Shazam [2019]
-deletes five paragraphs of a diatribe about the older DCEU movies and Zack Snyder-
Okay, my first attempt of trying to frame Shazam in the greater context of the pretty horribly failing DCEU franchise/shared universe ended up just being nothing but a diatribe against Snyder, and that's not particularly fair. Let's just ignore all that and focus on Shazam, the movie about one of DC's most wholesome superhero, Captain Marvel!
No, not the lady one. And not the one owned by Marvel comics. Billy Batson was Captain Marvel first, and I've known him as Captain Marvel for a couple of decades now, and it's really, really hard to mentally call him "Shazam" instead of "Captain Marvel". To the movie's credit, the fact that Billy Batson never actually settles on a proper superhero name, going back and forth from nonsensical names like Thundercrack and Captain Sparkle-Fingers, is definitely a hilarious nod to how DC lost the right to call Billy Batson "Captain Marvel".
Still, this movie is... it's very fun. It's earnest, it's got a solid storyline, it's very predictable and not super derivative at all from what you'd expect from a Shazam movie. I do love some of the retoolings that they do to the mythology of the character, like giving Dr. Sivana a whole new motivation that's involved with him being rejected as a child and fused together as the host of the Seven Sins -- I think it's drawing a little from New 52 material that I am not too familiar with, but it's still neat. The themes of this family is utterly cheesy, but cheese is that Captain Marvel is built upon, and honestly, considering that Billy Batson is just straight up a young teenager who suddenly finds out he can transform into a musclebound lightning-magic wielding superhero... it's a movie that's not afraid to ramp up the dramatic stakes when it has to, but it boils down to a far more simple superhero origin story.
And you know what? I really, really loved it. The direction was amazing. The tone of the movie is great. The special effects are pretty neat, too, and the final battle has a little twist I did not expect. The themes of the story centers around Billy as an abandoned child who's looking for a family, and the moral of the story is... it's pretty simple "family is who cares for you, not who you're related by blood to", but it's earnest and genuinely effective. The supporting cast walk the thin line between being annoying and being adorable, and I'm frankly pretty sure that a good chunk of them fall into the latter category.
While the movie does feature a pretty supporting cast, the main characters are definitely Billy (Zachari Levi plays a kid-trapped-in-an-adult-body very well) and his crippled best-friend-slash-adopted-brother Freddy Freeman. Their dynamic is just a bunch of teenager kids that don't really care at all about this whole "saving the world" or magical destiny business, and just want to make Youtube videos and think up of all the cool shit that superheroes can do. Supervillains! Secret lairs! Helping catch a bus! Arguments about responsibility and showing off end up causing a bit of mid-movie drama between Billy and Freddy, and by all rights it should be annoying, but it genuinely ends up being entertaining.
Throw in some fantastic acting on the part of Mark Strong as Dr. Sivana, who admittedly isn't the most well fleshed-out of villains. The little bait-and-switch to those who aren't as familiar with Captain Marvel's lore (and let's be honest, due to the legal problems with the character, he's basically non-existent from cartoons until the last couple of years) to make it seem like the little kid in the cold open is going to be our hero is pretty well done, and while he menaces our heroes as an adult, the fact that his ultimate motivation ends up being a pretty childish angry rage against the world is pretty nice parallel.
Ultimately, there's... there's not a whole ton more that I can say about the movie without going too deep into spoilery discussions or a scene-by-scene breakdown, and I don't really have the time today. But while other DC movies try to play up the epic, sprawling mythology as being the huge focus of the conflict (even Aquaman and Wonder Woman aren't immune to this), Shazam just uses the mythology and backstory as mostly backdrop and hijinks, while focusing solely on the inter-personal dynamics between Billy, his adopted family, and his arch-nemesis.
Oh, and that scene where Billy jumps off the side of the building and announces SHAZAM! and gets struck by lightning, and transforms mid-flight? Amazing. Most of the budget for the movie ends up going to the CGI demons, which look surprisingly scary for a movie with a lighter tone, but that scene is just A+ for me.
Ultimately, Shazam ends up harkening back to a simpler age of superheroics, and in a movie series where everything is so dry and dull, Shazam is a pretty great reminder at what these superheroes should be -- something for children to aspire for, heroes who try their best to maintain their morality in a cynical world without being cynics themselves. None of this "Batman must kill because it's otherwise unrealistic" nonsense.
Okay, my first attempt of trying to frame Shazam in the greater context of the pretty horribly failing DCEU franchise/shared universe ended up just being nothing but a diatribe against Snyder, and that's not particularly fair. Let's just ignore all that and focus on Shazam, the movie about one of DC's most wholesome superhero, Captain Marvel!
No, not the lady one. And not the one owned by Marvel comics. Billy Batson was Captain Marvel first, and I've known him as Captain Marvel for a couple of decades now, and it's really, really hard to mentally call him "Shazam" instead of "Captain Marvel". To the movie's credit, the fact that Billy Batson never actually settles on a proper superhero name, going back and forth from nonsensical names like Thundercrack and Captain Sparkle-Fingers, is definitely a hilarious nod to how DC lost the right to call Billy Batson "Captain Marvel".
Still, this movie is... it's very fun. It's earnest, it's got a solid storyline, it's very predictable and not super derivative at all from what you'd expect from a Shazam movie. I do love some of the retoolings that they do to the mythology of the character, like giving Dr. Sivana a whole new motivation that's involved with him being rejected as a child and fused together as the host of the Seven Sins -- I think it's drawing a little from New 52 material that I am not too familiar with, but it's still neat. The themes of this family is utterly cheesy, but cheese is that Captain Marvel is built upon, and honestly, considering that Billy Batson is just straight up a young teenager who suddenly finds out he can transform into a musclebound lightning-magic wielding superhero... it's a movie that's not afraid to ramp up the dramatic stakes when it has to, but it boils down to a far more simple superhero origin story.
And you know what? I really, really loved it. The direction was amazing. The tone of the movie is great. The special effects are pretty neat, too, and the final battle has a little twist I did not expect. The themes of the story centers around Billy as an abandoned child who's looking for a family, and the moral of the story is... it's pretty simple "family is who cares for you, not who you're related by blood to", but it's earnest and genuinely effective. The supporting cast walk the thin line between being annoying and being adorable, and I'm frankly pretty sure that a good chunk of them fall into the latter category.
While the movie does feature a pretty supporting cast, the main characters are definitely Billy (Zachari Levi plays a kid-trapped-in-an-adult-body very well) and his crippled best-friend-slash-adopted-brother Freddy Freeman. Their dynamic is just a bunch of teenager kids that don't really care at all about this whole "saving the world" or magical destiny business, and just want to make Youtube videos and think up of all the cool shit that superheroes can do. Supervillains! Secret lairs! Helping catch a bus! Arguments about responsibility and showing off end up causing a bit of mid-movie drama between Billy and Freddy, and by all rights it should be annoying, but it genuinely ends up being entertaining.
Throw in some fantastic acting on the part of Mark Strong as Dr. Sivana, who admittedly isn't the most well fleshed-out of villains. The little bait-and-switch to those who aren't as familiar with Captain Marvel's lore (and let's be honest, due to the legal problems with the character, he's basically non-existent from cartoons until the last couple of years) to make it seem like the little kid in the cold open is going to be our hero is pretty well done, and while he menaces our heroes as an adult, the fact that his ultimate motivation ends up being a pretty childish angry rage against the world is pretty nice parallel.
Ultimately, there's... there's not a whole ton more that I can say about the movie without going too deep into spoilery discussions or a scene-by-scene breakdown, and I don't really have the time today. But while other DC movies try to play up the epic, sprawling mythology as being the huge focus of the conflict (even Aquaman and Wonder Woman aren't immune to this), Shazam just uses the mythology and backstory as mostly backdrop and hijinks, while focusing solely on the inter-personal dynamics between Billy, his adopted family, and his arch-nemesis.
Oh, and that scene where Billy jumps off the side of the building and announces SHAZAM! and gets struck by lightning, and transforms mid-flight? Amazing. Most of the budget for the movie ends up going to the CGI demons, which look surprisingly scary for a movie with a lighter tone, but that scene is just A+ for me.
Ultimately, Shazam ends up harkening back to a simpler age of superheroics, and in a movie series where everything is so dry and dull, Shazam is a pretty great reminder at what these superheroes should be -- something for children to aspire for, heroes who try their best to maintain their morality in a cynical world without being cynics themselves. None of this "Batman must kill because it's otherwise unrealistic" nonsense.
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