The movie Black Adam has been in the making for 15 years and has been Dwayne Johnson’s passion project.
Hey everybody, welcome back to our movie review of BLACK ADAM, which has finally been released worldwide and is meant to begin a new era in the DCEU. However, has the hierarchy in the DC Universe changed? Today we have my spoiler-free review of Black Adam.
I have to be honest, ever since the second trailer, my excitement for this film has increased. Dwayne Johnson’s words not only for this movie but for the future of the DCEU have raised my expectations. I never expected a cinematic masterpiece, only a good DC film.
It delivered a good DC film, and it was a very enjoyable DC film. If you’re looking into this movie expecting a really deep mythological DC film then you’re going to be disappointed. However, if you’re like me and expected the film as it was promoted then you’re going to be over the moon.
It was an epic action-packed movie that had the right balance between humour and seriousness.
There were a few times when the jokes didn’t land but overall the humour worked with the characters and the story.
Speaking of characters, I love the JSA. You had the two experienced ones in Hawkman and Dr Fate and the two newbies in Atom Smasher and Cyclone.
The dynamic between the old and the new worked well, I would say. However, for me, Atom Smasher was too jokey.
The character of Dr Fate felt like he was more there for laughs than for a story, or at least the beginning of one of my favourite JSA members. He was the one with the most experience and by far had the coolest powers. They displayed them well.
Doctor Strange has been around in the MCU well before Dr Fate was around in the DCEU.
However, Dr Fate was created in the comics first. The reason why I’m mentioning this is that I think they did a really good job at defining Dr Fate as his character with his abilities. Before I saw the movie I thought it would have been better for the JSA to have had their movie before meeting Black Adam.
However, after I’ve seen it I understand why the use of the two newbies works with the plot of the film.
If they were experienced fighters, there would have been parts that wouldn’t have worked as well or not at all. However, I would still love to see a JSA movie in the future. I really enjoyed them in the movie but the standout has to be Black Adam himself.
I loved Black Adam. He had this hilarious arrogance and obliviousness to everyone’s intelligence created for cheap laughs like Thor in Thor: The Love and the Thunder. Instead, it was more of a lack of respect for people around him and this dangerous arrogance that made him extremely unpredictable.
Heroes that we have known for years in comics and cartoons who have this legendary reputation in our minds.
Then you have the Black Adam who doesn’t care who they are and I found it hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
I think Dwayne Johnson was born for this role. You see him in that suit and you truly believe that he is Black Adam. I know some people are criticizing his acting but I don’t know what those people were expecting.
He’s playing an arrogant villain who doesn’t care about anything other than justice. There’s not much you can do with that and he plays the performance.
The action was hyped up and compared to the action in Man of Steel and I have to be honest I don’t think it is as good as the action in Man of Steel but it is still very entertaining.
I think it would have been much stronger if the CGI was better in the first two acts.
The CGI in places felt off. It was still strong but you can tell the weaker shots from the stronger shots in the third act. However, the CGI was amazing and I think more money was spent on the third act than on the first two.
This is fine because I’d rather have close to accurate CGI in the final battle than some dodgy shots that pull me out of the biggest The movie moves on to the score of the movie which was composed by Lorn Balf.
Overall, I thought the score was superb from the very first scene until the very end, even for the end credits. What was, in the end, credits carried over into the end credits. It’s worth the wait and has created a very exciting future for the DCEU. Back to the music though, Black Adam’s theme and the JSA’s theme both feel like they live in the same world as Han Zimmer.
There’s only one complaint I have with the music: they use actual songs for scenes that aren’t needed. This felt like it was trying to do what James Gunn did for the Guardians of the Galaxy films but really did not connect. You have the main character who’s serious and is causing all this destruction and then you have this strange upbeat song Over the Top.
In my opinion, lawn balth should have composed something for those scenes. Black Adam is a film that has a lot of strength to it. However, I still feel there is a lot of progress to be made.
First of all, I would have made the film about 10 minutes longer simply to allow more room for Black Adam’s origin story to be explained.
As a first step, I would remove the songs and replace them with pieces of the score so that the movie flows better. The third would be to remove about 25% of the humour. If you’ve seen the film then you already know what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t, don’t expect too much time spent on how he became Black Adam. Don’t get me wrong I laughed at a lot of the jokes and the funny moments.
However, I think some scenes would have worked better with serious moments or pieces of dialogue that are useful to the scenes they’re in or the overall plot. The only thing I would change that I can currently think of is slow motion.
There are a lot of slow-motion shots in this movie where a character is about to punch someone in slow motion. There is a lot of repetition or very similar action.
After a while, it felt a bit like deja vu. This is because I had already seen that happen. It’s not a major complaint that ruined my viewing experience but it was definitely something I noticed and would have preferred to change.
As I said, I think there is still a lot of progress to be made.
I don’t think that this is the standard we should hold DC films to. However, I still believe DC films can be entertaining, but that doesn’t mean I think this film is unwatchable.
I liked this movie and I would place it in my top 5 DCEU movies. I’ll need to see it again to decide where exactly it will lead. However, it is one of the strongest DCEU films. It has set up an exciting future where we can see Black Adam and the JSA again and hopefully can integrate other established DC heroes into the mix.
If Black Adam 2 occurs, I would think it would be better if it took a few minutes longer to develop the story and characters. This would keep the level of action. I feel Black Adam 2 could be even better than the first overall. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
It was epic it was action-packed it was a funny but serious and most important thing it was entertaining. I never checked my watch to see how long was left. Instead, I was always absorbed in the movie and had a lot of fun watching it. Therefore, if you haven’t watched Black Adam yet make sure to check it out before it leaves cinemas. It is definitely a movie to watch on the biggest screen possible and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did