There’s been a lot of talk about the first time Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson became the villain in DC’s latest Black Adam, but is he really a villain? That’s the big question at the heart of the movie, which introduces DC movie fans to the country of Kahndaq and its famous legendary champion. Kahndaq is a fictional country in the Middle East rich in a powerful, magical mineral called Eternium, which means it was taken over by foreign armies so they could mine all the Eternium they could. The people of Kahndaq feel at ease in an old tale of when a slave rose up against a tyrannical king and was granted magical powers that made him the country’s ultimate champion, called the country’s ultimate champion. is Teth Adam. Teth Adam (later renamed in the film as Black Adam) awoke early and immediately began killing people, and the debate began: Is he really the champion of Kahndaq, or is he Is a fearsome force of nature that needs to be destroyed?
Naturally, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) thinks the latter. She sends several members of the American Justice Association — Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindel) to deal with this new threat, but even these formidable heroes are not prepared for how powerful and unethical Black Adam is. Hawkman specifically believes that Adam cannot be anyone’s hero, even though the people of Kahndaq consider him their legendary champion. It’s a question whose answer remains complicated at the end of the film, but GameSpot took the opportunity to sit down with the cast to see what they had to do.
“I think that question is really the whole point of the movie,” says Centineo. “Personally, I don’t think he’s a villain.”
Sarah Shahi, who plays protest fighter Adriana, the woman responsible for waking up Adam, said the debate was one of the things she enjoyed most about the script. “You have what is normally a DC superhero movie and instead Black Adam is the anti-hero. He really blurs the lines between good and evil, and everything that is involved is what the movie is about. This is exploratory,” she said. “So for me, it feels like it’s also a comment on real life and people and classes of all of us. We’re not 100% saints, we’re not sinners. 100%. There’s all this room in the middle.”
Mohammed Amer, who plays Adriana’s brother Karim, said: “I’m not so sure about him. “I’m with it because it’s my sister and she knows what she’s doing, but I was like, are you sure? Did you bring this crazy human back into existence? Was he is the hero? is the hero of the movie.”
And neither Shahi nor her character Adriana see Black Adam as a villain. “I think what the comics do, as in the movies, is they really give you the backstory. They explain how he was a slave, he was killed, his family was taken away. , and he was reborn as a god,” explained Shahi. “I feel like the movie really has a great way of explaining why he’s the way he is.”
Swindell, however, argues that the film’s argument is subjective. “It’s great because it’s open to interpretation and I think that’s the most interesting thing about the movie. It shows you everyone. It shows you people changing, it shows people taking a break in the process. their point of view and I think that’s really great.”
“I think that’s a very human question that we’re asking here,” Amer said. “It’s like, you’re at a crossroads. Someone’s been through a lot in life, and now he’s been given all these superpowers to use them for good or use them. This is like a classic test of a person. Will you go with your ego, or will you tame your ego, control yourself and find that sense in yourself? ? So you can go a lot of different ways with this, and I think it’s really rich with very human and spiritual. It’s just a beautiful story.”
Based on the movie’s trailers, you might not think “beautiful” is the right word to describe it, but even legendary actor (and former James Bond) Pierce Brosnan has said it is ” best movie” he’s been in. for a long time, and Centineo described it as a “great important story and a big story to be told,” with all sorts of heroes. Adriana, Shahi pointed out, is a hero in her own right, even without superpowers, and the movie isn’t just about one unstoppable guy. That unstoppable boy also represented a country filled with people who desperately needed someone to fight by their side. “I think the people we represent, we are citizens of Kahndaq and I feel we need more of that in the form of art,” she said. “We represent the conflict. We are hard workers on the battlefield fighting for justice, fighting against oppression.”
As for the man himself, Black Adam has been a passion project for Johnson for years, and he’s certainly in the anti-hero camp. “I love Black Adam,” he said. “I’ve always loved Black Adam, and I feel like if we made this movie right, there would be a lot of people around the world who hope to not only love Black Adam, but see themselves in Black as well. Adam is in the attitude that he has his own philosophy when it comes to taking care of things and doing it his way.”
Black Adam hits theaters on October 21, 2022.
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