DC’s third solo film since they started trying to create a collective universe succeeds with Shazam! I’m personally a fan of Zachary Levi who plays the character of Shazam in this movie. I got to know him in the tv series Chuck, then I appreciated his voice acting and singing talents in Disney’s Tangled, and I was even surprised he replaced Fandral in Thor: The Dark World. So, the actor himself really helped sell me on the movie. I knew some about the character Shazam going into this, but not what would make him the star of a compelling solo film.
For a little bit of character history and some trivia, Shazam is quite an old character first appearing in 1939. He’s also had another name that until recently he’s used, Captain Marvel. This is confusing as Marvel comics also has Captain Marvel as a character. His name Shazam is also an acronym which explains the source of his powers. He gets his powers from Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury; they do glance over this in the movie.
The movie starts off in the past. We’re shown a boy (Ethan Pugiotto) who meets a wizard and is tested to see if he’s worthy. The boy is tempted by this magical eye associated with the Seven Sins, so the wizard declares him unworthy. We then cut to a more recent past of a mother and a son (David Kohlsmith) at a carnival where the mother is trying to win the son a prize. The son gets a compass as a prize and drops it causing him to lose his mother in the crowd. We cut to years later where Billy Batson (Asher Angel) has tracked down another woman he thinks is his mother, but it’s not her.
Billy has spent years trying to find his mother. He constantly runs away from foster care, and he never really grows close to anyone. He ends up at a new foster home with Rosa (Marta Milans) and Victor (Cooper Andrews) Vasquez who have several foster children with them. Billy still rejects this family, but he does have some casual conversations with roommate Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer). When Freddy is attacked by some bullies, Billy intervenes to help and then runs away via subway car. The subway car ends up magically transporting Billy to the wizard from earlier. The Seven Sins have broken out and the wizard chooses Billy to be Shazam.
This movie does so many things right and truly makes it a fun and funny experience. It’s not often we see a boy, who is lost in life, transform into a super hero with spectacular powers. It’s just fun to see how he deals with these powers. The villain Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) has a well-defined character which runs parallel to Billy’s life in many ways but ultimately they make very different life choices. Something this movie does well is it tells most of its story in chronological order. From an audience perspective, it can be a bit annoying to stop the action to explain why two characters are fighting, and this movie avoids that.
There’s so much good about this movie that it’s hard to go into it all. The family dynamic was interesting without feeling cliché. The villain was well understood, though he may be too scary for younger children. We really get to know the characters and care about them. More than anything though, the movie is just fun. Rated PG-13.
Ryan
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