In many ways, Black Adam feels like a film from ten years ago. The dialogue is incredibly clichéd; the villain follows the overdone genre trope of being an evil copy of the hero; and hell, the climax even has a sky beam! Yet, despite this, I quite enjoyed Black Adam. Johnson is clearly very passionate about the character, which comes through in his performance. He gives it his all, and while not the world’s best actor, he brings a level of gravitas to the role which works.
Exciting action set pieces are one of the most essential parts of any superhero movie, and Black Adam has lots to offer. Mostly, they’re creative, entertaining, and showcase the heroes’ superpowers well. My favourite character was Dr Fate (Pierce Brosnan), a mystical superhero whose primary power is the ability to see the future. He’s involved in several sequences filled with trippy visuals which felt straight out of a Doctor Strange movie.
The first five minutes of Black Adam had me fearing the worst. You are immediately hit with a barrage of exposition about ancient kingdoms, fictional metals, and demon crowns. Now, expositional narration can work at the start of a film, see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). But the information needs to be delivered carefully, at a rate the viewer can keep up with. Also, the flashback was shot in a very unappealing way, with all the colours washed out. However, thankfully, the film slows down eventually and the visuals slightly improve.
Black Adam is set mainly in the fictional nation of Kahndaq. Its exact location is never made apparent, but it’s clearly an impoverished country oppressed by a militia called the Intergang. Unfortunately, it’s also a very brown setting, giving quite a dull colour palette to most scenes. The addition of some subpar visual effect work leaves the movie with a bland, unattractive look.
Even DC’s lesser films tend to have excellent musical scores, but Black Adam is, sadly, an exception. It was composed by Lorne Balfe, whose score for Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) I adore. Black Adam’s main theme was serviceable, but none of the other music in the film stood out – other than some truly bizarre needle drops during the action scenes. One final positive I have for the movie is the costumes. Those of the Justice Society were nicely colourful and felt very comic-booky – thankfully something that’s becoming more common in the genre nowadays.
Overall, Black Adam is a mixed bag of a superhero movie. Your experience will depend on your mindset going in. If you’re expecting a film on the level of DC’s best, it will disappoint, but if you go in simply wanting some dumb fun, you’ll leave satisfied. 3.5/5