumsy) and Cyclone (who generates wind) may as well be excised, but for the occasional fireworks they provide. Dr. Fate, blessed with the power of premonition, can see a disastrous future approaching, and he fears he may have to say goodbye to his old friend Hawkman, but even their dynamic plays out as if on autopilot, with little nuance or recognizable warmth to be found. Hawkman is an especially odd choice for this movie in particular, since in the comics, he’s a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh, and thus has a built-in connection to Adam by way of both region and antiquity; in Black Adam, he just seems to be a rich guy with a whole bunch of fancy tech. The film isn’t just a failure of action, but of adaptation, too.

The Rock was once a fun presence on screen, rising to prominence on WWF television in the mid-1990s, but wrestling crowds only warmed up to him when his character was given depth and real motivation, as a disgruntled bad guy who engaged the crowd with insults and charismatic wordplay. His conception of Black Adam hasn’t yet reached that point of engagement (or complexity), given how little time is spent on letting his natural screen presence breathe. It may reach that point in the future—there’s already a sequel in the works, in which Johnson is sure to have a creative say—but in the meantime, Black Adam remains stuck in the same place as Johnson’s pre-Rock wrestling persona, Rocky Maivia (named after his wrestler father and grandfather, Rocky Johnson and Peter Maivia). Rocky Maivia was a chipper, perpetually-smiling “babyface”—wrestling industry parlance for “good guy”—the opposite of what Adam is intended to be, but they have a common fatal flaw: Rocky Maivia was too many things at once, both an underdog and a dominating strong-man, both a young up-start and a child of industry legacy, and audiences soundly rejected him for how dimensionless these excessive dimensions ended up becoming when they were piled atop each other. He was only welcomed when he finally developed a real identity and point of view, something his superhero persona currently lacks, since it’s meant to be all things to all people.

In filling the frame with every kind of superhero story at once—from a violent origin, to a tale of purpose found, to a meta-movie about Adam developing his own cultural footprint, to a commentary on the ethno-cultural makeup of most superhero teams—Black Adam becomes an exhausting watch. It hits every point on a pre-ordained superhero movie checklist (including touting itself as novel for representation), but the result is an unpleasant, cacophonous barrage of symbols and sounds. It adds up to little more than a two-hour montage of action and comedy concepts divorced from rhythm, or comprehensibility, or real humanity. The Rock used to be fun—and he may be a fun presence on our screens again some day—but this is no fun at all.