The Stew Review: Black Adam the least interesting part of his own movie

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - Black Adam has convinced me it’s time for Dwayne Johnson to resume calling himself The Rock.

For a while he was credited in movies as just The Rock. Then it became Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Then, after deciding he wanted to become A Real Actor, he dropped The Rock entirely and was just Dwayne Johnson. For a time, it felt earned. There was a moment, however brief, where Johnson seemed poised to deliver a potent combination of roles that were highly populist in nature (The Rundown, Fast Five) or had a bit of an edge to them (Faster, Southland Tales, Pain & Gain). But sometime around his third (of five) Fast & Furious outing, Johnson seemed to decide he’d stop doing anything remotely challenging or interesting with his on-screen persona. He would instead become pure product, a name to be sold with his popularity hinging entirely on a persona that would be nearly indistinguishable from one role to the next.

And now with the advent of his performance in Black Adam, it’s clear that Johnson is not even slightly interested in anything resembling “characters” or even “acting.” Black Adam as written and performed here contains neither, so why continue the charade?

It actually pains me to say any of this, truth be told. There was a time when I thought The Rock showed immense promise. I maintain that his work as Paul Doyle in Pain & Gain is legitimately great and could have been a real springboard into fascinating territory for him, had he allowed himself to go down that path. Alas, that spark appears to have faded long ago and we are not left with minimalist variations on whatever he considers to be an effective persona now.

Such a strident adherence to said persona makes his dedication to making a Black Adam movie all the more head-scratching. As he readily points out, The Rock has worked for 15 years to get this character onto movie screens, insisting it wouldn’t happen until they could get it right. Now I’m convinced it took nearly 20 years to happen because The Rock insisted on removing any semblance of personality or edge from the character and he’s now making it happen simply through sheer force of will.

For the uninitiated, Black Adam made his first comics appearance back in 1945 under the Fawcett Comics banner before being licensed (and eventually absorbed wholesale) by DC Comics. He’s traditionally a signature foe for Captain Marvel (now simply called Shazam in order to stave off confusion with Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel) as they have identical powers and origins. For the movie, though, Shazam is nowhere to be seen and he’s instead pitted against The Justice Society.

After apparently dying a hero to the oppressed people of Khandaq several millennia ago, Teth-Adam is resurrected in the present day by Adriana (Sarah Shahi) as she hopes this long lost champion can once again deliver redemption from her nation’s oppressors. Adam seems more than happy to dish out lethal violence against anyone with a weapon, but that also includes said members of the Justice Society. Their presence complicates things not just because they insist Adam cease killing bad guys, but also because, as Adriana points out, it’s a bit hypocritical. Neither she, nor the people of Khandaq, seem to care at all that he’s killing the occupying forces. They just want them gone. The Justice Society could have driven them out years ago and yet only now do they show up to put a muzzle on the one person seemingly helping them.

This philosophical and moral complexity is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the film, beyond even The Rock’s static, stoic demeanor and performance. The Justice Society, in the words of Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) himself, brings security and stability around the world. And yet, for reasons that are never outright explained, they’ve avoided so much as setting foot in this Middle Eastern country for more than a decade. So why, then, should Khandaq’s people so much as sniff when someone finally helps them, even if the result is that now several dozen very evil bad guys are little more than charred corpses in the desert?

Sadly, the script never really goes beyond asking this question. Hawkman spends most of the movie insisting that “heroes don’t kill” and Adam mostly going “yeah well I’m gonna” and then they fight. And they fight again. And then fight some more. And then an even bigger, world-threatening enemy emerges and they have to beat that thing instead, roll credits. Kudos to the writers for at least having something on their mind, but a two hour cape-fest that barely stops to take a breath isn’t really the venue to expound on it, it would seem.

It might have helped to have a title character who has actual goals or desires that either conflict or align with this moral dilemma. But from the moment Teth-Adam is resurrected to the time the title card finally comes up nearly two hours later, I couldn’t tell you one single thing about what Adam wants or really anything about him beyond what we see from his ancient past. I suppose I can’t place all of The Rock’s bland performance on his bulky shoulders. Even far more talented actors couldn’t wring much blood from this stone.

Thankfully, most of the actors and characters surrounding him pick up much (but not all) of the slack. Hodge, like The Rock, really only has one gear he drives in here but he at least has a burning intensity that gives something to hook onto. Quintessa Swindell puts some adorable pep in the step of the underwritten Cyclone but she’s memorable enough where it counts. Noah Centineo is present and accounted for as Atom Smasher. It’s Pierce Brosnan as Kent Nelson/Dr. Fate that’s the real treat here, though. Despite predating the first appearance of Marvel’s Doctor Strange by nearly 30 years, Dr. Fate is most easily described as “Doctor Strange but weirder and (somehow) even more mystical.”

The movie barely takes a minute, collectively, to explain who any of these heroes are, what their abilities are or mean and mostly just assumes you’ll be along for the ride regardless. In a way I appreciate this. It’s nice to simply have a bit of faith in the audience, but it’s also detrimental because we rarely have a chance to get to know any of these characters as they’re thrown into the nearly non-stop conflict within minutes of showing up on-screen. Dr. Fate is the only character with anything resembling a meaningful character arc or resolution and thankfully Brosnan leans heavily enough into the physical and psychic angst of his character’s situation to make it feel somewhat meaningful.

That said, they all look fantastic in motion with, save for Atom Smasher, some really fun action beats that either make fun use of their powers or are kinetic and impactful. The hits feel like they really connect here in a way that hasn’t quite been felt since at least Man of Steel. It’s a genuine testament to the effects artists and storyboarding that Hawkman didn’t look utterly absurd in motion.

Ultimately this is a trifle of a movie. I was never bored. I was actually fairly frequently entertained on a purely surface level, but it’s vapor. I’ll watch the good parts with Brosnan/Fate on YouTube in a few months but I can’t imagine I’ll ever sit down for the full two hours ever again.