Black Adam Review

Black Adam is a film which comes directed by Jaume Collet-Serra who some may know as the director of The Shallows (2016), The Commuter (2018) or Jungle Cruise (2021). This film stars Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Quintessa Swindell and Bodhi Sabongui.

According to IMDB the synopsis of Black Adam is as follows “Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods-and imprisoned just as quickly-Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.”

Black Adam Review

I have to admit, I was keen to see this film. For those who’ve been long-time readers of my reviews, it’s no secret that I am a DC fan. I had high hopes for this movie and I’m happy to say that it was just what I was expecting it to be. I was impressed with it enough to want a sequel afterwards and I’d happily go and watch any DC movie that Black Adam was included in, in the future.

Black Adam offers moviegoers an action movie experience. It’s packed with fight scenes, explosions and special effects. They are all very well done and many of those special effects I know are quite expensive to create, so it was a joy to see them on the big screen. I recommend that if you have a choice of what cinema to go to, to see this in one with a large screen and good audio. It will make the experience much more worth it. Don’t go into one of those small cinemas, this is something you want to see on the biggest screen with the best sound.

Dwayne Johnson is no stranger to action movies and is well known to have starred in many of them before. However, he is a stranger to the comic book genre, with Black Adam being his first superhero film. I was interested to see what his performance would be like and was expecting him to bring his usual charisma to the role. It is still there (a little bit), but he does actually act the part. Black Adam is serious and brooding for much of the film and Dwayne Johnson played it well. So well actually, that I think he’s got a great future in the DC Universe films. The character would fit right in with the Justice League group of heroes, were they to ever try to bring them all together.

One of the pleasant surprises in this film is how well they handled the Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan) characters. Aldis Hodge was an exceptionally good Hawkman. I know this character well from the comics and also the Justice League TV shows and I wasn’t expecting the character to be done so well at all. But I was impressed, Aldis Hodge was very good and should be proud of his performance. I’d say that there’s a good chance there could even be a solo Hawkman movie down the line because I think the character was extremely likable. Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan) was also a character that was well done and just as I said about Hawkman, there are possible future film opportunities for that character as well. That is of course if WB is keen.

Apart from Black Adam, Hawkman and Dr. Fate, the rest of the characters are unfortunately a little forgettable. It’s not much to do with the actors, it’s just they’re kind of two-dimensional and aren’t as well developed. They’re just all side characters really.

The only real letdown for this film is some of the story components. The Black Adam story is not a complex one and this film isn’t complicated. The way it’s told feels like a late 1990s action movie. The story is very linear with few twists and turns, yet we still have a lot of characters delivering exposition. The thing is though, whilst I do mention these things as observations, it’s not something I think is a really big negative.

Overall Black Adam is a film I’d say is a bunch of fun. It’s got great action, special effects and explosions. Black Adam, Hawkman and Dr. Fate are well-done characters, all of which are good enough for me to want to see again in future films. The cast and crew did a fine job putting this film together and although the story is a bit choppy, it’s still a lot of fun. I’m hoping that we get more sequels in the future.

**Also** make sure you all stay for the post-credit scene! There’s something special there for DC fans 🙂