Shazam! |
USA / Canada • 2019 • 132m •
  • Directed by: David F. Sandberg. • Starring: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Djimon Hounsou, Faithe Herman, Meagan Good, Grace Fulton, Michelle Borth, Ian Chen, Ross Butler, Jovan Armand. • Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch.      We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson's (Angel) case, by shouting out one word-'SHAZAM!-'this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart-'inside a ripped, godlike body-'Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he'll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Strong).
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Review:
The simplified theme of the leads you to the question of what would happen if a 14-year-old kid was suddenly given super powers, not knowing what to do with them? The closest movie of that theme goes to 2010's "Kick-Ass", albeit no powers to go with the costume, but a strong fan-following on social media. With the exception of our superhero walk into a strip bar and facing off against demonic looking gargoyles who represent the Seven Deadly Sins, "Shazam!" is for the most part light and more aimed towards the younger aged demographics even with the simple message relating to the importance of loving one's family and showing love to the people around you.
Although it might be following the footsteps of comedy superhero like films like "Deadpool", the movie seem more inspired on the surface of the light-comedy children's film "Big" from 1988 starring a very young Tom Hanks. In this movie and in "Big" we see a kid making the transformation of an adolescent boy into a fully grown adult. It's a great combination to take the idea of a kid growing up fast comedy by adding superhero powers to it is original and works on all sorts of levels.
For the action to really start picking up you need a great deal of patience as you'll have to sit there and watch the tedious origin story of the troubled childhood of young Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and the origin story of Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) and how he turned evil; not to mention he also had the cliched daddy issues. Once that is all out of the way, it's where the excitement takes over from there. Billy is now living an orphan and still has a fixation of finding his mother who abandoned him, though when he finds her the revelation is quite anti-climactic. When Billy was called upon a powerful Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) he was granted six mystical powers that represented the strengths of six mythological characters though all he has to say is "Shazam" and he can transform into his superhero form and back into a teenager again. His transition to the more buff Zachary Levi reminiscent to when David Banner transforms into The Incredible Hulk.
Under the direction of David F. Sandberg, under the metaphoric Superhero Origin Manual in which our novice superhero must adjust to his new powers by making each awkward scene all the more entertaining because when you first obtain new things it's natural that people feel uncertain when something seems alien to them. When Billy was trying out his new powers, he experimented on what he could do with them, along with his fellow foster sibling Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer). What's funny is he's not using his powers to take down evil people and saving the world from corruption, he's more interested in using it to his advantage for his own selfish and mischief making ways.
But once Billy adjusts to his newly obtained adult-formed alter-ego, "Shazam!" falls into formulaic territory as he must take down the evil Dr. Sivana which they battle all across Philadelphia (though it was actually filmed in Toronto), feels like a poor person's version of Superman vs. Zod in "Superman II", though just very watered down. In the end, the climax doesn't end with something to look back on.
The big weakness is that the film goes on way too long and kids might get restless knowing that this movie does go on for more than two hours. Not only that some subplots just don't seem to work out at times. Sandberg successfully can balance out the superhero action, the comedy and the dramatic scenes very nicely and well-timed without one genre usurping the other. The comic-book scenes are one we've seen many times before which is formulaic, but always exciting. The comedy genre is the strongest of the aforementioned ones as I had laughed quite a lot in this movie due to the perfect timing of Zachary Levi. Sure "Shazam!" won't be in the same leagues as "Captain Marvel" or "Avengers: Endgame", it still provides two hours plus of solid lightweight entertainment for all.
Review by eric262003 from the Internet Movie Database.
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