‘Black Adam’ review: The Rock can’t save another terrible DC movie

nypost.com:

Aquaman,” at least, had giant rideable seahorses and Nicole Kidman as a mermaid. “Black Adam” boasts Pierce Brosnan giving a worse performance than when he sang “Knowing Me, Knowing You” in “Mamma Mia!”Two decades after Johnson mind-numbingly barreled through the sand as “The Scorpion King,” he plays basically the same complicated warrior type only with less hair and zero personality.

A prologue informs us that 5,000 years ago in fictional Kahndaq — could be Egypt, could be the Middle East — a young slave sacrificed himself to free his people and was therefore granted super powers by the ancient wizard from “Shazam!” He becomes Teth-Adam, Kahndaq’s champion.Back in the present day, the poor city is under military occupation by an evil company called Intergang (the bad guys have “no worries!” Australian accents) and is being plundered for its main natural resource, Eternium.

Whatever that is. Director Jaume Collet-Serra’s film appears to be inspired by wars in the Middle East, which is a rather high-minded choice from a movie in which characters frequently yell “SHAZAM!”  While searching for a buried crown artifact, an academic named Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) accidentally unleashes Black Adam, who had been magically trapped for millennia.

Freed like the genie, he begins killing and exploding stuff indiscriminately and immediately speaking in colloquial modern English.Black Adam is out to vanquish those Intergang Aussies and, eventually, Ishmael (Marwan Kenzari), a Kahndaqui traitor who wants to be a supernatural king.Then the Justice Society of America arrives, with heroes Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Dr.