‘Black Adam’ Is Surprisingly Good, And Good For The DCEU

At this point I will fully admit that I’ve been a Black Adam skeptic for a while now, as The Rock’s overpromotion of the film made me more exhausted than excited to see it by the time it actually arrived. Fundamentally, the idea that The Rock, through sheer force of will, was attempting to elevate Black Adam to be on the same level as the Justice League, skipping a logical Shazam face-off, and becoming a main hero/villain of the DC Universe seemed implausible.

However, now that I’ve seen the film, as a different universe’s lead villain once said, perhaps I treated you too harshly.

Critics certainly have. Black Adam stands at a 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, miles away from the audience score of an 89%, rated only above the absolute worst of the DCEU, the first Suicide Squad, Batman V Superman and Joss Whedon’s Justice League.

I was surprised to find that despite all my hesitation, I’m with the audience on this one. Black Adam is enjoyable, and The Rock and his supporting cast are enjoyable in it. Rather than being the fourth worst DCEU movie ever, like critics say, I’d say it’s better than pretty much everything except the first Wonder Woman, the new Suicide Squad, Man of Steel and Aquaman. I probably got the most Aquaman vibes from it overall, taking an undervalued character (a hero of a lost civilization in both cases) and crafting a coherent movie around them. I’m not sure how you’d view this movie side by side with say, Wonder Woman 1984, Birds of Prey or even Shazam and say that it isn’t better.

It helps that one of my least favorite tropes in all of comic book lore is “heroes don’t kill,” a concept that Black Adam takes on directly as he fries and dismembers hundreds of mercenaries at a time. It’s a display of pure power that we haven’t seen since the original Kryptonian slugfests of Man of Steel. It can be extremely cheesy (in different moments where Black Adam is tearing things up “Paint it Black” plays, and then later “Power” by Kanye West), but it just…works? There is something inherently satisfying about The Rock flying around murdering people, and then later continuing to do so as the JSA attempts to stop him.

I also think that Black Adam is uniquely positioned in the DCEU to bring something interesting and different to the beleaguered universe. This isn’t just another member of the Justice League fighting their old comic book foes. Much fuss was made by The Rock about Black Adam being an “anti-hero” but that’s…actually an interesting dynamic to introduce to the world of generally black and white heroes and villains. I think Zack Snyder was actually wrong in what he was trying to do with more “brutal” versions of Superman and Batman (Superman murdering Zod in Man of Steel, Batman murdering everyone, in every fight scene, more or less). But Black Adam can be a powerful, brutal killer and it doesn’t take him out of character from the source material. And The Rock can pull off that impassive attitude toward ultra-violence quite well.

I know many will say that the final cameo of the film is forced (spoilers follow, but The Rock spelled it out pretty explicitly before release), but by the end it does feel somewhat earned. No, I don’t think Black Adam needs to be the center of the DC universe going forward, but sure, I’d actually quite like to see him interact more with Superman in the future, be it a fight or a team-up. And I mean, the DCEU feels so directionless now just…let him do it? Who cares? Give us Man of Steel 2, Black Adam 2 and then do some sort of Justice League crossover project with whoever is left standing in the DCEU by that point. I’m not hearing any better ideas out of Warner Bros. lately.

Black Adam is better than critics are saying, even if it’s not going to be an all-time classic necessarily. The Rock accomplishes what he sets out to by making Adam a force in the DCEU, and I am genuinely interested in seeing more from him. I hope this could be a turning point for what remains of the DC Universe, but we’ll see where we go from here.

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