Shame on you Warner Bros.
Our first inclination that Black Adam was going to be a disaster, other than it being a DC movie in general, was when their marketing department reported one of Geek Slop’s social media accounts for publishing a link to “leaked’ images of Black Adam’s helmet. They made no attempt to contact us first, discuss the media merits of the “leak”, whether the leak was a purposeful marketing ploy, or ask us to take the picture down. Instead, they file a formal complaint with the social media company which of course, counts as a dreaded “strike”. Despite many years of extensive coverage of movies, this had never happened to us before.
Of course, we immediately stopped publicizing the movie. There is no “movie watch” page for Black Adam on the Geek Slop website. How could we support a movie that arrogantly believed attacking their fanbase was okay?
But poor marketing aside, there were dozens of reasons why the Black Adam movie was doomed to failure. But first, let’s look at the strange way Black Adam came to be in the first place.
How the Black Adam movie came to be
Black Adam is a villain who was created to conflict with Captain Marvel/Shazam. Like Captain Marvel, he gained his powers from the Council of Wizards and activates them via the single word – Shazam! In Black Adam form, he’s an all-powerful superhero, er, villain. Yes, Black Adam is a villain who ultimately turns into a good guy (for the most part).
For reasons known only to him, Dwayne Johnson thought Black Adam was the superhero role he was born to play. More than 10 years ago, Black Adam was set to be the villain in 2019’s Shazam! movie when Johnson approached DC about spinning the character off into his own film – as a superhero. DC went along, despite the lead being a DC superhero that, let’s just come right out and say it, nobody cares about.
Given the green light, filming for Black Adam began in April 2021 and completed on August 15. Test screenings were so bad, actors were reportedly brought back to reshoot more than a dozen sequences. No amount of reshoots could save this catastrophe which was doomed from the get-go because, well, nobody cares about Black Adam.
The many reasons the Black Adam movie was so bad
With DC’s blessing, Johnson created the cumbersome slog of a movie we know as Black Adam. How bad was it? If you watched Black Adam on VOD, how many times did you pause the film to see how much time was remaining? We counted 4 times – and each time we were shocked (and disappointed) to see how much time was remaining. Yeah, it was that bad – and for a multitude of reasons.
Bad writing
Black Adam was written by Adam Sztykiel, whose credits to date included Made of Honor, Due Date, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. You haven’t seen any of these films? Us either. The Black Adam project has been in the works for more than a decade and we still ended up with sub-standard, predicable narrative, a paint-by-numbers script that manages to shirk all the basic rules of writing.
Confusing plotline
Beginning with the lead character, is Black Adam the same as Shazam? The plotline confused many viewers who couldn’t understand why “Shazam” was wearing black and being called Black Adam. Adam should have been tied in with Shazam in the 2019 movie– as was originally intended. Then we would have a character that could be built upon.
Poor character development
Character development was dismal with an ensemble that was easily forgettable. Characters have a semblance of internal conflict but for the most part, are never fully developed. We just assumed Rock’s lack of feeling was bad acting, not the character’s purposeful repression of emotion. It’s bad enough that each character had to explain their motivations, but they did so repeatedly, like we’re too stupid to remember.
Show – don’t tell!
The old “show don’t tell” rule was ignored in spades. Characters were introduced by didactic monologues and poorly delivered exposition dumps. For instance, when Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Atom Smasher, and Cyclone first appear, their powers are revealed to us by each explaining to the other characters what they can do. That’s the worst of bad writing, pure laziness. Just use a narrator if you’re going to cop out of your writing duties.
An incoherent mess
Character actions were often puzzling, with no intrinsic purpose. For instance, when Black Adam bursts from the tomb, he kills everyone but Adrianna and her son. Most viewers became lost in thought at this point, missing the next few minutes (which was probably just an action scene anyway) while trying to understand how Black Adam recognized they were the good guys. Did he know them? Were we supposed to know them? It’s like the writers took a 10-hour screen play and cobbled together torn-out parts in a fragmented, incoherent mess.
The conflicting, confusing DC Extended Universe (DCEU)
No DC movie can be critiqued without considering the DC Extended Universe which of course, is a mess to begin with. Black Adam just contributes to the messiness. For instance, the film tells us JSA has been active lately. Really? What have they done and why don’t we know about it already?
Dwayne Johnson contributed to this mess by touting Black Adam as a sort of reset of the DCEU with Black Adam at its center. The reset is clearly not going to center around Black Adam. Then again, we’re talking about DC here so yeah, maybe it could.
The Rock as Black Adam – ugh!
Oh, and Dwayne Johnson’s portrayal as Black Adam was, let’s be honest here, the worst. One of our favorite actors of all time played a part that was essentially, forgettable (dear God, please let us forget). His physical presence was, of course, as strong as always but monotone, emotionless lines delivered through gritted teeth made Johnson a cardboard cutout of himself and gave us a hollow, wooden performance that’s about as far from the charming Rock we know as you can get. We were robbed!
Where was that smile that makes you feel all glowy inside? Or what about that humorous stern look from the big teddy bear that makes you want to laugh, not cower in fear. Sorry Dwayne, but Black Adam was simply not a part you should have ever been cast in. We love you for who you are, not who you wish to be.
Black Adam who?
And we’re sorry Rock. We know you had some weird special feelings for the Black Adam character but of all the superheroes in the DC universe – why Black Adam? Let us clue you in. Nobody cares about Black Adam!
A forgettable villain
Quick! Who was the villain in Black Adam? See, you’ve forgotten already – and that’s a major problem. The villain should stand out just as much as the lead but despite appearing in three different incarnations in DC Comics, there’s really nothing interesting about dull, soulless Sabbac – or his heir.
Then we are shown dozens more villains that for the most part, we have no idea who they are much less why they are attacking the good guys. They just appear out of nowhere and start clobbering everyone. And with so many baddies, soon we lost track of who’s who.
Lots of forgettable good guys
The introduction of the Justice Society, the B-Tier of the Justice League, couldn’t have been worse. Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) go back to the 1940’s but most people are unfamiliar with them. We are given no explanation of who they are – no backstory, no character development, and in some cases, no introduction whatsoever. The film arrogantly assumes the viewers know who they are. Even diehard fanboys may not remember Cyclone’s powers.
Unlike Marvel, we had no prefatory Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Atom Smasher, or Cyclone movie. We never got emotionally invested in them because we’re spending too much time trying to remember their backstories in our heads. DC just threw in a team because, well, apparently, they believe you have to have a team in an action movie. Did they forget Justice League already?
A woke setting nobody can identify with
We get it – woke is the way. But a black lead from a fake Middle East setting (Kahndaq) created a scenario that very few can identify with. And speaking of wokeness, an internal struggle over whether killing is good or bad. Really? It’s been done before and yes, we clearly recognize that killing others is bad. And what about the weak exploration of modern-day imperialism – the “good guys” (i.e., Justice League) ignoring the plight of oppression the troubled land of Kahndaq while citizens plead for a savior. Sorry but that storyline has been done since Moses wrote the first books of the Bible.
Too much forced action
DC believes the key to a successful superhero movie is A-list talent and action. That’s it. Nothing more. No consideration for plot or narrative in the equation so what we end up with is a film that is 75% or more of nothing but action scenes. There’s no buildup, no break in the action to catch your breath, just CIG-heavy action scenes that drag on and on and on.
Too much slo-mo action
If the deluge of much-too-long action scenes were not enough, DC decided to torture us further by playing them out in seemingly endless slo-mo. The first slo-mo scene was soooo long. And then there was another. And another. We get it – there’s a time and a place for slo-mo action but in Black Adam, it was overused, turning the action into a tiring, boring mess.
Stop throwing people around already!
And while on the topic of action scenes, how many times did Black Adam effortlessly fling a bad guy across the horizon? The first time he tossed someone into the sky it was cool, funny. Not so much the second time, or the third time, or any of the other dozen times the fight scene incorporated a human opponent sailing through the sky. We get it – Black Adam is super strong, but the endless tossing of people made it feel like Black Adam’s only superpower was throwing people.
Unfunny comedy bits
And speaking of Atom Smasher – couldn’t they pick a better JSA member? He has no superpowers other than the ability to grow and shrink. Even though in the comics he develops a pseudo-friendship with Black Adam, he’s about as uninteresting a character as you can get. DC seems to have put him in a knockoff of Deadpool’s suit and used him as nothing more than the film’s joke delivery mechanism. It might have worked to some degree except, well, with all the canned and predictable lines, he’s just not very funny.
Just how bad was the Black Adam movie?
Black Adam was so bad, it caused a complete reset of the DC Extended Universe – and not the sort of reset that Dwayne Johnson promised us. Ahead of its release, Johnson touted plans to develop his own corner of the DCEU centered on Black Adam characters such as the Justice Society of America, as well as a future Black Adam vs. Superman movie. Despite sources at Warner Bros. claiming the movie will break even, it’s generally known that the film is set to lose up to $100 in its theatrical run. This mindless mess does little to help DC’s struggling DC Films division.
Black Adam is just as flawed as the previous DCEU movies and although it was to have launched a new franchise, Johnson announced on 12/20/22 that plans for a sequel were halted and the movie would not be moving forward any time soon. DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran were so dismayed at Black Adam’s performance, they quickly announced their intent to reshape the entire DC slate with projects such as Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel sequel and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 3 falling by the wayside. Yes, Black Adam was bad, it sent DC back to the drawing board.
