Shazam!

Guess what everyone? I just came back from seeing the latest installment in the DC Extended Universe, “Shazam!,” which came out four days ago. Is it as good as the other solo superhero movies that DC has been coming out with? Let’s find out:

I know it’s a comic book origin story, in the same vain as one comic book origin story that came out four weekends ago and with another comic book origin story coming out next week. However, “Shazam!” is fun and funny, with a very talented actor who really knows how to act like a teenager in a genre that doesn’t look like it will be tiresome anytime soon.

After a small beginning where The Wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou) tries, and fails, to find someone (Ethan Pugiotto) to pass on his magical powers, we meet Billy Batson (Asher Angel). He’s a strong, experienced kid, one who’s trying to find his birth mother after being in foster families for so long. Picked up by the cops, Billy is sent to live with another foster family, this one with Victor (Cooper Andrews) and Rosa (Marta Milans). Billy rooms with Freddy, played by Jack Dylan Grazer, fast-talking with a bad leg, and crazy over superheroes: He has a model of a Batarang, a genuine hit stopped by Superman’s chest, and a pack of questions about which superpower you’d want if you were a superhero.

After Billy stands up to some bullies and saving Freddy that look like one of those old school teen comedies, The Wizard Shazam meets with Billy to test his loyalty – and, as you have seen in the trailers and commercials, Billy succeeds, becoming the white-caped, red-suited hero, Shazam, played by Zachary Levi. By saying the name “Shazam,” Billy changes from being a kid to the superhero, a bolt of lightning which changes him. That quick change really helps out when he fights with Thaddeus Sivana, played by Mark Strong, a villain that has the power of the literal symptoms of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Sonny Bunch admitted in his review, “The most interesting character in the film, to my mind, is not Billy nor Shazam nor Sivana, but Freddy.” Because of him and how much he knows about what it would be like to be a part of the superheroes. It’s Freddy who makes him take a series of tests to see what, exactly, Shazam’s powers are. It’s Freddy who is inspired by the capes and the masks to try and make something more of himself. And it’s Freddy who gets infuriated in Billy which makes the disobedient boy to reconsider the gift he’s been given.

Bunch said, “I've noted before that the Zack Snyder-overseen DC films were, at heart, an examination of the ways in which the world would change if gods were proven to be real. Freddy is a ground-eye view of this idea, a child whose world was shaped in horrible and wonderful ways. Shazam! is connected to the broader DCEU in minor concrete ways—the aforementioned Batarang and crushed bullet; toys in department stores celebrating the vigilantes* in their midst—but the ideas that animate the film are very much in line with the ideas that animated previous entries in the series. This thematic unity is more pleasing than any cameos or post-credits stingers could be.”

Bunch continued, “Levi is fantastic as Captain Marvel (though I don’t believe he's ever referred to as such in the film, instead having jokey names like Captain Sparklefingers foisted upon him; one wonders if another universe's interloper threw up a legal roadblock). It's about time we had a movie in which a marvelous captain was portrayed by someone able to express an emotional range beyond smug self-satisfaction.” Mark Strong’s villain is decent, as far as they go. It still feels strange that no one really figures out what to do with Strong in the role of the villain, seeing how good he is in films like “Kingsman,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” and “RocknRolla.” There’s something about his intensity that just doesn’t work in these big, superhero roles.

This is another great entry in the DCEU. It’s funny, doesn’t really have a lot of action, but the action scenes they have are really good, has some great family-oriented themes, and is in the same vein as “Big,” “Freaky Friday,” “Jack” and any other films where a kid is in an adult body. I like that the DCEU has been doing solo superhero movies, and this might be almost, if not as good as “Wonder Woman.” This easily makes another one of my favorite comic book adaptations. You should definitely go to the theaters to see this one because you will have a great time seeing this.

Spoiler Alert: In the mid-credits scene, Sivana is in jail and is recruited to a villain job with Mister Mind. In the post-credits scene, Freddy sees whether Shazam can talk to fish, referencing Aquaman, only for Shazam to think the power is stupid.

Thank you for joining in on tonight’s review, I’ll see you Friday for the continuation in “Edgar Wright Month.”