Black Adam - Why all the hate?

I never bothered rushing out and seeing 'Black Adam' at the cinema - partly because I followed the whole MCU 'Infinity Saga' right up until 'Endgame' and that kind of gave me my fill of superhero movies.  Then there's the fact that the reviews for Dwayne Johnson's long-awaited entry into the genre were average to say the least, plus the film itself serves as part of a 'shared universe' that's effectively been cancelled and is about to be rebooted, courtesy of James Gunn.  I guess those are some of the reasons why the film hardly set the Box Office ablaze.

However, I have to say that it was actually quite fun, despite falling victim to many of the flaws that its bigger 'DC shared universe' created for itself.  The first fifteen minutes you can skip.  It's pretty dull.  Just wait until The Rock comes into it and then it gets going.  Yes, it's your typical superhero film, i.e. it follows a tried and tested formula of having a hero fight a villain with similar powers in the final act, a sky-beam and an army of generic computer-generated soldiers to be fought in an epic battle.  Yet, despite its flaws, I couldn't help but enjoy it.

The Rock himself is almost always good value for money and would have been a decent enough reason to recommend the film, but it's the other characters who help flesh out the story, namely the 'Justice Society.' Maybe die-hard fans of comic books would have heard of them, but they're like the Justice League's B-team - yet the sort of steal many of the scenes they're in.  This left me rather wanting to know more about them, especially Pierce Brosnan's 'Dr Fate' character, who - in a perfect cinematic shared universe - probably should have had a couple of films of his own leading up to his appearance in 'Black Adam.'

So, if you're not completely tired of superhero movies and TV shows by now, this one is - at best - entertaining, rather than anything too special.  Although I would say it's better than 90% of Marvel's 'Phase 4' output, if that's anything to go by.  I get the impression that if it had been released at the time (a few years ago) where every superhero movies was a billion dollar merchandising machine, it would have gathered a lot more traction, as it is, it's sort of arrives too late to really catch on.  There is a mid credits scene that's well worth watching, if only for a glimpse of what could have been - as it's unlikely it will ever come to anything now.  Shame.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that