This one cool movie of a boy who inherits the powers of Shazam!
Much will be made, no doubt, over the fact that DC has finally taken
some pains to escape its reputation for dark ‘n gritty superhero movies
and put the “comic” back in “comic book movie” with this, the story of a
teenage boy who, when he says the titular name, is transformed into a
grown man with Solomon’s wisdom, Hercules’ strength, Atlas’ stamina,
Zeus’ power, Achilles’ courage, and Mercury’s speed. (At least, that’s
what the wizard who gives him his power tells him it does. In truth, it
just makes him a teenager with a Charles Atlas bod and a bunch of
Superman’s powers.) And to be sure, there is Big-style
goofiness aplenty (star Zachary Levi’s grin as he tells a convenience
store clerk that he’d like to purchase some of her finest beer is
absolutely winning). But director David F. Sandberg remains a horror guy
at heart (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation), and the
ping-ponging between yuks and yikes leads to a pretty nasty case of
aesthetic whiplash. There are other, equally awkward oppositions: if
Shazam’s whole purpose is to conquer the embodied Seven Deadly Sins,
maybe don’t have him rob an ATM (greed) so he can give more cash to
strippers (lust)? And if his teenage self has spent his whole life
looking for his birth mother, maybe don’t have his dramatic arc consist
of realizing the importance of family? Oh, never mind, there’s gags to
deliver and punching to be done. 2019.
Then it’s Billy turn: “Gross,” he says, when commanded to grab the wizard’s magic staff. But the transformation works, and the movie explodes into its riotous midsection, thanks to It breakout star Jack Dylan Grazer. He plays Billy’s painfully neurotic foster brother Freddy, crippled and emotionally vulnerable but also a voice of self-deprecating salvation. They horse around and make dumb YouTube videos, discovering hidden powers (and a hidden need for kinship).
Feeling anything in a DC Universe installment is, in itself, evidence of filmmaking that’s superheroic (that overall bluish-gray glumness is completely gone). So imagine the shock to also encounter a nuanced, funny script, a richly developed surrogate family, a visual appreciation of Philadelphia and its heroic
Rocky iconography, and not one but
two expert jokes involving a strip club.
Shazam! is so teen-centric, it sometimes plays like a spandexed
Harry Potter. But the YA bent makes sense: The euphoria of newfound powers, unexamined and bursting out, is best expressed by characters (and films) that channel the irreverence of adolescence. Some heavy moments kick in near the end, as does a surfeit of slightly cheesy CGI, always a drag during climactic fight scenes. But for a long, glorious stretch,
Shazam! plays like the anti-Nolan antidote it is.
A cry of “Shazam!” invests Billy with the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus (ie: lightning), the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. All in the body of a broad-chested lunk in a natty, white half-cape later copied by Elvis. Therefore, this revival of a hero whose last cinema outing was
Adventures Of Captain Marvel in 1941 (before lawyers took away his name) is as much an entry in the kid-in-a-grown-up-body genre (
Freaky Friday,
Vice Versa,
Big) as it is yet another addition to the currently crowded roster of superheroic spectacle. A lot of skeletons rattle around in the plot, which involves the last wishes of a cavern-dwelling wizard (Hounsou) and the seething envy of diabolical mastermind Dr Sivana (Strong), but the spine of
Shazam! is Billy taking a Spidey-like power and responsibility crash course while learning to appreciate a family that has come together by choice rather than biological accident.
In the early stretches, as Billy bombs about Philadelphia searching for his missing mom while Sivana refines his self-made evil genius,
Shazam! feels a little like an M. Night Shyamalan film with more bathroom jokes. Then lightning strikes and Zachary Levi takes over the lead, incarnating every brat’s idea of what a grown-up is like – though one of the wryest takes of the film is that Levi’s broad-chested, super-powered Billy (who never settles on a hero name) is free to act more like a kid than Asher’s driven, guarded teenage reading of the role. This being a film made by grown-ups in 2019, Billy’s heroic stunts — sometimes averting disasters he’s inadvertently caused — become famous thanks to social media which peaked in 2017, date-stamping the film the way
Kick-Ass’ MySpace page did.
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