Marvel? Black Adam starring The Rock is anything but

How best to sum up Black Adam, the 11th movie in the DC Extended Universe? How about this: this is a mess of a movie.

Dwayne Johnson in a scene from the movie Black Adam.

How best to sum up Black Adam, the 11th movie in the DC Extended Universe? How about this: the title is not mentioned once. It is smirked at, but not spoken, right at the end by the purportedly titular character, known throughout as Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson).

That’s the feeling I had as I left this underwhelming movie: it’s a $200m flick that doesn’t know its own name. It can’t decide whether it’s about superheroes or super villains, and ends up being about neither.

That’s not necessarily the end of the world – a fate always on the horizon in DC and Marvel movies – but there is more to come.

It has a predictable plot crammed with superhero movie tropes that might have been bought in bulk at a garage sale. It has no character development, zero emotional depth and its attempts at humour are laughable.

The action opens in the fictional Egypt-like nation of Kahndaq in 2600BCE. This overlong sequence introduces us to Teth-Adam.

He overthrows the dictator-king but his motivation for doing so is unclear (until later on when it’s spelled out like a sixth grade history lesson). Fast forward 5000 years and Teth-Adam is in today’s Kahndaq, which is run by a mercenary group known as Intergang. He’s been away for a while and his home is not what it used to be.

There is an ancient crown, hidden somewhere, that the baddies want to lift because it has demonic powers. A local archaeologist (Sarah Shahi) wants to keep it out of evil hands. She has a precocious pre-teen son (Bodhi Sabongui) who has superhero posters on his bedroom wall.

Teth-Adam, who has superpowers and wears a tight black uniform, meets all of them and decides to terminate the baddies. There is a lot of bloodshed in this 124-minute movie but only in the special effects sense.

His take-no-prisoners approach attracts the attention of the Justice Society of America, led by Hawkman (Aldis Hodge). They decide to pop over to the Middle East to defuse this “weapon of mass destruction’’.

Four members make the trip: Hawkman, Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo). I have no idea why the latter two are in this cobbled-together movie.

When Hawkman explains American justice to Teth-Adam it’s a good example of the film’s comic reach. Hawkman: “Heroes don’t kill people.” Teth-Adam: “Well, I do.”

There are two semi-interesting themes buried here. One is that sometimes a hero needs a black side. That’s hardly an original idea but it’s worth talking about for longer than five seconds.

The other is the question of what Justice Society of America has been doing for the three decades Kahndaq has been under totalitarian rule? Nothing. That disconnect is something that could have been explored further.

This movie is directed by Spanish-American filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra. His previous film was Jungle Cruise (2021), an entertaining spoof of The African Queen starring Johnson and Emily Blunt.

Johnson should do more movies like that one. As an actor, he needs a change of scene.

He may disagree – his films have grossed more than $10bn worldwide – but I suspect a time will come where two hours of the Rock punching people will reach a point of diminishing returns.

That goes to one of the odd things about this movie. No one acts particularly badly, but no-one acts well either. It almost feels as though $US200m is the on-the-road cost and acting is an optional extra. Watching it reminded me why the TV superhero satire The Boys, heading into its fourth season, is so clever.

Towards the end it’s suggested that Teth-Adam’s 5000-year absence was due to him being in jail. If so, based on this muddled mess of a movie, he got off lightly.