Superhero DVD of The Week: Black Adam (2022)

Thousands of years before Billy Batson was granted the power of Shazam, the Wizards chose a rebellious young slave in the kingdom of Kahndaq, where a corrupt king is forcing his citizens to mine for the magical Eternium metal necessary to forge the powerful Crown of Sabbac.

Flash forward 5,000 years and Kahndaq is now controlled by the mercenary army of Intergang (a major criminal organisation in the world of DC Comics), but archaeologist Adrianna Tomaz (Person of Interest's Sarah Shahi) has a lead on the location of the Crown of Sabbac.

However, her expedition is ambushed by Intergang soldiers and her only hope is call upon the land's mythical protector... and so ends up summoning Teth Adam aka Black Adam (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson).

Black Adam makes short work of the Intergang army, but in the process attracts the attention of Suicide Squad's Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) who dispatches The Justice Society (the very first comic book superhero team, from the 1940s) to bring him in.

Without any fuss we are introduced to team leader Hawkman aka Carter Hall (Leverage's Aldis Hodge), powerful sorcerer Dr Fate aka Kent Nelson (James Bond himself, Pierce Brosnan), the delightfully clumsy and goofy Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell).

Not only do the heroes find their hands full when they confront Black Adam, but they find the people of Kahndaq are against them as well, being more inclined to support their home-grown saviour than 'invading' Americans.

Directed by Orphan's Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam really caught me by surprise with its superb balance of action and character work.

One of the best recent DC superhero movies, and certainly better than both of Zack Snyder's first two Superman films, Black Adam finally presents a convincing justification for the harder edge that DC films are perceived to have over those of MCU. 

I've always had difficulty getting my head around the idea of Black Adam as a hero - or even anti-hero - because of one particular image that is forever burned into my brain from 2006's comic book series 52 (issue three) ... when he suddenly ripped the B-list villain Terra-Man in half.

The fate of Terra-Man at the hands of Black Adam

But the movie presents a genuinely rounded view of Adam, with his origin story turning out to not be as straight forward as we presumed, that goes out of its way to explain his complex character.

In fact, to my eyes, pretty much everything about Black Adam is perfect, from the set design to the costumes, creating a sense of verisimilitude that makes the film feel like a comic book brought to life.

The film only really goes off the rails slightly in the third act, with the introduction of the demonic villain Sabacc, a visually stunning entity that is sadly devoid of any personality and whose sole purpose is to serve as a punching bag for the protagonists.

There was also a suggestion quite early on that the only thing that could really hurt Adam was Eternium, but that seems to soon be forgotten in all the excitement.

Beyond the obvious Shazam! connection (check out the mid-credit scene in Shazam! Fury of The Gods where Waller tries to recruit Captain Marvel for the JSA), Black Adam has lots of Easter Eggs entwining it in the broader DC Universe of movies and there's even an awkward mid-credit scene here (clearly pieced together from shots of the two characters not in the same room) designed to further cement this.

It's almost a shame then that Warner Bros has decided to reboot the whole shindig under the auspices of James Gunn because with Black Adam and the far weaker Shazam! Fury of The Gods you get the feeling that this particular cinematic universe was just starting to pull itself together.

And I really want to see Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's Black Adam in action again, perhaps fighting alongside Captain Marvel and other more traditionally heroic comic book characters.