Review: Black Adam

Blah blah blah has changed.

Okay, I’ve put it off long enough, let’s talk about Black Adam. DC’s latest attempt at a live action superhero flic isn’t awful but is another example of DC getting some things right while getting others horribly, horribly wrong. It’s certainly funnier than other DCEU movies, which I must give it credit for, but it’s also funny in the wrong places. They try to do something besides two people with nearly identical or actually identical powers brawling for the majority of the fights… only to devolve into just that for the final-final fight between Black Adam, the Justice Society and the actual villain of the piece. Dwayne Johnson is very fitting in looks and tone for Teth-Adam… but they push the “say’s he’s not a hero but is constantly doing hero stuff” line waaayyyy over the line. Also, not sure if this was everyone’s issue, but my theater had the sound mixing off, so about ¼ to 1/3 of the dialogue got drowned out by the background music BOOMING out. But enough of these vague complaints let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Sigh, this poster was way cooler
than the movie.

Black Adam opens several thousand years ago in the Bronze age in the fictional Egyptian city-state of Kahndaq. It’s a pretty nice city, one of the earliest civilizations in the DCEU canon, until it’s conquered by Ahk-Ton. Ahk-Ton is a tyrannical king whom forced his people to mine Eternium, a magic metal that has been in the DCEU literally the whole time, I guess, to forge him the Crown of Sabbac. It’s a magic crown that will give him great power. A young slave boy named Hurut helps an old man who found a chunk of Eternium turn it over to their masters, only to see the “reward” the old man demands for it is in fact death. Hurut wants to change things, but his world-weary father (whom sounds suspiciously like a former WWE wrestler) tells him to just keep his head down. The boy doesn’t listen, stirs up a small revolt, is captured, but released as he’s about to be executed by the Council of Wizards. The Wizards, lead by the wizard Shazam, bestow upon the boy the power of six gods that he can call upon by saying the word SHAZAM. The powers are: The Stamina of Shu: basically immortality, he can survive without food, water or air indefinitely, invulnerable to most harm; The Speed of Horus: inhuman speed, just short of lightspeed movement; The Strength of Amon: extreme superhuman strength, on par with Superman; The Wisdom of Zehuti: god like intellect, lets him understand all languages and gives him insight into the weakness of others; The Power of Aten: further enhances his strength, lets him fly and summon the Living Lightning, his primary weapon and means of transformation; and the Courage of Mehen: gives him superhuman willpower and resolve, also makes him immune to telepathy and mind control. I list these powers out, because the movie sure doesn’t give you more info than “the (blank) of (insert god). Hurut became the “Champion.” He leads a campaign against Ahk-Ton, ultimately killing him just before Ahk-Ton got the crown and obliterating his throne room and everyone in it. And after that lengthy intro sequence, we can get into the main movie.

 

We jump forward to modern Kahndaq. It’s once again occupied by foreign interests, this time the weirdly well-equipped criminal syndicate Intergang. They’re mining Eternium and using it to power their technology which includes magic flying motorcycles which don’t appear to be a new technology at all. Eternium would break the world as we know it if it existed and it’s weird that it hasn’t come up before from a world building aspect is what I’m saying. We join Archaeologist Adrianna Tomaz, her brother Karim, and her colleagues Samir and obvious villain… I mean Ishmael. They’re stopped at a checkpoint and almost caught, but Adrianna’s son Amon skateboards in and distracts the guard long enough to make him frustrated and wave them through. Why the brother of their highly sought-after fugitive, (who was driving the car!), isn’t also on their “find now!” list, I’ll never know. Amon catches up to them and asks if he can come along after Adrianna pulls herself out of her hiding place in back, but mama says no.

 

I won't lie, he definitely looks the part.

The group travels out to the desert where Adrianna believes that the crown is being held. She is right, and they find an ancient tomb with the crown floating several feet in the air. While Adrianna tries to get it, Ishmael murders Samir by shoving him down the cliff and Intergang soldiers arrive to give him back up. They play it like it’s a mystery what happened to Samir… but like who else could it be? Intergang rush in as Adrianna gets the crown. She is captured, as is Ishmael but we all know he’s playing along at this point, but notices an inscription on the ground. With no real options and “I’ll try anything at this point,” attitude Adrianna reads off the inscription, summoning the “Champion” Teth-Adam back from wherever he’d been for the last 5 millennia. Teth-Adam absolutely obliterates the Intergang soldiers, cooking one of them to bones and ashes with lightning and doing many other unpleasant things to the others.  He follows Adrianna outside and goes to speak with her, but he takes an Intergang Eternium RPG to the face. He survives it, killing the man, but then passes out from the magic enhanced explosion.

 

Around this time, Amanda Waller gets a call about the situation. She deems Teth-Adam a threat and contracts the Justice Society to deal with it. This is one of her dumbest plans ever, but I’ll get to that later. The team consists of veteran members Hawkman (Carter Hall) and Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson), along with legacy member Atom Smasher 2 (Al Rothstein) and completely new member Cyclone (Maxine Hunkel). The team suits up and flies out to Kahndaq to face off against Adam. On the flight there, Waller instructs them about what they know about Adam, ancient hero of myth, great power, and his only weakness is that he’s depowered if he says Shazam. Their plan… is no plan, as all they can think to do is make him say the one completely uncommon word that will take away his powers. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb!

 

Adam wakes up in Amon’s room. The kid is a mega fan of superheroes, which I can respect, but Adam sure doesn’t. He burns the face off one of his posters when he woke up. Adam, not wanting to be involved in any of this, busts through a wall, thanks Adrianna and Karim for their help, and starts fly walking away. I say fly walking, but what I mean is that Adam floats just like a half foot off the ground. He doesn’t move particularly fast, he could just use his leg but he decides not to. Amon chases after him and tries to convince Adam to be a superhero but Adam, again, says he’s not interested. Amon, who is I guess king of not taking a hint, causes a big ruckus in town, gaining Intergang’s notice, and gets Adam to save him. The demi-god murders just so many Intergang members before the Justice Society arrive. Hawkman and Doctor Fate face off against Adam while Cyclone runs support and Atom Smasher tries to find them. Yeah, he got lost during the touch down and must scurry about to find them while the other battle. Hawkman seems to be about on par with Adam physically, while Fate is his match with Magic, but neither can overpower Adam. During the fighting, Fate senses the Crown of Sabbac and then it becomes about Hawkman and Fate tagging in on the fight or tagging out to try to get the crown from Adrianna. Hawkman makes the very dumb call to tell Adrianna, who is a wanted criminal in her own country by an occupying force, that the Justice Society is about protecting Global Stability. Oy, this guy. There is a break in the fighting when Adam flies off to the throne room and Fate reveals to Adrianna that Adam was the one that destroyed most of Kahndaq in his rage 5000 years ago. He was an imprisoned mad man, not a lost hero. They find Adam in the throne room, and the Justice Society and Adrianna try to convince him to help save Kahndaq rather than destroy it. This speech gets extra motivation when Amon calls his mom.

 

They boy had been sent home to hide the crown from all parties. When he arrives there, he finds Ishamael and several Intergang members holding his uncle hostage. Karim is shot and Amon makes a run for it. He’s captured and taken on an Eternium hoverbike. Adam and Hawkman chase the bikes while Fate saves Karim. He reveals to the man that he will in fact die by electrocution. This is rather distressing to Karim as he is an electrician. Adam catches the bikes in flight, searches them for Amon and then drops the bikers, Hawkman saving several of them. He gets the final bike, finds that Amon was stolen away in another bike and the four he’d chased were a distraction, and then kills the last biker by throwing him skyward.

 

Oh just kiss already.

He returns to Adrianna’s home, takes the two bikers that Hawkman saved and interrogates them to tell him where Amon is via threat of falling. They tell him, he drops them anyway, and Hawkman saves them. The learn where Intergang’s headquarters is and fly out in Hawkman’s jet to find them. They arrive at the compound, and while the others want to form a plan, Adam just flies through, lightning blasting everything. They find Ishamael holding Amon behind an Eternium powered shield. He demands the crown for the boy, revealing that he’s the last living descendant of Ahk-Ton and deserves his birthright. Going to call bull on somehow keeping track of a family line through 5000 years, but whatever. They agree to it, but Ishamael betrays the deal immediately and tries to shoot Amon. Adam freaks out, destroying the whole place in lightning, killing Ishamael and seriously injuring Amon.

 

Adam flies back to the throne room and Hawkman follows. In the throne room, Adam touches down to the ground and explains his backstory. He explains that the Champion of Kahndaq was in fact his son, Hurut, and that his actions were misinterpreted as Teth-Adam’s by history. See, his son was made the Champion and lead a successful series of battles against the king. Ahk-Ton, realizing he couldn’t beat the Champion, sent men to kill his parents. Teth-Adam’s wife Isis is killed immediately, Adam grievously wounded before Hurut can arrive. Hurut, wanting to save his father, transfers his power to him via saying Shazam while holding hands. Unfortunately, while in human form, Hurut gets an arrow to the chest by an assassin. Enraged and empowered, Adam attacked Ahk-Ton’s throne room, killing him and severely damaging the city. The Council of Wizards summon Adam to the Rock of Eternity and imprison him for all time. Or so they thought. Seeing that pain he’d caused, Adam turns himself in, saying Shazam and reverting to human form, after getting Hawkman to swear they’ll lock him up somewhere where he can never say the word again.

 

DC has so many contraptions to hold Metas.

Adam is taken to an underwater prison in the arctic circle and sealed up in a cell that would keep him from speaking via a mask over his face. Meanwhile, Adrianna is examining the Crown and realizes that an inscription on it meant that the only way to unleash the power of it was to be killed while holding it. At the same time, Ishamael wakes up in hell and is empowered by six demons when he says their magic word, Sabbac. He’s reborn as a big horned demon thing, and flies to Kahndaq to sit on his ancestor’s throne. The Justice Society are still in town when all this happens and go to try to stop him. Well, they want to, but Fate throws up an energy shield to keep the others out. He wants to face Sabbac alone as it’s the only way to guarantee Hawkman lives. He faces off against the demon king, holding his own for a few minutes with magic copies, while simultaneously using his magic to open Adam’s cell and tell him what’s happening. Adam breaks through all the guards in the prison, somehow, swims up to the surface and transforms again before flying off to help save the day.

 

I’d normally say go see the movie if you want to see how the finale finishes… but it’s been two months, if you had any interest in seeing it, you would have.

 

Whole lot of build up, so little payoff.

Adam arrives and he and a magically enhanced via the Dr. Fate helmet Hawkman battle Sabbac with back up from Cyclone and Atom Smasher. Meanwhile, Amon, Adrianna, Karim and the Kahndaqi people fight the hordes of undead (like 15 zombies at least) that Sabbac summoned when he sat on the chair. Adam literally rips Sabbac’s head off to finish him off.

 

In the aftermath, Adam sits in the throne to see how it feels, decides he’s not a throne guy and destroys it with lightning. He adopts the new name of Black Adam on Amon’s urging.

 

In the post credit scene, Waller sends a drone to tell Adam that he can consider Kahndaq his prison now, and if he sets foot outside it, he’d better be prepared for her to throw the biggest gun she has at him. Adam isn’t impressed and destroys the drone. Only for the big gun to walk in himself… it’s Superman as played by Henry Cavill, saying they need to talk.

 

This movie… is fine. It’s not the worst thing the DCEU has ever cooked up, but it’s just kind of bland. The effortlessly charming Dwayne Johnson comes across as so flat and boring with his constantly scowling Black Adam. He has a few good lines, jokes like him not understanding sarcasm, or him saying “he didn’t make it” when the pilot he threw slammed into the ground behind him .5 seconds before, but that isn’t really enough to make him more than a grumpy Superman with a darker wardrobe. There’s also not much tension in the movie as most of the fights are between Black Adam, a character that is all but invincible being played by an actor who is contractually unable to lose a fight, verses a group of four heroes that in no way can stop him. They could have at least included a minor telepathic hero who they thought could mind control Adam into saying Shazam, instead of just sending them in to try to beat him up until he says it. Hell, Waller should have sent Shazam to do it, as the magic word doesn’t really care which chosen one says it. It’s happened more than once that Billy has said the magic word while grappling with Black Adam and the lightning forcibly changes them both back into human form. That’s a plan that could work way better, but I guess they didn’t want to pay Zach Levi to be in this. Also, again, Kahndaq having a living population and access to an actual, factual magic metal really breaks the reality here. Zero chance in hell that Eternium wouldn’t be mass mined and mass utilized over the whole damn planet if there were people to remember it’s there. Also-also… Sabbac. He’s a bland villain that’s just negative-Shazam with even more nebulous, ill-defined powers. That, and I’m sorry but I can’t accept that Ishamael knew all that he did after 5000 years. Ya know what else was an ancient civilization? Mycenaean Greece. It’s the ancient Greece that the Ancient Greeks said all their myths took place in. It existed between 1750-1050 BC, and that’s about all we know about it. We’ve got writing from the era, but it’s in Linear A and has thus far been untranslatable. So just some random dude knowing he’s descendant from a bronze age king is just… not possible, even in the realm of superhero fiction. The Justice Society was fun, I especially liked Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate, but again, their plan is dumb, they are no match for Black Adam, and they kind of stop fighting him a third of the way through the story to focus on the Sabbac plot. It just seemed kind of silly. Also, Waller, why didn’t you send a Suicide Squad in for this? Did you learn your lesson from the Enchantress incident and want heroes holding the bag? So yeah, it’s not the worst but it’s also not the game changer that DC wanted it to be. Have a good night, everyone. 

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