I’ve made little to no secret that I prefer the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the DCEU. But I do recognize that there have been some good movies associated with this franchise. Wonder Woman was a landmark film in various ways, from being the first successful female superhero movie to being a milestone for female directors. Though while I haven’t seen Aquaman I have heard that its reception was at least mixed to good. On top of that with James Gunn still working on Suicide Squad 2 before going back to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 that film could turn out to be an entertaining ride too.
Not to mention the upcoming Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie seems to be just the thing to get the taste of Jared Leto out of everyone’s mouth. Overall it seems that DC is getting back on track due to shifting the tone away from Zach Snyder’s original vision after Batman V Superman became a critically panned nightmare on top of the hodgepodge mess that was Justice League after he understandably left the project after a horrible family tragedy and directing duties were left to Joss Whedon. Now let me be clear, what happened to Mr Snyder and his family was indeed a horrible, terrible tragedy and I’m not saying that the circumstances behind his departure were in anyway a good thing. But the fact is that no matter how one feels about his situation before or after said tragedy there is an undeniable shift in quality for the DCEU after he left the project.
But that could just as easily be attributed to DC overall getting out of its edge-lord, dark and gritty 90’s relapse that was the New 52. Once the New 52 launched there was a general sense of everything attached to the DC comics line trying to be darker, more bleak and wanting to be taken seriously. But really it just came off as DC repeatedly screaming this at the top of their lungs.
But after the Event Comic Convergence and the aforementioned departure of Mr Snyder DC seems to be going for a much more optimistic depiction of their superhero line. Which finally brings us to the topic at hand, the cinematic debut of Billy Batson, aka Captain Marvel aka Captain Thunder aka Shazam, Earth’s mightiest mortal. Yeah, copyright is more then a tad silly. But before I give my thoughts here’s Linkara with how Billy originally came to be from all the way back in the Golden Age.
The differences here is that Billy wasn’t out on the streets, his uncle is not only removed from this continuity but also there was no fortune he screwed Billy out of and as for Dr Sivana, well I'll get into the changes made to him later. Now the Billy in this movie isn’t exactly the big Red Boy-scout that he was pre New-52 nor is he the New-52 annoying brat with a chip on his shoulder the size of the rock of eternity. No he’s more like how you’d expect a kid with a rough background and a heart of gold to act if he got superpowers. This incarnation starts out not with Billy but the aforementioned Sivana as a young boy being tested by the wizard Shazam (played by Djimon Hounsou) to see if he’s worthy of becoming the successor. However the young Sivana is tempted by the seven deadly sins and is found not worthy, leaving a young Sivana wanting revenge.
Cut to present day where we find Billy (played by Asher Angel) trying to find his mother but is instead coming up with nothing but more paragraphs on his juvie sheet. He’s finally taken in by a family that’s willing to put up with him where he meets Freddy Freeman (played by Jack Dylan Grazer) who’s a fanboy of the new heroes popping up including Superman and Batman. After Billy saves Fred at school from two brats that were beating the ever-loving tar out of him he boards the subway train and is taken to Shazam who bequeathes him his powers. Not because he’s worthy but after an adult Sivana (played by Mark Strong) finds his way back, frees the seven sins to intact his revenge and kicks the old mans ass, he basically ran out of options. So now Billy can turn into an adult with the skills of several mythical figures (played by Zachary Levi) which he can switch between at will, hijinks ensue.
If I had to make a comparison for this film it would like “Big” with superpowers. But unlike Toqger which failed in this concept almost entirely this movie seems to zig where Toqger zagged. First in that the main lead isn't an insufferable idiot that the world bends over backwards to make right when everything says he should be wrong and that when he screws up he gets called out on it. Second is that when that Billy matures as the story progresses its because of natural character development and not that the audience got sick of the leads acting like five years olds as opposed to their actual ages. Third is that unlike Zett who was forced into his position as the ultimate villain because the writer's negative view of the entire concept of rebellion; Sivana's actions are all of his own accord and through his own actions we can clearly see why he was unworthy.
Speaking of Sivana it's time for me to get off the Toqger hate train again to talk about how he was portrayed. Apparently during the production of this movie the main villain was supposed to be Black Atom played by Dwayne Johnson. While that was put on the shelf for now there seems to be some influence of that original draft with Sivana. Normally Sivana is a mad scientist (hell he's the archetype for the trope as far as I know) but here; he has powers on par with the Big Red Cheese. I'm not saying that's a problem I just felt it a bit weird and eventually redundant since if they're going ahead with Black Adam why would they do this type of villain again?
I mean granted here Sivana is powered by the seven sins and we already have foreshadowing of Black Adam when Shazam gives the speech to Billy but they've already done the "dark mirror" villain with Sivana here so why do it again with Black Adam? But other then that Sivana was just fine in this movie, taking a bit too much of a queue from the MCU villain handbook but he does get more backstory and screen time than most of them so it evens out. The supporting characters were decent as well, aka Billy's foster family. They get an equal amount of screen time and the acting is on point, especially for the Billy's new siblings. Save for Mary, maybe it was just me but Grace Fulton's acting seemed to be a bit wooden.
Not terrible or anything but it felt like she needed a few more takes to get her delivery down. Also I felt that Eugene and Pedro could have used a bit more screen time but hey that's what sequels are for. Also, the final fight scene, I knew it was coming after the kids were introduced but not that soon and not as awesome as it was, bravo. Speaking of, that post credit scene, I can't wait to see not only how they pull that off but make us take something like that seriously. But all in all Shazam is another good sign that DC's movies are recovering after four controversial wastes of time, not as good as Wonder Woman but hey, it's a good start.
Shazam is owned by New Line Cinema, DC Films, The Safran Company, and Mad Ghost Productions, based off of the character created by Bill Parker and C.C Beck.
The Lonely Island is owned by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone.
