Black Adam (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

I knew absolutely nothing about the character or premise of this DC superhero film before heading in, and that might have been for the best. For probably half the film, I was surprised that this felt like a major antihero story, something akin to the Suicide Squad or even Deadpool. In essence, Black Adam is a Middle Eastern god of sorts, dating back to the age of the pyramids, who returns to avenge his nation and seek personal revenge; he's willing to slaughter legions to get what he wants -- whatever that is -- or on a whim, because he can. He apparently can't be hurt. He barely speaks. He clearly wants to remove the occupiers from his homeland, though from 2600 BC to 2022, there are indeed a lot of foreigners to remove. And yet his return is hailed as a miracle by many who live there, hoping as they do that he'll deliver them from the organized mercenaries controlling their kingdom.

Without knowing much of the history, it seems Black Adam was the original Shazam hero, bestowed with the power of the gods by the Council of Wizards (and Djimon Hounsou). And he was fittingly angry back a few millennia when he was created; a young slave boy in the kingdom of Kahndaq is gifted with superhuman powers in order to kill the tyrannical king Sabbac and end his evil rule. Sabbac (Marwan Kenzari) has crafted a crown made with the powers of six demons, essentially the arch-nemesis or polar opposite of Shazam. I really liked and didn't expect this connection to Shazam!, which was also a delightful surprise for me when it was released.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is here doing a really fun job as the titular hero, leaning heavily into the "is he or isn't he" question about his moral code. He kills somewhat indiscriminately, and sometimes apparently for sport. He finds humor in tossing men a mile into the air and letting them splat. He's also the somewhat stereotypical macho man who occasionally needs to be taught humor and modern ideas and even the Geneva Conventions, which the film effectively doses out to us between major action sequences. By the time Sabbac returns to dominate Kahndaq, Adam has effectively been radicalized (or, perhaps, de-radicalized?) as a full-fledged hero, making their fight one for liberation and decolonization, a pretty fabulous and unique story from major studios and major IPs.

How does he make the switch from selfish revenger to righteous avenger? It helps that Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) calls in for some help, and the Justice Society teams up to monitor, potentially quell, and ultimately assist Black Adam. The team includes leader Hawkeye (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo); that so many new and exciting characters were brought in for this film was a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, they're given just enough individual screen time to make them all interesting and cool, though I couldn't tell you too much about any of them in depth. It's a bit of a shame that so many superhero movies these days have to include teams right off the bat, from Deadpool 2 to Eternals it seems all the heroes in our cultural awareness now are about teamwork. Not a bad lesson these days, but a lot to learn in every new film.

Even apart from all these heroes, we're given several crucial characters to get to know and love, including Adrianna (Sarah Shahi), a university professor who organizes and leads the resistance against Intergang, the organized crime, and her son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) and brother Amir (Mohammed Amer), who are cute and funny and sweet and heartwarming in every scene. I love the comparative lack of white people in this movie, not unlike Black Panther, and I also love the strong moral ambiguity they all have, again like that movie: nobody has entirely perfect motivations and perfect methods, and so their behaviors are always a bit edgy. Even with all that, it's firmly anti-imperialist and anti-royalist, and Kahndaq itself manages to be an effective stand-in for cultures under the yoke of outside invaders (who are mostly white), even when those invaders are actually there to help. That's complex and wonderful screenwriting, folks, even in one written by committee.

Even beyond the intangible moral gray elements, the film features a surprising amount of violence and blood; it's only PG-13, but then again The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and even Gremlins fit that bill. It helps that Jaume Collet-Serra directs this enterprise, given his penchant for violent films in which Liam Neeson kicks ass or Blake Lively survives against all odds. He and his writers handle a smorgasbord of characters deftly, especially Brosnan's new hero who is something between Doctor Strange and Vision in the MCU. Brosnan, who hasn't had a really juicy acting role in ages, shocked me with a couple emotional scenes I absolutely did not expect in a movie like this. Same with Johnson, honestly, who eschews the laugh-out-loud comedy of his latest hits like Jungle Cruise and Jumanji (the first and second so far) to hammer home some intense emotional beats. His character's purpose -- to champion autonomy, independence, and liberation -- also hits home a bit more closely these days, adding to a growing list of powerhouse movies for all ages that serve to clearly advance social justice concepts. That's good, even when a film is as chock-full of whirling, shiny, explosive CGI as this one.