Shazam!

photo courtesy of rollingstone.com

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Let’s talk Shazam! DC’s latest movie centers around a teenage boy named Billy Batson (Asher Angel). He’s a down-on-his-luck foster kid with a new family and no friends to speak of. All that changes when he runs into a mysterious, ancient wizard (Djimon Honusou) who imparts his powers to Billy. Now, with just one word—Shazam!—Billy can turn into a powerful, all-grown-up superhero (Zachary Levi) and face even the most formidable of enemies, like the sinister Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) and the Seven Deadly Sins. But it’ll take more than superpowers for Billy to overcome his biggest obstacle: the search for his true family.

     I really liked Shazam! and I think audiences will, too. It takes a fairly modest approach compared to some of the surrounding superhero offerings (*ahem* looking at you, Endgame), but where it cuts back on huge blowout set pieces, it invests in heartwarming character beats and A-grade humor. And the movie also takes a wise approach to its (silly) source material, freely exploring the cheesier bits of the comic book Shazam mythology without letting them run the show.

Billy Batson (Angel) mid-transformation. photo courtesy of imdb.com

     The main reason Shazam! feels modest is that its plotline keeps things streamlined and simple. It tells the origin of its hero, provides a terrifying villain, and pits them against each other. No great moralizing, no need for the villain to have some highly sympathetic and unlikely background, no need for a colossally destructive action set piece at the end—Shazam! tells a well-crafted story and cuts to the chase, and I, for one, appreciate it. Some of this probably has to do with having a lower budget than other superhero features, but Shazam! also genuinely seems to have something more personal in mind.

     Asher Angel plays teenage Billy Batson, but most of the movie rests on the chemistry between Zachary Levi, the adult Shazam, and Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy Freeman, Billy’s new friend at the new foster home. Levi and Grazer both give light, charismatic performances, and their scenes together deliver most of the best jokes. For the record: Shazam! is really, authentically funny, with a sort of self-deprecating, self-parodying wink.

photo courtesy of movieweb.com

     Angel, on the other hand, gets to do more of the empathetic work than Levi. He, Glazer, and the other members of the foster family (played by Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Faithe Herman, Cooper Andrews, and Marta Milans) have several emotionally resonant scenes. Shazam! certainly leans into the heartwarming moments, striking a balance somewhere in the vicinity of classic Spielberg or neo-Spielberg movies like Super 8. And because the hero in question is actually a kid and is actually struggling to find a place to belong, that heartstring tugging works more effectively in Shazam! than in some similar fantasy flicks.

     Some may find fault with Shazam! for its familiarity, and the movie does hit many of the now abundantly familiar superhero beats. But I think Shazam! makes its case in other ways—with humor and heart and teenage awkwardness and a dash of wide-eyed wonder. I’d offer a different caveat instead: a few sequences are so visually frightening that some parents will want to think twice about letting their (younger) kids see it. Director David F. Sandberg has his background in horror films, which is reflected in Shazam’s variety of terrifying monsters and in at least one particularly unnerving shot that’s straight out of Aliens or something. So although Shazam! is generally pretty wonderful, you might have to cover your kids’ eyes in a place or two.

Shazam! is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action, language, and suggestive material.  

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