Black Adam - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Black Adam



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
Black Adam was one of those movies that I was really excited for when I saw the initial trailer, but after the tumultuous upheavals going on at DC and Warner Brothers lately I was a tad nervous about the end result. Double that when I started contemplating about it just being another “The Rock” vehicle. But to paraphrase The Critical Drinker a bit, Black Adam turned out to be a completely “meh” movie, and that’s completely OKAY if you think about it.

With Marvel vomiting anything and everything out onto a dinner plate in hopes of pushing more more content, and agenda filled Disney films dominating the landscape, it was actually sort of relief to watch a middling movie like Black Adam and not feel just completely bowled over by the same cookie cutter material. Sure, the film would feel better if it was made in the 1990s (the film even opens up with 1990s “Smashing Pumpkins” tracks) and is most CERTAINLY just a film for The Rock to act like The Rock, but it’s actually rather entertaining on a base level. Things go boom, lots of CGI villains and action sequences (including one CGI scene that’s so hilariously bad you can almost put it up against The Rock’s first film, The Mummy 2 for it’s cheesiness) but once again, it’s still popcorn munching quality fun.

The film opens up with a clichéd opening monologue about an ancient Egyptian conflict in the land of Kahndaq, with an evil king wanting to take more power with a magical crown forged from a super magical material called Eternium (seriously? What’s up with names of metals in movies like this? Eternium, Unobtainium, etc). However, the wizards council tipped the balance of nature back into their favor by imbuing a champion with supernatural powers to fight for them by the name of Teth Adam (soon to be played by the Rock). However, Teth Adam goes completely nuts and kills more than just the King, forcing the wizards to lock him away for the good of the people. Fast forward 5,000 years and in the future and we introduce mondern day Kahndaq, now under the occupation of a rogue gang of mercs known as Intergang (seriously? Intergang….like International Gang shortened? Sigh). Intergang has used Eternium to power their weapons and vehicles, allowing their soldiers to reign supreme in the land. But when when a lone freedom fighter looking for the evil King’s crown accidentally awakens Teth Adam, the legendary “hero” is unleashed upon the world once more.

While the people of Kahndaq are excited to see their “champion” raised from the dead, the rest of the world is sort of uneasy about a magical being as powerful as Superman or Shazaam, and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) sends the Justice League of America over to clean up the mess. Headed by Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), the mysterious Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan) and newbies Atom Crusher (now dubbed Discount Ant-man) and Cyclone (Wind girl), the JSA has one mission. Bring Teth Adam in to be controlled by Waller, or watch as the world burns.

The movie unfolds just about as one would expect. Hawkman and Dr. Fate find out that Adam is way more powerful than they expected, and their tricks are going to be a bit thin on subjugating the wildcard antagonist. However when Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), the son of the freedom fighter who freed Teth Adam, gets kidnapped by Intergang and used as leverage, its time for the JSA and Adam to team up and do some damage. Simple, effective, but sometimes a bit cliched and well won.

The movie has a lot going for it, but it also has more than its major share of mess ups too. The action is fun, and the pacing pretty good for a 2+ hour movie, but it’s aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan that are the real draw of the movie. Aldis is on point for the overly serious Hawkman, and Pierce Brosnan needs to be charged with a crime as he literally stole every scene he is in as Dr. Fate. Seriously, he is by FAR the best done character of the whole movie and by a rather large margin, proving the guy can really act when he wants to.

The flip side is that we get some middle of the road stuff too. Discount Ant Man and Wind girl are your typical cookie cutter side kicks, complete with cliched dialog and generally middling character development. Villains are explained about as well as your typical comic book villain (baddie wants to be super bad), and the CGI can be pretty lackluster at times (especially on faces).

The worst part of the movie is simply that Black Adam is just another version of the Rock playing himself. I don’t know whether DC/Warner decided to play it safe with his character, or whether the Rock refused to allow his “brand image” to be tainted by making Black Adam a really dark character like his comic counterpart, but it feels WAAAY too sanitized for its own good. Instead of being a super violent villain who sometimes aligns with the good guys, they humanize and sympathize with his character so much that calling him a “bad guy” by the end of the movie is a HUGE stretch. The result is basically the Rock being The Rock and beating up bad guys while we’re told “oh yeah, he’s actually super bad. He KILLS really bad guys! Cuz that’s what bad guys do!!” in an effort to cement his dark nature. Eh, it is what it is.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, intense action and some language.




4K Video: Video:

The 2.39:1 AVC framed image is the star of the show, with a 4K image that easily surpasses the excellent 1080p image from the Blu-ray. The warm and richly detailed picture captures the desert arena quite well, with deeply saturated colors mixed with sandy and hazy looking browns and ambers. The CGI is a bit weak in some spots, but overall detail levels and transfer nuances are superb. Fine details are exceptional, showing off every facial wrinkle, and every splatter of blood to the naked eye. The neon blues and yellows and reds pop off the screen with the HDR application, and even gets rid of the banding that I saw in the desert sky from the Blu-ray. Spot on perfect for the genre and an EXCELLENT demo disc for image quality.







Audio:

The Dolby Atmos track (found on both the Blu-ray and the 4K UHD disc) is a killer track, almost on par with the picture perfect image quality. It’s strong and robust, with a really nice low end when Adam starts pounding baddies, and has amazing overhead usage as people fly and zip over us. Dialog is crisp and clean, and surrounds used to great effect in typical super hero fashion. There’s nothing wrong with the Atmos track ala Disney, buuuuut, I noticed we had to do some level matching to get to reference by a good 8 DB’s by my receiver’s count. Overall, it’s an enveloping mix that makes great use of all channels and is quite the treat to listen to.








Extras:

• The History of Black Adam
• Who is The Justice Society?
• From Soul to Screen
• Black Adam: A Flawed Hero
• Black Adam: New Tech in an Old World
• Black Adam: Taking Flight
• Kahndaq: Designing a Nation
• The Rock of Eternity
• Costumes make the hero
• Black Adam: A new type of action

Final Score: ​

As I said, Black Adam is a generic and fairly middling Super Hero film that would have been better off in the 90s before the idea of highly serialized world building was created for comic book movies. It’s fun enough, slightly cheesy, and completely forgettable. And once more, that’s not a bad thing after being inundated with “NEXT PRODUCT!” (to steal from the drinker) that Disney/Marvel is doing with their IPs. The 4K UHD disc is stellar disc though, with the same great Atmos track found on the Blu-ray and an absolutely killer image quality. Still fun enough for a popcorn watch in my humble opinion.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Quintessa Swindell, Bodhi Sabongui
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Written by: Adam Sztkiel, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), German, Italian Dolby Atmos, English, German, Italiian, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 125 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: January 3rd, 2023

Recommendation: Popcorn Watch