Black Adam’s star-studded cast disappoints D.C. Universe
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fails to meet D.C. fans’ expectations in Black Adam.
“Black Adam” was the highly anticipated Detective Comics (D.C.) movie that came out in October. With a very distinct soundtrack and almost 90 minutes of fight scenes, this movie appears to have a lot going for it.
In the “Black Adam” movie, Black Adam (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and his family are slaves in the fictional country of Kahndaq where they are ruled by a tyrannical king by the name of Ahk-Ton. Adam’s son attempts to rebel against the king and gets very badly punished for his actions but is eventually saved by the wizard Shazam who gives the son powers and becomes Kahndaq’s hero. Later, Ahk-Ton and his men come and kill Adam’s family and Adam gets his son’s powers, so Adam goes after people in this movie in a hurl of rage for vengeance for his family.
This movie contains a jam-packed cast with Dwayne Johnson who has starred in just about everything in Hollywood such as “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” The Fast and the Furious franchise, “Pain and Gain,” and he even had a career in the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Secondly, it has a household name in Pierce Brosnan who is most well known for starring as James Bond in “GoldenEye,” “Tomorrow Never Dies,” “The World is Not Enough,” and “Die Another Day.” Lastly, Henry Cavill plays the current Superman in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU).
However, even with this cast and everything, this movie did have its shortcomings. It felt too generic and was very predictable. I could tell what was going to happen for the whole movie by just watching the first 10 minutes. Even though there were 90 minutes of action and fight scenes, the fighting was very tedious and repetitive. Secondly, the main character Adam is not that memorable of a character, all of Dwayne Johnson’s characters are funny, charismatic, and quotable. But this character just did not show anything that special about him as he is very bland in the story.
Even with some of these shortcomings, I did enjoy the movie and it kept me engaged for the entire 124 minutes that the movie took place. I admired the effort in which the fight scenes were choreographed and I thought that this story did a tremendous job of introducing the kind of big and brawny action hero that we were all used to, and the CGI game in the movie was unbelievably good. This movie has a few memorable moments that keep the watcher engaged and it has a few very well-placed funny moments that are sure to give the watcher a solid chuckle too.
3.75 stars out of 5