REVIEW #216 Black Adam (2022)

In ancient Kahndaq, Teth Adam was bestowed the almighty powers of the gods. After finding himself imprisoned for over 5000 years for using those powers in his pursuit of vengeance, he is set free to save Kahndaq once more. His methods however, attract some powerful enemies determined to stop the now ‘Black Adam’ on his war path.

The Rock finds his calling as the powerful DC comics Anti-Hero Black Adam, brining a committed and charismatic performance that serves well for the characters debut film. We were fortunate enough to be introduced to a bunch of really cool characters, such as Dr Fate and Hawkman, both have incredibly interesting personas and not to mention their suits looked amazing too! Now although we did get a big insight into the motives of Black Adam and how he came to be the morally grey supe he is today, I do think that the plethora of characters made it feel like a team film rather that one dedicated to Black Adam himself. He just didn’t seem like the primary focus, instead it actually shifted pretty quickly to the crown and that’s what formed this team up story arc. Perhaps just Adam vs The Justice Society would have worked better, who knows! Despite that I did enjoy the overall plot and it worked well in creating an antagonist that could both assist the origin story and the modern day threat. I was surprised by the amount of heart embedded into the core of the film, the people of Kahndaq and their history of oppression really built up the ‘man of the people’ version of Black Adam, that could hit the emotional chords of the audience and flesh out that Anti-hero arc. There were plenty of cheesy moments which I felt could have been avoided, there’s a fine line between effective humour and being cheesy and if there is a sequel I would like then to be more careful of that, in my opinion anyway. Will we see Pierce Brosnan again? I pray we do, this man was unbelievable and the character had too much potential to only have him appear in one film! He immediately elevated all of the other characters, subtle humour that worked well but oozed wisdom!

The cinematography was what you would expect for a film of this magnitude, I always have a soft spot for the slow motion scenes for the characters with super speed. I just always enjoy those fight sequences and you combine that with Black Adam’s other powers too and it created a lot of really entertaining, yet brutal scenes. I liked the colour grading for Kahndaq, the sandy browns created a nice contrast to the colours from the superheroes and their powers. They done brilliantly with the suits, the physical costumes and the CGI brought these characters to life in spectacular fashion and DC continue to lead the way in this department. I will say that again the green screen was questionable at times but this seems to be the case in every CBM at the moment, I feel for these overworked CGI artists! Of course there was also the amazing end credit scene which brings Superman and Black Adam together but it also announces the return of Cavill and that is absolutely huge! There is truly a lot to like about this film, it’s not perfect but the work put in from the producers, directors and The Rock himself, shows from start to finish. Can this kick off a successful universe for DC? I hope so!

Overall (7.8/10)

Thanks for reading

Callan