Sometimes when you really like an actor, you get blind to how bad the movie that he/she stars in happens to be. Such was not the case for me watching this tedious, unoriginal superhero flick from DC Comics.

The movie itself is unnecessarily slow and ponderous, along with being confusing, and boring. People make portentious, inane statements as if quoting Aristotle. Usually they are just silly or boring, rather than profound. Its like any movie about the bible or greek heroes, where the writers think their characters need to sound like they are delivering words from God, rather than to popcorn munching people.

You are never quite sure what the setting is. It starts in what appears to be ancient Egypt, and then 5000 years later in a fictional town in what may be Egypt. Or Iraq, or Afghanistan. You can’t really tell. Everyone speaks unaccented English in this fictional Middle Eastern burg. Except for one policeman, who is Australian. Wha?

Successful superhero movies mix some humor into the action, and this movie tries. Unsuccessfully. The jokes fall flat. Because they suck.

BTW, the magic word here is “Shazam”. Gee, that’s original. Why not abracadabra, or hocus pocus? Its so hokey.

There is no love interest for the superhero. In fact, after they dredge him out of his cage after 5000 years in captivity, Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson, long one of my favorites), the humans and other DC Comic heroes find he is such a threat to humanity that they have to de-super him and consign him back to an underground prison. This is AFTER he defeats all the bad guys. WTF?

Although I love Dwayne Johnson, he seems to have decided he does not have to show up and act in his movies anymore. Here he is wooden and uninteresting. Just like he was in Jungle Cruise. I call this the Eddie Murphy effect. As in, I am Eddie Murphy, I just show up and be me. And people will just love that! I don’t even have to learn my lines! I fear Dwayne has caught this disease, which is being full of himself. He needs to remotivate or go back to wrestling.

Take my advice, skip this loser. There are really good superhero movies out there, try the original Spider Man or Iron Man. Better to watch again than waste 2 hours on this humdrum entry.