5,000 years brings a big change to the world

★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

Black Adam (2022)

Runtime: 125 minutes

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, intense action and some language.

It's a puzzle to review a movie like Black Adam. On one hand, the superhero movie starring Dwayne Johnson and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax, Orphan, Non-Stop) is a complete miss in certain aspects like character building, storytelling, and it's main antagonist. On the other hand, a standout performance from Pierce Brosnan and several compelling moments outweigh some of its sins.

As I'm reminded of last year's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Adam starts with a ten-minute narration about a city called Kahndaq which was under the rule of a tyrannical king called Anh-Kot, who seeks for the Crown of Sabbac, a crown that grants its user either invincibility or unlimited power. A young boy emerges from the slaves that have to dig out the crown's material, "Eternium", and starts a revolution in Kahndaq, only to get captured and executed.

It follows the same thing as Shazam, this time with 5 more wizards along Djimon Hounsou, where the young boy is the "chosen champion" and there rises Teth Adam, who kills Anh-Kot and ends his tyrannical reign.

We then cut to 5,000 years later, where a group of four, Adrianna (Sarah Shahi), Karim, Samir and Ishmael try to locate the now buried Crown of Sabbac and relocate it to a different location. Of course, this all goes terribly wrong and two of the members only escape with the crown and the entire "Intergang" chasing them. At the same time, Adrianna also wakes up Teth Adam from his five-millennium long rest and, teamed up with the Justice Society, are on the run to hide the crown and to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

The first hour of Black Adam is mostly superhero stuff without a proper build-up, arc, and redemption. It features characters that bounce off each other in the usual colorful visuals against the backdrop of a contrasting monochromatic city background. Its sensational action sequences are delightfully designed to give instant gratification to the viewer.

While most of the movie is great to watch, the script from Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani is initially a tad too familiar, and our main characters, Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) and his mom Adrianna, don't get enough justice. They do speak several touching and meaningful dialogues, but a little more screentime for them would have made me truly care for the characters.

A fatal mistake of Black Adam is its fundamentally underdeveloped villain. I recount these few lines from the venerable Roger Ebert, on his review on Thor, "Consider even the comparable villains (Lex Luthor, the Joker, Doc Ock and Obadiah Stane). Memories of all four come instantly to mind. Will you be thinking of Loki six minutes after this movie is over?". That similar quote played back in my mind, because the antagonist of Black Adam was so one-dimensional that I couldn't sympathize or understand him more even during his ramblings of his rightful ownership to the crown.

Yet, amongst all this mess, Pierce Brosnan remains the outstanding actor out of the ensemble, delivering some insightful and philosophical quotes in a calm, soothing, manner. He's significantly more compelling and easier to connect than the rest of the cast, who gives passable albeit forgettable performances.

Black Adam's unexpected twists throughout the second half of the film is a delight, one that saves some of its repetitive and excessive action sequences. It's also actually a little moving, and it resolved one of my fears, that Black Adam was just only a bulky superhero who could only throw enemies like playtoys. These unprecedented moments in a film which I thought was all paper-thin characters playing with each other really brought a bit more depth and felt more compelling; I would have liked more of these scenes.

On the other hand, the turning point of Black Adam was it's false build-up to a manipulative ending, which made the final act a slog to go through. The main problem I found did not concern about whether or not I wanted the film to end there, in a feel-good, predictable manner. Instead, it was rather the fact that it manipulatively built-up and paid off too early that its final act felt like an extension to an early, empty, ostensible ending.

Therefore, it is unfortunate news to report that the turning point was a maximum, and the rest of the story slowly drives downhill, bringing along the film's potentially redeeming moments, unpredictable nature, and the actors' best efforts. Black Adam is a very strange film, a hit or miss that can be so good yet so disappointing at the same time. Perhaps a little tightening and a better written villain could rise it to at least the goodness of Shazam.