Dwayne Johnson’s “Black Adam” Opens Friday, “Justice Society of America” Shines

By Maggie Ma

Dwayne Johnson’s “Black Adam” that arrives this Friday is a face-paced, action-packed super hero movie, and is probably the darkest PG-13 DC movie ever. With the help of other brand new superheroes from “Justice Society of America” and well written supporting characters, “Black Adam” is fun and never boring. But at the same time, when people see a superman like “god” killing people frequently on screen, there could be a moral debate: Is he a hero or a murder?

Who is Black Adam?

Black Adam, whose real name was Teth Adam, was a slave in Kahndaq, a fictional country in the Middle East. Because his family was killed by the king, after accidentally obtaining super power from Council of Wizards, he started his revenge. But he was punished by the Council of Wizards for his behaviors and imprisoned for 5,000 years.  He was accidentally awakened by Adrianna Tomaz, a female professor knowing a lot of Kahndaq’s history and wants to save her country from intruders. The locals thought a super hero like Black Adam could help them but Black Adam’s anger and reckless personality lead to destruction and chaos as well. The Justice Society of America, including Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Atom and Cyclone, arrive to try to stop Adam.

Dwayne Johnson’s “Black Adam” that arrives this Friday Oct21st (image credit: WB Picture)

What is the “Justice Society of America”?

The Justice Society of America, a superhero team from DC Comics, made its debut in this film. They work for the U.S. government to deal with restless, troublesome people with super powers. In the comics, the team is larger, including “Green Lantern” and “The Flash “as well.

“Justice Society of America “ helps made the action sequences more fun to watch  (image credit: WB Picture)

In this film, “Doctor Fate” is played by former 007 actor Pierce Brosnan. He is calm , confident and sophisticated, and can see the destination of a person whenever he put on the magical helmet, and can also use other magic to fight.  Aldis Hodge’s “Hawkman” has the coolest consume in the movie: a shining golden armor with giant wings, which look so cool every time he showed up in a fight.  Handsome and adorable curly-haired Noah Centineo plays the inexperienced “rookie” hero “The Atomic” in this film. He can get very big, but he can be also quite clumsy. Quintessa Swindell’s “Whirlwind” has high IQ , a dark sense of humor and can create tornadoes during fight.

“Hawkman” looks awesome in with the costume. (image credit: WB Picture)

Among the four characters, “Eagle Man” who has a strong sense of justice, is honest and conservative, serves as the leader of the team; “Dr. Destiny” is a good “advisor” because he can predict the future; “Atom Man” and “Whirlwind” who have great chemistry together, helping with the combat and filling in jokes. The four people have distinct personalities but works well as a team. Their awesome costumes and funny dialogues made the movie much more fun to watch and they contribute similar amount of time as Black Adam during action sequences. In my opinion ,  these four are the best part of the movie. Audiences may want to see more of them. A prequel focus on  “Justice Society of America” can be a good idea.

Weak villain but strong supporting characters

Sarah Shahi (Sarah Shahi) plays the female professor Adrianna Tomaz.  Not only she knows a lot about history and ancient language, she is also a strong single mom and a freedom fighter. The character was portrayed like Lola in “Tomb Raider”, who has strong personality and can throw a fight despite has no super power. Her son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) who is also brave and smart, showed impressive skateboarding skill in lots of the action scenes. Could they also become super heroes in the comic is remain to be seen but they are characters that are important to Black Adam’s journey becoming a hero. Adrianna’s brother also contributes a lot of comedy scenes.

However, just like other DC movies, the villain of the film is still a relatively weak, who has the exaggerated VFX look and didn’t have much screen time. However, we can clearly see that Black Adam’s true enemy is himself. Will he be able to change and use his power for good? The movie didn’t show us if he has really changed but as far as we have seen, he is not yet a team player, it would be really funny if he joined with superman, batman, shazam and other members of DC super heroes. Black Adam definitely made the future of DCEU looks more exciting .

A hero who kills

Adam, makes a big point in the movie that he’s not your average superhero, mainly because he kills people. We do see human beings are tossing around by him like a piece of toy.  But he’s not completely mad. Adam only kills the bad guys that threatening innocent citizens in Kahndaq.

The language and tone of the movie remain PG-13 rating but unlike other super-hero movies, we do get to see human beings killed by Adam and sometime those scenes even used as a joke to show how strong Adam is and how powerless human beings in front of him. Some may argue there are too many violence in the movie but that set the difference between Black Adam and Superman or Shazam. He is still hard to control himself.

Cast of “Black Adam” attended London Premiere of the film (image credit: WB Picture)

The cast is very diverse and fit perfectly with the background of the roles. As a brown skin super hero leads a big budget movie, Dwayne Johnson’s “Black Adam “ and all the characters that are fight for freedom and justice in the film will inspire a lot of young audiences with similar culture background .

In general, for those who love action movies, even not a comic fan, will still enjoy this exciting action movie on big screen. I also think Black Adam, despite has a darker tone , is one of the funniest DC movie ever made mainly due to the fun interaction during fights between  “Justice Society of America” and Black Adam.

The film opens in North America on October 21.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here