Starring Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Shahi, Noah Centineo, Quintessa Swindell, Marwan Kenzari, Mohammed Amer and Bodhi Samongui

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Warner Bros., in cinemas now

Khandaq is a nation under siege, controlled by international Private Military Company Intergang. Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), her brother Karim (Mohammed Amer), their friend Ishmael (Marwan Kenzari) and Adrianna’s teenage son Amon (Bodhi Samongui) are some of the only people who know what they’re looking for; the crown of Sabacc. An artifact of extraordinary power, it holds the key to Khandaq’s past and, perhaps, it’s future.

There are five movies happening at once in Black Adam. Two of them are good, one of them is great, one is fine and one of them is very, very loud.

Loud first. Collet-Serra’s direction is the platonic ideal of what the internet likes to refer to as ‘A Lot’. The first act in particular has a deeply unsettling combination of frantic crash zooms, sudden slow-motion, a pair of just startlingly awfully placed needle drops and a 15 year old’s fondness for violence. Adam kills an easy hundred people in this scene and it’s relentless, more than a little exuberant, and increasingly difficult to watch. That gets addressed but it’s difficult not to look at that first act in particular as a PG-13 cover version of the infamously brutal fight from Miracleman Issue 15 or Invincible at its most extreme. If you like that sort of consequence-free violence, you’ll have a blast. If you don’t that first act is going to be a chore.

Fine next. The movie sprawls, badly, in the second act and it’s absolutely the DCEU’s fault. That’s especially odd as this movie changes a couple of pretty fundamental elements of it. Task Force X are now essentially the DCEU SHIELD with secret underwater prisons and limitless faceless goons. There’s a cameo from a member of the Peacemaker cast which will make fans very happy and people who haven’t seen the show confused. It’s all the more annoying because Quintessa Swindell and Noah Centineo as Cyclone and Atom Smasher are instantly charming and fun and likable and lose a solid 5 minutes screen time to the Task Force X stuff. It’s vintage fan service but in a movie like this which introduces 5 (!) new characters there just isn’t the time to take a side road like this.

Now for the good. Collet-Serra, from act two onwards, does superhero action in a way I’ve not seen before. Smasher and Cyclone’s powers, size increase and wind control respectively, are vital to the plot and gift the movie some really fun beats. Smasher growing to huge size to carry a metaphor for teamwork, Cyclone dancing her way through a fight and an action scene where everyone’s powers come together work brilliantly. The final act especially gives everyone some character specific action beats, with Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman, Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate and Johnson’s Black Adam all getting moments to shine that are often tied to their emotional arcs. For Hawkman it’s the loss of friends, for Fate it’s the acceptance of a life well lived and for Adam it’s the realization that he’s the hero who’s needed, even if he isn’t the hero he wants to be.

That’s where the other good lies. These three are the heart of the movie and they’re all fiercely good. Johnson seethes in a way I’ve never seen before here and his looming physicality and soft demeanour fill Adam with threat and intellect every time he’s on screen. Hodge, long a favourite in these parts for his work on Leverage, takes Hawkman from a belligerent thug (with a great watch!) to a mature, smart leader. Brosnan, who seems to be having an absolute blast here, brings an impish quality to Fate, tempering it with the horrors of endlessly seeing the worst possible future. Along with Shahi, Amer and Samongui they turn in work that lifts and often exceeds the script and direction and give this a feel unlike any other previous DCEU movie.

Which brings us to the great. Black Adam, for all its bombast and murder sprees, is a surprisingly complex and ambitious movie. Adam’s hero’s journey, and the JSA’s own, are a big part of that but they aren’t alone. This is also a story about heroic legacy and masculinity, toxic and otherwise. It’s also, like the Disney+ Moon Knight, very interested in a non-western approach to characters like these and it’s in the moments where this is the focus that the movie absolutely shines. An iconic image, towards the end, sees Adam sit in the throne of Khandaq. He reclines, chin in hand, every inch a king. Adrianna asks how it feels and he pauses then says, ‘Wrong.’

Flies up, smashes the throne, flies down.

Verdict: Kings don’t work. Monarchs don’t work. This isn’t a land or a movie bound by the notions of the past. That, in the superhero genre, is intensely refreshing and ensures that while Black Adam’s worst elements are its loudest, its best are what stays with you. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart