Chances are if you’re reading this review you’ve already read a few others. And you at least have an idea of the controversy surrounding The Rock’s first DCEU outing. But what is this movie about? Essentially, Black Adam follows the titular anti hero, who’s a 5000 year old champion of the gods who got imprisoned after going too far while liberating his fictional nation of Khandaq. He wakes up in modern day times to find his nation still under oppression and with the help of a mother and son from Khandaq, and a love/hate relationship with the Justice Society of America, a team of heroes much like the Justice League, we see a story that sees Adam confront his place in the world, his role in his nation, and the crimes and burdens he carries that make him repeatedly state how he’s not a hero.

It’s a largely simple premise, and to be honest the movie doesn’t try to spread too much beyond it. This movie essentially revolves around Adam, the family that frees him, especially the young boy , and the JSA who constantly shift between trying to stop him and trying to help the greater good through him. Johnson essentially nails his part as Teth-Adam/Black Adam, comic off as a hardened, almost ruthless warrior who is that way because of being a slave before he got his powers. He’s a little stoic and seemingly too detached sometimes, something which the movie uses for its comedic scenes, but otherwise The Rock essentially knew who this character was when he started thinking of this movie 15 years ago, and he definitely delivered that exact performance. Said performance is bolstered when surrounded by the JSA heroes, mainly his back and fourth with Aldis Hodge’s  Hawkman and his constantly being shown his lack of knowledge when dealing with Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate. Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher and Quintessa Swindell’s Cyclone do a good job being the rookie supporting characters to the three bigger heroes, but it’s Sasha Shahi’s Adrianna and Bodhi Sabongui’s Amon who are the heart of the film, being the grounded link for Adam to truly reconnect with humanity and find reasons to protect them. This is especially true of Amon, who essentially reawakens the latent good in Adam by simply believing he is good. It’s slightly on the nose and reminiscent of other movies where a kid believes in a broken/flawed killer , but it works and creates some of the most genuine moments in the film. Add in cameos from Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, Peacemaker’s Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt and even Djimon Honsou as the wizard Shazam again, and you have a film with a strong cast that tries to honor the best of what’s come before in the DCEU.

Now if all those characters do make the movie sound a little overstuffed, that’s because it kind of is. Black Adam is a film that definitely tries to take on one too many tasks: establishing Adam and telling his story, establishing the JSA and hinting at future projects involving them, telling a story about a third world country forgotten by the rest of the world that even superheroes don’t really care about it and finally trying to involve as much as possible of the existing DCEU and building up a future for it. Of all these tasks, maybe the first and last one were really done well while the other two do suffer. This is probably because as he’s stated before, The Rock was working on this movie for a whole 15 years, and it seems while he had the initial concept of Adam’s story down, some of these other concepts suffered to because of just how much has changed and was added on in the past 15 years. This leaves Black Adam feeling more like a mid 2000s action movie sometimes more than a modern superhero flick. And that’s where most of the films major criticisms center themselves around.

Even with that said however, Black Adam is still a lot of fun to watch, so much so that I’d argue other critics are simply being too harsh on it. Yes it’s no Dark Knight or Avengers: Endgame, but to be fair it’s not trying to be. The Rock and his most recent filmography (especially the Fast and Furious titles) essentially boil down to those exact same kinds of films: fun, not very smart but a good watch nonetheless. This is why in my opinion Black Adam isn’t a bad movie, it’s a “The Rock” movie. Chances are anyone who was looking for a deeper Black Adam story (like recent comics have shown), or a retelling of a great Black Adam and JSA comic arc might be a little disappointed. Everyone else though , probably might have one of the most fun times at the movies this year.

That fun especially comes from the action, which actually goes to great lengths to show off how powerful Adam is. It’s not really surprising, The Rock is a huge fan of the character after all. But bringing forth his most prominent and lesser known powers was a nice touch. There’s a specific scene that references basically how Black Adam and Shazam are similar to Superman but also clearly different, and it’s a nice touch. Everyone else’s powers are given great showcase’s as well, from Atom Smasher’s size changes to Cyclone’s wind manipulation. The biggest visual set piece however is always Brosnan’s Doctor Fate, who beyond being interesting and enigmatic in his own right has his magic powers stand out in a sea of what’s essentially people who can punch or throw really hard. There is some derivative effects to some of his powers (let’s call it Dr Strange De ja vu) but either way any scene that has him at the forefront is one worth watching. It all comes together for what’s honestly a huge collection of great sequences, and even if some do blend together, all of them will have your heart pumping.

And that’s really Black Adam in a nutshell. It’s no A-star pupil in superhero films, but it’s a great time for anyone who just wants to watch an awesome superhero(sorry antihero) take down bad guys and look good doing it. My easiest comparison would be the Venom movies from SONY, they rarely rewrite the superhero playbook but chances are if you watch them you’ll enjoy every second of them , and that’s the exact case here. Now let’s hope The Rock and keep this momentum going and we see Adam in far more interesting stories going forward.

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