It’s a shame to waste a resource like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, but DC has done just that in Black Adam, which opened Friday.

A new cog in the DC Extended (and somewhat fractured) universe, Black Adam (though he is called Teth Adam, meaning “Mighty Man,” for the first 98% of the film) is the story of a man given the powers of the gods in much the same way that Billy Batson received his in Shazam. The backstory here is much more convoluted, though, and doled out bit by bit, trying the patience of the audience.

After Black Adam uses his godly gifts for vengeance, he is almost immediately put down, buried in a mountain in the mystical, mythical country of Kahndaq, where he slumbers for 5000 years. He is awakened from that long nap by archaeologist Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) and her brother Karim, and colleagues, Samir and Ishmael (Marwan Kenzari), when they go looking for the Crown of Sabbac, a relic with ancient powers that is also being sought by the Intergang company, which has been supressing Kahndaq for decades.

After being awakened, the ill-tempered Adam goes on a massive, messy killing spree, dispatching nearly every Intergang baddie in the area, but sparing Adrianna and her brother. After Adam collapses, they take him home, much to the delight of Adrianna’s son Amon (Bodhi Sabongui), whose devotion to DC heroes like Superman and Batman nearly takes the movie into a meta-commentary state. This is a universe that has marketed a number of likenesses of the DC hero-verse as though the heroes exist as real world icons and as cartoon characters.

Anyway, Amon and Adrianna try to teach Adam how to be a hero, by protecting rather than killing people, but Adam isn’t interested. He pings Amanda Waller’s radar, and she sends in not the Justice League, who probably would have mopped this mess up in 8 seconds, but the Justice Society, a group of heroes that existed before the Justice League but now just kind of serve as the superhero B-team.

The JSA members assigned to bring in Adam are Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher (not Adam Smasher – that would have been useful), played by Noah Centineo. In their first melee against Adam, they look woefully unprepared, and really, they are, because Adam isn’t bound by any moral code that prohibits killing.

So while the JSA can’t really tame Adam, they can negotiate with him, and get him to at least promise to not commit murder very much. This goes out the window of course when the movie introduces a new bad guy (whether Adam is good or bad is very much up for grabs at this point), Ishmael.

Believed to have died in the chaos that followed Adam’s release from his tomb, Ishmael comes back into the picture. He wants the crown, which Adrianna has been toting around, and he kidnaps Amon to get her to hand it over. Now Adam and the JSA forge an uneasy alliance to get Amon back and to stop Ishmael, who claims to be the last descendant of King Anh-Kot (the one who Adam destroyed for vengeance) from using the crown to become a mighty demon who will rule Kahndaq, and maybe the world.

Adam, with some help from the JSA, must defeat him and save what’s left of Kahndaq. (The city really takes a beating in this film). Unfortunately, while the producers splurged on big-budget special effects to create splashy battles, they have turned the wattage of Johnson’s personal charm down so low that it barely registers.

It’s no secret that every character The Rock plays is basically The Rock, no matter what guise he is in. And that’s ok…the man has charisma for days. It’s his secret weapon. But in Black Adam, Johnson is grim, dour, stoic and…boring. Even as Amon tries to school him in how to superhero, by workshopping a catchphrase for him, among other tips, we never get a glimpse of the Johnson we know and love. No cocked eyebrow, no glint of amusement, no humor whatsoever. And it’s just really, really, dull. And that’s a real bummer.

Black Adam is not the worst DC movie ever made, not by a long shot, but it when it comes to the studio making crowd-pleasing superhero fare ala Marvel, this isn’t the movie that will right the ship.