REVIEW: Black Adam

This… is not a good movie. There I said it. Sure, it has some good action scenes and at times the cinematography is good, but overall this is one of the biggest letdowns of the year from a film for me.Starting Dwayne Johnson as the titular character, this film gets off on an awkward foot, at best, and from there it only disintegrates. I found the writing clunky, cheesy and predictable—like a 90s superhero movie. On several occasions, it felt like it spawned from writers running down a generic checklist of predictable comic book tropes (“you can be this world’s savior;” a kid who wants to help but his mom won’t let him; a terrible villain, etc.) To its credit, the film does an excellent job of leaving me juggling between an unnerving annoyance with secondary characters and just not caring about them.There are a couple highlights in the film, mostly in the form of Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate—he was excellent and perhaps the only multi-dimensional character in the film. Likewise, Aldis Hodge was an upside of the movie. And despite a (seemingly somewhat intentional) one-note performance, Dwayne Johnson was born for the role of Black Adam.The action also played really well on the big screen, with unique and intricate camera movements and effective use of slow motion. Props to the cinematography and VFX crews for that.I don’t like ragging on movies—in fact, it’s one of my least favorite things to do. Making a movie is hard. Writing a script is hard. Acting is hard. I understand all of that, and know this crew did their best— I’m appreciative they put their all into it. I truly hope a sequel (or at least the next appearance) of Black Adam hits me in a much better way. But this is simply a disappointing film that didn’t work for me.I used my AMC A-List for this one, and paid about $14 for a snacks, from a gift card. But I’m honestly not sure it was worth that—or even the gas to get me to the theater.The bottom line: I have nothing […] productive to say, other than I sincerely hope that if you see this you have a far better time than I did. 3.5/10