Warner Bros. recently released the trailer for Black Adam , the latest DC movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the titular anti-hero.
Although he’s one of Hollywood’s biggest stars nowadays, Johnson has been through some tough times in his younger days . And while they may not have been as hard as what his character in the upcoming superhero flick had to endure before he gained his powers, that common ground could be part of what he saw in DC’s latest anti-hero.
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Because as true as it is that we’re just now getting our first real look at what kind of movie Black Adam will be, we’ve long had a sense of the kind of work Johnson has had to undertake to fill this character’s costume and we’ve even had some hints as to who might show up in the movie .
But don’t worry, that’s not the only information we’re getting from this new trailer.
As the trailer began, we could see that Black Adam has one thing in common with other comic book characters: A tragic backstory.
According to Collider, he began life as Teth-Adam, who lived as a slave thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Worse yet, we can see in the trailer that Adam also lost his son, who sacrificed himself to save his life.
But by the time Adam has reached the modern world, as he said in the trailer, “I was reborn a god.”
Indeed, Adam seems to have the similar powers of flight, super strength, and near-invulnerability that Superman does. But instead of heat vision, he can control powerful electric bursts.
And while we could see in an early demonstration of this power that this collapsible baton is comically useless against him, later scenes in the trailer depicted him taking down a fighter jet with an effortless swat and catching rockets in the air.
However, it’s immediately clear that Adam and Superman have different values when it comes to using that power.
Because when Hawkman confronted him by saying that heroes don’t kill people, Adam could only respond, “Well, I do.”
Nonetheless, his character seems to be at a moral crossroads with an apparent mentor figure named Dr. Fate (as played by Pierce Brosnan) telling him, “You have two choices. You can be the destroyer of this world, or you can be its savior.”
And while CNN reported that Johnson has previously described his character as someone who will always do what’s right for people, he maintained that he’ll do it his way.
And on Instagram, he suggested that this aspect of Adam’s character is what made him identify with the anti-hero the most.
As Johnson put it, “As a kid, Superman was the hero I always wanted to be. But, a few years into my fantasy, I realized that Superman was the hero, I could never be. I was too rebellious. Too rambunctious. Too resistant to convention and authority.”
And while we don’t see his usual arch-rival Shazam in the trailer, what is clear is that this is precisely the kind of attitude that makes Adam run afoul of the Justice League.
It’s clear that Johnson is invested in the character, but you’ll have to see the trailer for yourself to decide whether you’re invested in the movie.
Black Adam was directed by Johnson’s Jungle Cruise collaborator Jaume Collet-Serra and is expected to hit theaters on October 21.
h/t: CNN
