Black Adam Review: Dwayne Johnson's DC Film Gets a Mixed Reaction From Critics; Praise The Rock's Performance

With the embargo lifted, the reviews for Black Adam are out... and it looks like the hierarchy pf power in the DC Universe might have not changed all that. With a mixed reception, the Dwayne Johnson-starrer is getting an underwhelming reaction with many calling the film muddy and messy. However, The Rock is getting some praise for his take on DC's anti-hero. With the film releasing this Thursday, let's take a look at what some of the critics are saying. Black Adam Review: Dwayne Johnson's Superhero Film Receives Mixed Reaction From Netizens.

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IGN: Black Adam overindulges to the point where it’s hard to enjoy the DC anti-hero’s debut. It’s packed with undeveloped characters and an excessive number of repetitive action scenes, to the point where its half-baked debate on what it means to be a hero is lost in all the noise. Try as it might to capture lightning in a bottle, Black Adam never manages to find its spark.

The Wrap: Most disappointing of all, “Black Adam” is one of the most visually confounding of the major-studio superhero sagas, between CG that’s assaultively unappealing and rapid-fire editing that sucks the exhilaration right out of every fight scene. (And there are so, so many fight scenes.) The premise of a superhero whose idea of conflict is to throw his opponents as far as he can offers some subversive chuckles the first two or three times, but it gets old quickly, as does pretty much everything “Black Adam” tosses at its audience. Sometimes, maybe, no plan is better than a bad one.

The Hollywood Reporter: A superhero movie in which a likely presidential candidate shows how satisfying it is to wield overwhelming force when nobody’s strong enough to challenge you, Jaume Collet-Serra’s Black Adam will, for most viewers, just be another fine-not-great night of spandex mayhem and franchises hoping to be born. Other moviegoers may have trouble finding escapist pleasure here, given the knotty global issues the movie raises but doesn’t fully process. As depressing as it is to have to parse the carnival of pop culture for hints of tomorrow’s foreign policy (and to imagine threat scenarios involving an entertainer as likable as Dwayne Johnson), that’s the world we live in right now.

The Guardian: Johnson’s massive bulk, planet-sized head and sly gift for deadpan humour all make him a great superhero. Where most men his age have a fold of fat across their gut, Johnson has one along the back of his skull. Droll, witty, and proportioned like the proverbial outdoor brick-built convenience, Johnson is well placed to realise the superhero movie’s potential as surrealist action comedy. It’s a shame that all these other DC-ensemble heroes crowding into the action are frankly not really in his class, although Viola Davis’s brief cameo as Task Force X chief Amanda Waller brings the menace. Black Adam: Dwayne Johnson’s Latest DC Film Took ‘A Lot of Edits’ To Avoid R Rating.

Discussing Film: Ultimately, Black Adam is a thoroughly entertaining ride that makes for an awesome experience on the biggest screen one can find. The scale of the film is well worth it. What it sets up for the future of the DCEU is exciting and not to be overlooked. With Dwayne Johnson setting himself up as some kind of DCEU advisor, anything is possible when enough is at stake like it is in Black Adam. It looks like exciting times are ahead for DC fans. Even with Black Adam’s first outing having its flaws, the positives far outweigh the negatives, which is what, at the end of the day, truly matters.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 19, 2022 11:53 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).