What’s it about?
Black Adam, a slave-turned-superhero from the ancient kingdom of Kahndaq, awakens in the present day 5000 years after being entombed. He then has a big fight with some bad guys, then has a big fight with some superheroes, then has a big fight with a supervillain.
What did we think?
Peter Linning says: I went in with low expectations and was still genuinely shocked at how much I disliked this movie. Managing to somehow come off as overproduced and sloppy at the same time, it’s a grab-bag of tired cliches and no-stakes action setpieces, occasionally broken up by awfully self-serious dialogue. Dwayne Johnson plays his role far too straight, with no hint of his trademark charm, and his contractual requirement to never lose a fight has never been more apparent. Pierce Brosnan just had to turn up on the day and deliver his lines to be the best part of the movie by a long shot, and Aldis Hodge is giving it a red-hot go as Hawkman, but every other character is immediately forgettable, and I’m not even sure that half of them were even named.
There’s not really a plot, just a collection of scenes that are plonked into an order that resembles the shape of a superhero movie if you squint. Black Adam is boring to the point of being offensive, and I truly hope that this move tanks so hard at the box office that Dwayne Johnson is forced to reassess the egocentric and risk-averse brand he’s created for himself.