Black Adam Movie Review

Photo+Courtesy+of+DC

Photo Courtesy of DC

 Spoilers for DC’s Black Adam ahead

 

Black Adam is DC’s newest addition to it’s own cinematic universe. In the same universe as the Shazam movie, Black Adam takes place in the fictional country of Kahndaq, on the Sinai Peninsula near Egypt. Thousands of years ago, under the rule of a tyrannical king who was trying to unleash a great evil, a council of seven wizards chose a young revolutionary as their champion of Shazam, ad hero of Kahndaq, after a fight with the king, the hero disappears.

The main story then picks up in present day Kahndaq which is under the control of Intergang, a terrorist organization. It follows a group of three people who are trying to keep an ancient artifact away from the grasp of Intergang. Then, they reach the crypt where the artifact was kept and accidentally unleash Black Adam, the supposed hero from long ago.

The movie in itself is really awesome, while there are a few gripes that other viewers have complained about, such as some lack of development in or the introduction of certain characters that could appear in a sequel later down the line. 

Black Adam took some turns with the storyline, most of which were very well executed. The bickering back and fourth between Black Adam and Hawkman saw for some very entertaining quips and extremely well executed fight scenes. The CGI, for the most part looked, amazing with most of the complaints coming from Atom Smasher’s CGI due to the changing of size he undergoes when using his powers, which is understandable as any size changing CGI is very difficult to execute perfectly.

The two main, non superpowered characters, Andrianna and Amon Tomaz, give the people of Kahndaq a voice and give the viewers a perspective of what they are going through. Starting with the oppression of the Kahndaqi people from Intergang, then, as their hero returned from his perceived death, the film adjust so that we can see the high that the human characters hit when they see him, as well as their perceived low as a bunch of outsiders known as The Justice Society come in to take him away. The Justice Society in this film are also given perspective when they realize they failed to protect everyone in the world, as they have failed to keep Intergang out of rule in Kahndaq.

The villain of the movie is Ishmael, who later becomes Sabbac, an ancestor from the king that Black Adam fought way back in ancient times. While Ishmael started out as a friend of Adrianna, he quickly reveals that he leads Kahndaq’s portion of Intergang and is looking for the evil artifact that the first king was after. He does end up getting hold of the artifact and, after passing on to the underworld, is revived as Sabbac, the champion to the seven rulers of the underworld, similar to Black Adam’s status as one of the champions of Shazam.

The design for Sabbac is amazing, making characters from the comics look extremely accurate in live action. The fight sequence that takes up a majority of the end of the movie is executed amazingly with a twist death that shocks the audience watching. Black Adam is a great movie for those who enjoy action movies, as well as people that read comic books. The characters are accurately portrayed and truly done justice.