With the exception of Sony Pictures' poorly conceived Spider-Man(less) disaster, it's hard to think of a cinematic universe messier than the DCEU. Sure, the Conjuring Universe has been 50/50 in terms of quality thus far, but at least that has had a cohesive vision. Warner Bros. meanwhile has clearly struggled to formulate any sort of concrete plan for what to do with their effort to chase the MCU. After getting off to an incredibly rough start the studio managed to find some success with standalone entries folllowing Zack Snyder's departure. Birds of Prey personally wasn't my thing, but the majority of others seem to have liked it while Aquaman, Shazam!, and the second Suicide Squad all proved quite good. I even enjoyed WW84 myself. The problem? They were releasing them without any direction for the larger continuity. No big events were being set up and there wasn't the slightest sign that these characters would ever come together again, making many wonder if the whole shared world aspect was even truly a thing anymore beyond cramming Harley Quinn into everything as the two stars responsible for portraying the biggest heroes (Batman and Superman) who were supposed to act as the glue holding the whole venture together had reportedly jumped ship. Essentially they were aimlessly moving forward with films without a purpose or destination in mind outside of setting up their own individual sequels. Recent news however has been promising with a recent merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. leading to the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery. The leadership of which has set out to get things back on track by doing stuff like implementing a 10-year plan similar to Marvel's, instituting a Kevin Fiege-like figure to oversee future projects, and somehow convincing Affleck and Cavill to return. Basically ushering in a new era for the DCEU. Black Adam is intended to mark the beginning of that fresh start, and I will say it is the first outing since Justice League to actually make use of the cinematic universe concept. Unfortunately, the fact that it entered production long before many of the aforementioned course corrections had been conceived may be why the movie feels like an absolute dumpster fire of bad decisions. Everything is botched here from the director and casting choices (except Pierce Brosnan, he's terrific) to the music selection. Jaume Collet-Serra is usually a name you can count on, but that same reliability is not present in his first and if we're lucky, last foray into the superhero genre. He delivers the origin backstory lore through a massive exposition dump right in the opening minutes that he rushes through at a breakneck pace before settling into a series of generic, slow motion laden CGI clashes with the Justice Society of America and normal goons that are accompanied by the most ill-fitting songs possible (Lorne Balfe's score is an unequivocal fiasco), all while a conflict with an actual, tragically goofy villain slowly builds in the background. I say "actual villain" because the defining hook here is that our leading man is supposed to be a bit of a bad guy himself. An enticing angle to be sure, but I'm not certain anyone involved was aware that it's not exactly an entirely unique one anymore thanks to the likes of Deadpool or their own Task Force X hitting the silver screen, alongside the fact that we've kind of seen nearly everyone in a cape and costume making sure they never have to deal with their foes in theaters again for years now. It doesn't help that the character feels wildly miscast either. Now, I'm not a Dwayne Johnson hater by any means, but he lacks the gravitas and range necessary to deliver the appropriate level of menace and ruthlessness that would have legitimately distinguished Teth-Adam from his peers. Oh, and they also spoiled the plot's single major twist via a throwaway line of dialog in the trailer. Oy vey... On the topic of the Justice Society, their inclusion stands as the primary reason the DCEU is starting to feel like a true cinematic universe again, by surrounding the protagonist with other recognizable faces from the wider array of source material. Although their appearance also does run into the identical problem the MCU had when they introduced the Eternals to the mix. Namely, it begs the question of where the heck they were when all that crap with Steppenwolf was going down. Yet, perhaps them not showing up to help was a blessing in disguise since they turn out to be pretty useless here. Cyclone contributes absolutely nothing, Atom Smasher might be the only superhero with brain damage, and while Doctor Fate may be a shockingly cooler version of Doctor Strange he tends to inexplicably disappear whenever most of the fighting occurs. Then there's Hawkman who tries his darndest to carry his own weight, but sadly for him his role in the story is that of the guy who constantly tries to take Adam down due to disagreeing with his methods before ultimately having to side with him when a threat arises he is not powerful enough to defeat, so he gets his butt thoroughly kicked throughout until the credits roll. Plus, I'm pretty certain the wings on his helmet are lopsided at points. Despite its obvious and often glaring faults, I will award the film some credit. While objectively worse on every front, I wasn't bored by or painfully aware of every excruciatingly long second of the 2 hour+ runtime of it such as I have been with a lot of the recent MCU offerings, streaming or otherwise. It even succeeds at it's goal of making the future of these particular comic book adaptations look promising and exciting again for the first time since Billy Batson popped on the scene by setting up some very interesting directions where they could potentially go next. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that as a standalone Black Adam is flawed to the degree that it unbelievably somehow manages to serve as the DCEU's most embarrassing outing to date.