Black Adam, Review and 5 things I liked and disliked about it

Prologue:

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 a form of justice in the modern world.

IMDB: 7.1
Rotten Tomatoes: 40%

Plot:

The movie begins with the introduction and struggle of Black Adam/Teth Adam (Dwayne Johnson) and Hurut who live somewhere in the middle-east country named Kahndaq in 2,600 BCE. We see how the people of Kahndaq are oppressed and invaded for their resources by King Akh-Ton (Marwan Kenzari). King Akh-Ton becomes the ruler of Kahndaq and forces the people to find a natural resource, called as ‘Eternium’ to place it in his crown which will give him powers of Demons from the mirror realm. The past is not shown in one go, instead, the past is revealed gradually as the movie progresses.
In the present time, we see how the foreign invasion continues in the country of Kahndaq and still, the people suffer from poverty and oppression by the military forces of ‘Intergang’. The movie soon focuses on a revolt gang that is going after the crown of King Akh-Ton to keep it out of the hands of Intergang. When Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) along with Ishmael (Marwan Kenzari) reach the place where the crown is hidden, we see that Ishmael has different goals, who is working with Intergang. Ishmael wants to have a crown and get the powers of demons from it and become the demon god- ‘Sabbac’. When the Intergang comes and intervenes to get the crown for Ishmael and is about to kill Adrianna, she reads the quotes from the inscriptions and summons Teth Adam who saves her from Intergang.
As soon the news of violence in Kahndaq starts spreading, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) asks the Justice Society to handle the issue and capture Black Adam. And then we are introduced to Justice Society and its members who are Hawkman/Carter Hall (Aldis Hodge), Dr. Fate/Kent Nelson (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone/Maxine Hunkel (Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher/Al Rothstein (Noah Centineo).
And then the fights start where Black Adam is helping Adrianna to get the crown of Akh-Ton and keep it in safe hands. On other hand, there is the Justice Society who is trying to control Black Adam and capture him before a big catastrophe happens. And then there is Ishmael and Intergang who wants to get the crown of Akh-Ton so that Ishmael can become Sabbac.

Review:

‘Black Adam’ arrives at the box office and it seems like they have given another hope of the revival of ‘DC Cinematic Universe’. DC brings a movie that is balanced in every aspect of the movie plot. Whether it is comedy, action, or drama, the movie is balanced perfectly and has the right amount of everything that an audience can expect from a superhero movie.
Although we do get a good backstory of Teth Adam and his son Hurut now I want to know more about Dr. Fate, Cyclone Atom Smasher, and Hawkman who was the leader of Justice Society in the movie.
The Atom Smasher we saw in the movie was the nephew of the previous and original one, I would like to see the story of the original Atom Smasher as well and how he passed on his legacy to his nephew, Al Rothstein.
Dr. Fate or Kent Nelson is in his mid 70’s or 80’s and when he was introduced, we got to know that he also served in World War 2. So he could have even met Wonder Woman there. His magical powers in the movie were amazing, and let’s not forget his sarcasm along with his sense of humor as well. Dr. Fate stole the show and limelight with every single second of screen time he got. But there were moments when fights were going on and I was just thinking about where Dr. Fate might be, as everyone was involved in the fights but the only guy missing was Kent.
Hawkman was the leader of the Justice Society in the movie. His role was of an intense superhero who did everything according to a plan and took his action seriously. And it was vice-versa for Black Adam, who did what he liked to do and had his own style of dealing with things. The clashes and rifts between Black Adam and Hawkman were very interesting to watch.
Cyclone remained a bit under the shadow in the movie. Yes, she had really good powers and a role of a side-kick that was given to her and Atom Smasher by Hawkman and Dr. Fate. But there was no character from the Justice Society about which I would not want to know more about.
Overall, it was a great movie to watch from DC. Moving forward, I hope we get to see more movies and shows of such or even better quality from DC. And not just team-ups but also stand-alone and origin stories of their heroes. I want to see their universe expand and watch a lot more stories rather than watching new reboots of Batman every decade.

5 things I liked about Black Adam:

It was a really good movie. I enjoyed watching every single minute of it. Here are my picks on what I liked about Black Adam.

1. The action sequence of the movie was fantastic. Whether it was Black Adam fighting Intergang or against Justice Society. Hawkman’s armor, weapon, flying, and fighting at the same time were too elegant on the screen. The action sequences of Dr. Fate were fantastic. The way he cloned himself in various fights, watched the future, or showing us many tricks up his sleeves was really visually pleasing.
2. The cinematography of the movie was really improved from past DC movies. As we have seen in the past that DC movies like ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, ‘Man of Steel’ or even ‘Zack Snyder’s: Justice League’ had really dark tones to watch at. Many viewers used to complain that the dark tone of display in the movies used to make the movie really hard to watch and look at, as it used to hurt their eyes. Finally, DC has started learning and hearing their audience has improved the scale of colors and brightness for their viewers to enjoy the screen.
3. The background music of the movie remained one of the best yet in the entire DC Universe. The music kept on supporting the narrative of the movie and really made the scenes even more visually appealing for the audience.
4. I don’t think there would be any viewer who can complain about the pace of the movie. The movie and its narrative hardly ever slowed down. It never felt like the movie was stalling anywhere even for a single second. Yes, people can complain that the movie was too quick to establish many of its characters but the movie never felt slow in any sense.
5. Post credit scene of the movie, Black Adam has been the most popular thing about the movie after its release. A couple of years earlier, we heard the news regarding the Justice League characters’ actors like Ben Affleck (who portrays Batman) and Henry Cavill (who portrays Superman) are not happy with the management at WB and DC, and might not return to play their characters again. But watching Henry Cavill return as Superman in the post-credit scene of Black Adam created a huge hype around the movie, as well as the entire DC Universe. Now everyone hopes for the revival of DC Universe, especially after the announcement of Henry Cavill and DC Studios.

5 things I disliked about Black Adam:

There were a few things that did bug me about the movie a little. Here are a few things about Black Adam I did not like about Black Adam.

1. People that have watched the movie, Black Adam have been complaining about Dwayne Johnson’s acting. I think that the role of Teth Adam or Black Adam is the most challenging role he has picked till now in his entire career. We have seen him play characters that have had light backstories or don’t have such an intense on-screen presence. This is the role that would not have been easy to portray for him, he did decent as Black Adam. In some scenes, we see that his expressions and role intensity lacked according to the narrative. But I think and hope that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson will only improve from here.
2. The movie had many characters having a major role to play for the narrative not only for the movie but also regarding the DC Universe. The character development of many characters was just not good enough. The audience kept wanting for more to know about the Justice Society. The four heroes of Justice Society were really good but the audience lacked knowledge about their past and what they really did for the universe. Though we could get to see these characters again in the future established much better with their backstories, but in the movie, it lacked the plot build-up for these characters.
3. As listed in the things I liked about Black Adam that the movie had a really good pace, but it was also a double-edged sword for it. Sometimes the character development lacked for many characters. Even for Black Adam, I could not understand that he was prisoned in 2,600 BCE and summoned in recent times. After he was summoned by Adrianna, he was able to talk in English and faced hardly any problem acclimatizing to the present technology. Except where he fries the TV, he seemed to know how the jets and flying bikes worked.
4. The whole movie revolved around the crown forged with Eternium. But at the end of the movie, I could not understand what the real powers were of the crown. Yes, Ishmael died and came back to the world as Sabbac, representing demons in the real world. But it was really difficult to understand the powers that the crown gave to the person who wears it.
5. The antagonist of the movie, Sabbac was not utilized well enough. The villain remained a bit under the shadow of everything that was going around in the movie. We could never really get to see the real motives of Ishmael. The movie lacked in building its antagonist as it had many points to cover up in the movie- whether it was Black Adam and his past, the current situation of Kahndaq, Justice Society, Ishmael, Sabbac, and King Akh-Ton, and the part where the Teth Adam is kept after his surrender.

Future for Black Adam in DC Cinematic Universe:

At last, after hearing back-to-back good news from the DC, Warner Bros. and Discovery, hopes for the future of the DC Universe have ignited again.
Could we get to see Black Adam having a clash with Superman and Shazam in ‘Man of Steel: 2’ or could he return in some other movie where the Justice League or Justice Society might need his help again, we will have to wait and see what plans DC Studios have for the Black Adam.
And after the announcement of James Gunn and Peter Safran, I expect to see some news regarding Black Adam atmost by the next San Fransico Comic-Con: 2023.

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