Duane Johnson, the star of the new movie “Black Adam”, has been on talk shows and has had many interviews saying things like, “This movie took over 10 years to get made”, and “This movie is the most important movie of my career”. Aside from this, given that this is a major new Marvel character, the potential for billions of box office profits with several sequels is possible, but only if the screenplay and movie are good enough to deserve a sequel. Considering the amount of time this movie took to get made, the fact that the screenplay was this bad is hard to believe.

One great quote from a critic on Rotten Tomatoes, Glen Weldon says it all: “Black Adam is what happens when you build a movie from the outside in — when you start with the visuals and figure everything else will just fall into place.” We have all seen movies that seem to be nothing but a continuous stream of computer-generated special effects – that obviously cost a great deal of money. Unfortunately, the thinking in too many cases is – who cares about great dialogue and a well-told story, when all the audience cares about are explosions and people getting killed. Black Adam is nothing more than “one of those kinds of movies” that a director like Micheal Bay has turned into a career.

In the case of Black Adam, he is a superhero who does kill the people he is fighting frequently, unlike other superheroes who at times just injure and do not kill. There are some parts of this film that make no sense, but by the time these scenes are shown, you are either too overwhelmed by the insane, relentless special effects or too deep in a coma to care. This latest Marvel movie represents a big opportunity lost because if it was a well-made film, then sequels and billions at the box office would have followed. After this installment, it is very unlikely there will be a Black Adam 2.

For some reason, other than a big payday, Pierce Brosnan plays a superhero called Dr Fate, with 3 other mostly unknown actors playing a flying eagle, a woman who can create tornados, and a young man who can make himself 50 feet tall.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are very correct 41%, with my rating the same only because of the special effects. This one is a big miss.