Dwayne Johnson stars in Warner Bros.’ “Black Adam.”
Warner Bros.
Even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson couldn’t save Warner Bros.’ latest entrant in the DC Extended Universe.
“Black Adam,” which premieres Friday, failed to impress critics, earning a measly 53% on Rotten Tomatoes out of 102 reviews Thursday afternoon. While the film is expected to gross between $55 million and $75 million in its opening weekend, bad word of mouth could dash the film’s hopes of $200 million before it hits. he has a chance to take off.
The film centers on Black Adam, a man who has been given almighty power by the gods, but uses those gifts for revenge. He is imprisoned for nearly 5,000 years and emerges in modern times to dispense his own unique form of justice.
Unlike his traditional superhero counterparts — in this movie, it’s the Justice Society, not the Justice League — Black Adam isn’t opposed to the use of deadly force.
Here’s what critics had to say about “Black Adam” ahead of its theatrical debut:
Kristy Puchko
“Watching an action movie shouldn’t be a chore, but ‘Black Adam’ is,” Kristy Puchko wrote in her review of the movie for Mashable. “Amidst a slew of publicly cursed decisions, Warner Bros. has released a DC Extended Universe movie that is more exhausting than exciting, rolling out tedious exposition alongside ugly action for a confusing mess of a movie that wastes its big budget and the promising star power of Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge and Noah Centineo.”
Puchko noted that “Black Adam” rushes through the introductions of Cyclone, Atom Smasher, Hawkman, and Doctor Fate “so quickly it’s actually comedic”.
“In their eagerness to ‘meet the crew,’ the writers deliver a more hasty exposition that’s hard to grasp amid so many quirky intros and cameos (which, I admit, is a thrill)”, she said. “‘Black Adam’ is in such a rush to launch this group of C-list heroes into their battle with the protagonist, your head might be spinning.”
Read the full Mashable review.
Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
“‘Black Adam’ isn’t bad,” Mark Kennedy said in his review of the film for The Associated Press. “It’s just predictable and color by number, stealing from other movies like an IP super villain.”
Kennedy noted that Johnson is a natural choice to play Black Adam, able to mix “power with humor”, but ultimately his performance and the film as a whole were “disappointed by a derivative and loose script”.
“[The film] jumps from violent scene to violent scene like a video game to smother a plot that’s both undercooked and overcooked,” he says. Hell, exactly what we wanted.”
Read the full Associated Press review.
Pierce Brosnan and Dwayne Johnson star in Warner Bros.’ “Black Adam.”
Warner Bros.
Alonso Duralde, The envelope
For Alonso Duralde of The Wrap, “Black Adam” felt like “both too much and not enough”, a film where “narrative gambits are aided by a muddy visual style that is either artificially distracting or terrifyingly dark, except when it manages to be both.”
“The set is doing what they can with the material, but no one is going to include that in their eventual directing films,” he said. “There’s a jarring sense of four-quadrant casting at work here – Brosnan for the parents! Centineo for the teens! Skateboard kid for the tweens! – which all too obviously reads like a marketing ploy and not a characters who would actually interact under those circumstances.”
Like many other critics, Duralde said the film attempts to correlate the sudden appearance of the Justice Society in Kahndaq, a fictional Middle Eastern country, and past US imperialism, it stops before to make a meaningful statement.
Read The Wrap’s full review.
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
Critics have also focused on “Black Adam’s” narrative choices. The superhero movie attempts to cast its title character as a vengeful, dark antihero, but does nothing story-wise to elevate or redefine the genre.
“‘Black Adam’ desperately wants to be a darker, more sinister version of the same burger that audiences have been served over and over again for the past 15 years, but Johnson – who is also the film’s producer and part-time architect of this cinematic universe besides our own – can’t stand the thought of doing something that might leave even one audience member behind,” said David Ehrlich in his review of the film.
He called “Black Adam” “derivative exhaustion”, noting that the film felt like it had been “tested by audiences within an inch of its life”.
Even the main antagonist of the film could not inspire critics.
“They’re teaming up to fight what might be the most forgettable villain in comic book history, which is a crazy thing to say about a giant demon from hell with a pentagram scar all over it. his chest,” Ehrlich wrote.
Read the full IndieWire review.
Dwayne Johnson is Black Adam in Warner Bros.’ DC’s latest film “Black Adam”.
Warner Bros.
Matt Singer, Screen Crush
Johnson has been linked to the character of Black Adam for at least 15 years, explained Matt Singer in his review of the film for ScreenCrush. The project has won and lost directors and writers for years, but the former WWE wrestler has always been attached.
“Alas, 15 years of work has produced a rather mediocre film, which doesn’t seem to reflect what must have been hundreds of hours of writing and countless script drafts,” he said.
“Instead, Black Adam plays like a committee-created product designed to zhoosh the stagnant DC Extended Universe with a massive star and a batch of new heroes to mold into future movies,” Singer said. “After two hours of stark table-setting, you’re left with a clear direction for DC’s cinematic future — and far less interest in watching it.”
Read the full ScreenCrush review.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.
0