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The spiky and beautiful “Black Adam,” which was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and stars Dwayne Johnson in a standout lead role, is one of the best DC superhero movies to date. This story about a gloomy, presumably evil god who reappears in a Middle Eastern country that has been under occupation for a long time rejects the majority of the decisions that bland-ify even the best entrants in the genre. It portrays its eponymous character—a hero who fought against a tyrant ruler thousands of years ago—during the first third of the film as a terrifying and mysterious entity with an insatiable desire for destruction. His resurrection from a desert tomb, going by the ancient name Teth-Adam, is both a miracle and a curse for the people who prayed for protection from the corporate-mercenary thugs who have been oppressing them and strip-mining their country for years.
The remainder of “Black Adam’s” running time concentrates on the inevitableness of Adam’s change into a decent man, summarizing the transformation of the title character in the first two “Terminator” movies (there are even comic bits where people try to teach Adam sarcasm and the Geneva Conventions). Then, “Black Adam” adds a dash of the macho sentimentality that was once popular in classic Hollywood films about loners who needed to become involved in a cause in order to reorient their moral compass or realize their value. But the film’s early chapters of its plot never lose their razor-sharp edge.
At first glance, Adam resembles Godzilla and other monsters from Japanese kaiju movies in both literal and figurative terms. At first, it’s difficult for anyone who cross Adam’s path to determine if he is good, evil, or simply apathetic to human needs. Everyone wants Adam to assist them in stopping someone in Intergang, a multinational corporate/mercenary consortium whose interests are represented by a two-faced charmer, from receiving a crown made in hell and imbued with the power of six devils (Marwan Kenzari).
Years ago, Humphrey Bogart portrayed a lot of cynical guys who pretended to have no interest in issues before changing their thoughts and taking up arms in opposition to tyranny or corruption. The plot has been revised numerous times by Johnson during his career. Most recently, he played a character in “Jungle Cruise” who was based on Bogart’s riverboat captain in “The African Queen.” He imbues the entire thing with his distinct charm by drawing inspiration from classic primal performances by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as poet-brute performances like Anthony Quinn’s strongman in “La Strada.” He has studied the classics, as evidenced by “Black Adam,” and has selected passages that seem to fit his needs. Even the sweeter moments of remorse and guilt seem to be influenced by 1950s morality plays like “On the Waterfront.”
The latter are typically brought on by three “civilian” people who appeal to Adam’s supposedly inherent (albeit hidden) benevolence. One of them is Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), a professor at a university, a member of the resistance, and the widow of a resistance hero who was assassinated by the colonists. A different one is Adrianna’s jovial and unflappable son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), who zooms through the bombed-out city on a skateboard that appears to have as many additional uses as a Swiss Army Knife. Finally, Adrianna’s brother Amir (comedian Mohammed Amer), who brings life to the stereotypical earthy everyman role, is present.
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However, the screenplay by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani manages to fend off the urge to indulge in unwarranted sentiment. Despite the evidence, the film does not suggest that Adam or the superheroes he is up against (Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman, Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell’s wind-controlling Cyclone, and Pierce Brosnan’s dimension-hopping and clairvoyant Dr. Fate) are good people with good intentions. There is no absolute right or wrong in discussions of motives and strategies. The film’s edge comes from its desire to linger as long as it can in morally ambiguous territory.
Additionally, it derives from the violence, which is depicted as an unavoidable outcome of the individuals’ motivations, obligations, and personalities rather than being linked to any particular morality or ideology. As “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Gremlins” did with the PG rating over 40 years earlier, this framing, together with the bloody scenes and visuals of people being shot, impaled, and crushed, pushes the film’s PG-13 rating to its breaking point. At the “Black Adam” screening this writer went to, there were a number of walkouts, and in each instance, a parent with a child under 10 was responsible.
To be fair, they might not have anticipated the movie’s opening flashback, which culminates in a slave at a construction site being stabbed in the gut and thrown off a cliff, a boy being threatened with beheading, or the title character destroying an army with electrical bolts and his bare hands shortly after his first appearance. It ties into recurring scenes and dialogue about what it means for a small country to be invaded and occupied by outsiders who set their own rules and are unconcerned with daily life on the ground. Nearly every other scene—including expository dialogue exchanges—is set against the backdrop of a chaotic city whose residents have been hardened not just by the occupation, but by the catastrophes that are unleashed whenever super-beings clash.
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Film historians might notice that the idea was created by the Warner Bros. branch New Line. It gained popularity with horror movies, developed by putting out auteur-driven, gritty genre works and dramas (such as “Menace II Society” and “Deep Cover”), and entered blockbusters with the first three “Lord of the Rings” films. This movie, which is PG-13 in actuality but R in spirit, has many situations and sequences where you can see its heritage mirrored. By incorporating lyrics from “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones and musical and visual snippets from “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” “Black Adam” immediately makes it clear what kind of movie it is. These are significant works from artists whose best work invites you to root for characters who move through their worlds like threshers.
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The movie’s director developed his mayhem skills in horror films before moving on to R-rated thrillers with Liam Neeson mercilessly eliminating enemies. By editing away from or reversing the most graphic violence while still allowing us to hear it, Collet-Serra transforms a PG-13 movie into an R. (or imagine it when people watch from a great distance). He also achieves it by demonstrating via both his actions and his speech that people, especially superhuman ones, act for a variety of complex, frequently at odds motives. (A “good guy” and Adam fight in a boy’s bedroom decorated with superhero posters and comics, and in a scenario that rhymes with images of the city’s iconic monuments being toppled or destroyed, they burn and tear apart DC’s most known icons.)
Even when it is doing ten things at once, “Black Adam” remains focused because to fidelity to basic film storytelling. The movie is full with clearly defined lead and supporting characters, as well as foreshadowings, setups, payoffs, twists, and shocks. Among the best is Brosnan, who paints a poignant picture of an immortal who is sick of looking into the future and reflecting on his past. Dr. Fate has a complex mix of melancholy, knowledge, and envy as he observes those who can live in the present.
Another is Johnson, who possesses true acting talent but has lately shown signs of being restricted (or perhaps intimidated?) by his rich reputation as the people’s colossus. He plays the role of a god as simply as possible. He seems to have taken a lot of cues from action-hero performances by actors like Neeson, Toshiro Mifune, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Charles Bronson who understood that the camera can detect and amplify faint tremors of emotion as long as you act with the film—not just in it, and never against it. Clint Eastwood is the screen star that the movie quotes the most frequently. The climax is a brief instant when Johnson shifts his gaze and softens his face, letting us know that something deep inside Adam has shifted. It lasts perhaps a half second. It’s not the kind of acting that garners awards because when it’s done effectively, as it is here, you get the impression that it took place in your thoughts rather than on film.
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The movie’s politics and spirituality are equally steadfast and unwavering. “Black Adam” never loses sight of what Adam stands for in our world: autonomy, emancipation, the potential of atonement and regeneration, and a refusal to be defined by how things have always been done. This is true even when the plot tones down Western heaven-and-hell imagery or dabbles in Orientalism.
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The end effect sometimes seems like DC’s response to the “Black Panther” pop cultural earthquake, throwing up an Afro-Futurist aesthetic with Middle Eastern influences and using colonial areas as its setting. However, its politics are more firmly established and less tainted. “Black Adam” is adamantly anti-imperialist to the core; it even compares the Avengers-style team dispatched to apprehend and imprison Black Adam to a United Nations “intervention” force that the locals don’t want since it exacerbates the situation. Even more of a surprise given that the storyline is based on monarchs and genealogy is the fact that the film is anti-royalist.
The movie “Black Adam” is an outstanding and astute example of this type, coloring inside the lines while adding intriguing doodles to the margins. Collet-film Serra’s respects its audience and seeks to earn that audience’s regard in its boisterous, unrelenting, overblown manner. The movie “Black Adam” provides the audience all they desired and even more.
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For more personality quizzes check this: Strange World Quiz.
