Almost two decades after being announced, we can finally see Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson play the supervillain, and sometimes anti-hero, Black Adam. It’s certainly surprising that it took this long for the one movie star that’s born to play a comic book character to be featured on the big screen. But instead of having to debut opposite his comic book arch-nemesis Shazam, he gets to star in his own movie. I mean, why relegate the biggest action star in Hollywood today to second billing, right? So it begs the question, is it worth greenlighting Black Adam? Or more importantly, as Dwayne Johnson would keep saying, did this really change the hierarchy of power in the DC universe? Maybe with a better movie.

Written by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani, the film’s muddy script and terrible pacing are the weakest points of Black Adam. It desperately tries to do too much that it’s helplessly juggling an origin story, a superhero team-up, and a redemption arc all at the same time, which ends up feeling like watching three different movies at times. The story opens with a flashback five thousand years prior, set in the fictional Middle Eastern city of Kahndaq under the tyrannical rule of King Anh-Kot, when a young slave was granted magical powers by wizards – the same one who gave Billy Batson his powers in the surprisingly charming 2019 film Shazam! – to revolt against the ruler. Now cut to modern day Kahndaq, which is still oppressed, but this time under military occupation by the mercenary syndicate Intergang.

Archaelogist Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) is looking for the ancient Crown of Sabbac before Intergang gets a hold of it, and just as she retrieves this relic, she also awakens Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson), the champion of Kahndaq fabled to free its people from oppression. He then goes on the ruthlessly kill the Intergang mercenaries in brutal fashion (a lot more graphic than previous DC films). This gets the attention of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) from the Suicide Squad movies, and sends the Justice Society of America to stop Black Adam’s rampage. Little to no development is given to the JSA other than the basics: Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) is the leader of the group, and with him are the master sorcerer Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), wind manipulator Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) who can make himself grow large.

Of course, they’re no match for the strength of Black Adam. He easily obliterates everything in his path, and director Jaume Collet-Serra does a great job of showcasing the power scale among these heroes, creating action sequences where you feel the weight of every blow. While entertaining, a lot of times Black Adam just jumps from one violent set piece to another to compensate for its undercooked plot. It can get exhausting. The consequences end up being empty too, since these characters have so little going for them that viewers do not have a viable reason to care for what happens to them. The movie would already be busy enough to develop its titular protagonist, then they just add half a dozen more to juggle with, resulting in a confusing mess.

Why the JSA was sent to control Black Adam, instead of the more popular and already established Justice League (or even Shazam himself), is never really explained. And the film makes the assumption that we’re supposed to know who these people are, but within the context of the DCEU, the JSA just appear like the knockoff team despite predating the Justice League by two decades in the comics. But we know the real reason: Hollywood studios have this penchant of culminating intellectual property so they’ll have more toys to play with in future projects and merchandise to sell. Black Adam is more concerned with adding more with adding more to the franchise than simply tell a good coherent story.

Ultimately, Black Adam suffers from the unfortunate circumstance of being released in a time when its ideas have already been executed with more success by much better superhero movies. Although being bound by the pitfalls of the genre is not necessarily bad, the film never does anything interesting with its cliches. Not to mention the mandatory surprise big bad in the final act that’s not only forgettable, but further drags down an already draining movie. My mind has already checked out by this point, and I don’t blame you for doing so, too. In some ways, it’s more or less a retread of the murky Justice League and other Snyderverse movies.

For what it’s worth, Dwayne Johnson works as Black Adam. He’s got the size and bulk to be menacing which makes up for his wooden and charmless portrayal. Despite the repetitive message that he’s supposed to be a hero, the first few scenes of Black Adam mercilessly killing and causing destruction are the most interesting aspects of the character, and him being at odds against the goody-two-shoes superheroes make up for the best moments of the film. The movie may not have reached satisfying conclusions to the questions it brought up, still, I am legitimately curious to see more of the JSA and Black Adam in the DCEU, especially his eventual clash with Shazam.

Rating: ★★½