Dwayne the Rock Johnson smashes his way into the world of superheros in the latest DC universe film Black Adam. Joining the rock in this adaptation also stars Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Noah Centineo,Quintessa Swindell, and Mohammad Amer. The film is directed by Jaume Collett Serra.

In 2600 B.C a young slave boy (Teth-Adam) is given the powers of Shazam by the council of gods and uses his powers to overthrow the king of his home city Kahndaq. We fast forward to present day in Kahndaq, where the city is being run by a group of high tech mercenaries called Intergang who essentially have the city in a tyrnanical state. A group of archeologists and resistance fighters led by Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), while looking for an artifcat called the crown of Sabbac, awaken Teth-Adam from his thousand year slumber in an attempt to save them from intergang forces. Ishmael (Marwan Kenzari), betrays the group led by Adrianna has he has his own plans for the crown of Sabbac. Adam awakens to a world he is not familliar with and begins wreaking havoc on intergang forces in the city. Shortly after these events, leader of the Suicide Squad Amanda Waller calls in another group of super beings called the Justice Society to head to Kahndah to stop Adam and imprison him. This group consists of 4 new heros being Dr.Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centino). The 4 beings fight wage battle with Adam in the city, but soon learn he may be the only hope in saving the world from a much bigger threat. Does Black Adam really shift the balance of power in the DCEU? Well lets get into it.

I will say my favirote thing about this movie had to be Pierce Brosnan. There is just a cleverness and sense of grounding that he brings to the role that keeps the movie from completley going off the rails (which its pretty rough throughout). There are many attempts at humor throughout the film, and the most times I felt like laughing were from his jokes. Not too suprised by his characters name Dr. Fate, he has the ability to see future events and can alsoc reate copies of himself to trick and decieve his opponenets. From many of the films action scenes, he uses these powers in ways that elevate the action and the tension throughout. And other than its just good to see Brosnan in a big screen movie again, and that his charm has not wavered. Now how about the rest of the movie?

If you are in the 5-15 age range or if you are just lookig for pure action/adventure and not much else than you will move this movie. But if you enjoy action, story, good character development, and not having your eyes/ears abused with noises and explosions than this aint it. I think the most offensive thing aboout this movie is it promises us the takeover of the D..C verse by the Rock but this movie completley puts everything we love about him to the side. I think with the exception of a few scenes the rock does not even change facial expressions for the majority of the movie. The rock does not have an inch of charisma in this movie and just swaps it out for stocisim and dull jokes. There is not a single standout or remotley memorable charcters in this movie outside of Dr Fate. The members of the Justice society should bring some much needed energy to the movie being a new group of characters but Hawkman, Atom smasher, and Cyclone just feel there because they needed extra people to be there. There are several fights between Adam and Hawkman in this movie, and not one time, NOT ONE DAM TIME, do they make you think that Hawkman has a chance against him. Aldis Hodge is just under utilzied to just tell Adam “your being bad, you need to be good, use your powers for good”. Also this movie has something that I have not seen since the very early days of Marvel (pre MCU), a character skating around on a skateboard, giving the bad guys running the city hell, I just interanally groanded watching this unfold on the screen.

The climax of this movie is just flat our ridculous and combines imagery that combines something that looks like it came from one of the Mortal Kombat Games and Jason and the Argonauts. This movie is a 2 hour orgy of fights, flying, explosions, dust flying, and nonsensical looking CGI. Some may enjoy this, some may not, but for me it kept remidning me of Man of Steel which I am not an adamant fan of. I dont think this movie has done much to change the heirarchy in the DCEU, which quite frankly with the direction their going in right now and several on/off set issues I dont think their is a heirarchy right now. I wont deny that this movie has its fun moments but it is not enough for me to recommend it to anyone. 6/10.