Much has been said about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s first role as a villain in DC’s latest Black Adam, but is he really a villain? That’s the big question at the center of the film, which introduces DC moviegoers to the land of Kahndaq and its titular legendary champion. Kahndaq is a fictional country in the Middle East that is rich in a powerful and magical mineral called Eternium, which means it has since been taken over by an alien army so they can mine all the Eternium they can. The people of Kahndaq take solace in an ancient story where a slave rose up against a tyrannical king and was given magical powers that made him the ultimate champion of the land, known then as Teth Adam. Teth Adam (renamed later in the film as Black Adam) is woken up early and immediately begins killing people, and the debate begins: is he really the champion of Kahndaq, or is he a terrifying force of nature? who should be destroyed?
Naturally, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) thinks the latter. She sends several members of the Justice Society of America—Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) to deal with this new threat, but even these fearsome heroes are unprepared for Black Adam’s power and morality. Hawkman in particular is convinced that Adam cannot be anyone’s hero, although the people of Kahndaq consider him the champion of their legend. It’s a question that remains a convoluted answer by the end of the film, but Deadline got a chance to sit down with the cast to see what their takes are.
“That question, I think, is really the whole point of the movie,” Centineo said. “I personally don’t think he’s a villain.”
Sarah Shahi, who plays resistance 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 would be a typical DC superhero movie and instead Black Adam is the antihero. It really blurs the line between good and evil, and everything in between is what this film kind of explores,” she says. “So for me, I felt like it was also kind of a commentary on real life and people and how layered we all are. We are not 100% saints, we are not 100% sinners. There’s all this space in between. “
“I wasn’t sure about him, quite frankly,” added Mohammed Amer, who plays Adriana’s brother Karim. “I was with her because she’s my sister and she knows what she’s doing, but I’m like, are you sure? You brought that madman back to life? Is he a hero? Is not it ? But I trusted my sister, the hero of the film.”
And Shahi and her character Adriana don’t see Black Adam as a villain. “I think what the comics do, just like the movie, is they really give you the backstory. They explain how he was a slave, he was killed, his family was taken from him and he was born as a god,” Shahi explained. “I feel like the movie really has a nice way of explaining why he is the way he is.”
Swindell, however, thinks 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. He shows you everyone. It shows you people changing, it shows people resting on their point of view, and I think that’s really cool.”
“I think it’s a very human question we’re asking here,” Amer said. “It’s as if you were at a crossroads. Someone who’s been through so much in his life, and now he’s given all these superpowers to use for good or evil. It’s like the classic test of a human being. Will you follow your ego, or will you tame your ego, control yourself, and find that awareness within yourself? So you can follow in a lot of different ways with that, and I think it’s really rich in so much humanity and spirituality. It’s just a great story.”
From the film’s trailers, you might not think “beautiful” is the right word to describe it, but even legendary actor (and former James Bond) Pierce Brosnan said it was ” the most beautiful movie” it’s been a part of for a long time, and Centineo described it as a “good, important story and a massive story to tell,” with heroes of all kinds. Adriana, Shahi pointed out, is a hero in her own right, even without superpowers, and the film is about more than one unstoppable guy. This unstoppable guy also represents a country full of people who desperately need someone to fight alongside them. “I think the people that we represent, we are the citizens of Kahndaq and I feel like we need more stuff like that in an art form,” she said. “We represent conflicts. We are the working people on the battlefields who fight for justice, who fight against oppression.”
As for the man himself, Black Adam has been a passion project for Johnson for years, and he’s firmly on the anti-hero side. “I love Black Adam,” he said. “I’ve always loved Black Adam, and I feel like if we do this movie right, there should be a lot of people in the world who hopefully not only love Black Adam, but also see themselves in Black Adam in the attitude he has in his philosophy that he has when it comes to taking care of things, and doing it his way.”
Black Adam is in theaters October 21, 2022.
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Is Black Adam a hero or a villain? The Cast Weighs In – Deadline