Acacia Salisbury has a degree in Sociology & Anthropology from Agnes Scott College. Her movie reviews focus on how we can use film to make sense of the world around us and personal values.

Acacia's Movie Scale

Visuals: 4/5

Entertainment:3/5

Commentary:3/5

Story:2.5/5 

Black Adam ( 2022) has now made its way onto HBO Max after underperforming at the Box Office. Although I have many thoughts about what Black Adam does wrong, it offers an exciting and simplistic enough plot for us to engage in the exercise of making sense of our morality and assumptions of goodness. 

The film opens 5,000 years in ancient Kahndaq, where King Akh-Ton enslaves the people of Kahndaq. After receiving power Black Adam played by Dwayne Johnson, seeks revenge killing the king and almost destroying Kahndaq. We then come to the present; Kahndaq is under military occupation by Intergang (an organized crime syndicate), intent on draining the country's natural resources and mining a material called eternium. Black Adam is awakened by Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), a professor and freedom fighter, while seeking a relic.

Black Adam is an anti-hero finding himself oppositional to the Justice Society, Intergang, and Ishmael Gregor, a descendant Akh-Ton, bent on completing what his ancestor started. Ishmael Gregor (Marwan Kenzari), who later returns as Sabbac, is the true villain of this story, determined to rule Kahndaq as his ancestor did once before. While Sabbac is bent on enslaving the people of Kahndaq again, Black Adam is a liberator. Black Adam kills many people, including Intergang agents and soldiers, throughout the film, causing the Justice Society, especially Hawkman, to see him as "bad."

To put it simply, a hero doesn't kill people. You might assume that Justice Society would be "just," but this group of heroes, in many ways, represents the dangers of good(™). Hawkman captures it best when he says that the group's mission is to protect global stability. While stability might sound morally good, it often comes at the expense of those most vulnerable, such as Kahndaq in the film.

The Justice Society's morality is questionable as our introduction to Hawkman starts with him taking orders from Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), who've seen as a ruthless and, at times, a villainous character in previous DC movies. The Justice Society in Black Adam speaks a misguided morality that is more focused on protecting the status quo and the interest of global power while adhering to a moral code we would expect of heroes, i.e., not killing. Black Adam is not a hero; the people of Kahndaq refer to him as the people's champion.

When the Justice Society arrives, convinced that Black Adam is villainous, one of our main characters, Adrianna is quick to point out how the Justice Society never came in all the years that Kahndaq has been under military occupation. An occupied Kahndaq is "stable" even if the occupation and exploitation occurring is immoral. In the geopolitical landscape, powerful countries are actively exploiting and occupying various nations across the globe. We live in a world where we justify military intervention under the guise of "saving" or "seeking justice."

Black Adam allows us to consider our morality and beliefs in heroism. In recent years, the saying "when they go low, we go high," popularized by Michelle Obama, seems to be the dominant thinking in response to an active attack on people's rights. We ask those most vulnerable and oppressed in our society to turn the other cheek and not engage in violence for safety and a false sense of stability. It is worth the time to consider where we have substituted "good" or "just" with "stability" and "status quo." Why are those seeking freedom but not in the "right way" or the least disruptive way often seen negatively in our society? Because the status quo is dependent on the exploitation of people, and good is usually determined by how little one disrupts the status quo. In that case, those seeking liberation will always be villanized.

While comic books and movie characters exist on dramatized ends of the spectrum, these extremes allow us space to consider our circumstances and what is truly just.