Genre:
Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Superhero
Produced by:
Peter Safran
Directed by:
David F. Sandberg
Written by:
Henry Gayden
Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures
Starring: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark
Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Fulton, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand,
Cooper Andrews
Runtime: 132 minutes
SYNOPSIS:
Orphaned teen Billy Batson (Asher Angel) happens to stumble across
an old ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou),
who bestows him with a magical power that allows him to become a grown man as
well as a superhero (Zachary Levi) every
time he says the word, “Shazam!” As he is trying to come to terms with his
superhero-level changes, the evil and powerful Doctor Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) suddenly shows up in town,
threatening to put the world and the people dear to him in jeopardy.
REVIEW:
Wonder
Woman
(2017) and Aquaman (2018) redefine
the DC Extended Universe’s creative approach. When DC started its own cinematic
universe to rival Marvel’s, one cannot be faulted for thinking that success is
going to hinge at their popular intellectual property (e.g. Batman, Superman) and
the MCU-style interconnectedness. As time goes by, that’s not the case.
On the one hand, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017), two of its tent-pole, team-up superhero movies,
flopped at the box office. On the other, Wonder
Woman and Aquaman, two of their
so-called smaller, standalone movies, were runaway hits. Coincidentally, the
smaller movies were great movies, and the tent-pole movies weren’t. Still, the financial
peaks and valleys leads towards this pattern: the more obscure the characters
are, the less interconnected the movie is to the others, the better. Maybe, just
maybe, when Batman and Superman couldn’t, it’s these obscure, less-known superheroes
that are going to be the DCEU’s main driving force.
Just when it seemed like Aquaman was the pinnacle of weird, the
DCEU might have topped it off with Shazam.
The trailer suggests another different direction for the DCEU, even more different
than the already different Wonder Woman
and Aquaman. At the same time, Shazam represents a much bigger gamble. For
a start, the character itself isn’t as popular as a Wonder Woman or an Aquaman.
Also, while both Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa had appeared as Wonder
Woman and Aquaman in Batman v. Superman
and Justice League respectively
before their standalone movies, Shazam hasn’t
appeared in any DCEU movie before Shazam,
or even any DC movie ever. So, this is truly the character’s first
cinematic appearance, and, without the luxury of a previous movie’s appearance/test
run, he has to make a good impression right away. And that could just be the
difference between the DCEU making more movies with the Justice League characters
or the new, obscure characters.
Shazam continues the DCEU’s
late trend of assigning superhero movies with specific subgenres. If Wonder Woman was a World War II movie
and Aquaman was a sprawling high
fantasy epic, then Shazam is a
coming-of-age comedy. Echoing the many filmgoers’ rough description of the
movie, it is Big
(1988)-meets-superhero movie. Shazam’s
Big reference cannot get any more
obvious than a brief moment when the hero and the villain are fighting on a
walking piano, which any avid filmgoers and Big
fans would identify that moment with the signature piano scene in the Tom Hanks movie.
However, its correlation to Big extends beyond just the one moment. The
movie itself is built around the same premise of a boy trapped in a grown man’s
body. Shazam explores what it’s like to
be a superhero through a boy’s perspective, one that’s rarely represented in
both comic books and its movie adaptations. The Big angle in Shazam serves
as a refreshing change of pace for the genre. In a time when there might just
be too much Man and too little Boy in the superhero lore, Shazam reminds the audience what’s been missing about the genre: a
sense of childlike wonder. It embraces the idea of being a superhero with
unbridled positivity, trading the darker depiction of superhero life as a
torturous experience for a brighter depiction of superhero life as a wish
fulfilling experience. Naturally, that would be what a kid would feel like if
they can be a superhero. In their eyes, it is like seeing their wildest dream
come true.
That’s helped considerably by its grounded,
lighthearted tone. Compared to other
DCEU movies, Shazam is much more
small-scale, more comedic. Big, super serious superhero action pop up once in
awhile, but for the most part, the other superhero actions have been readjusted
for comedic purposes. With this particular superhero movie, it’s about
capturing the mood, not the scale. Prior to his encounter with Sivana, there’s
not much to write home about Shazam shooting lightning bolt at a utility pole
or him fighting small-time criminals, but the fun comes from the many times he
comments on how awesome it feels.
Eventually, it had to get to the part
where the superhero learns that there are consequences in having superpowers,
and Shazam handles the so-called
darker superhero elements as lightly as the fun elements, yet without losing
any shred of believability. It understands what the real soul of its story is
by placing a bigger emphasis on the kid inside Billy Batson than the
superhero/grown man Shazam alter-ego inside him. It is so much an adventure of Billy
growing up from kid to man than it is an adventure of a superhero.
With that in mind, it feels more realistic
that Billy Batson/Shazam isn’t portrayed as an instant do-gooder. Billy is
still at an age where he’s prone to making rash decisions or indulging in
irresponsible behavior. It’s easier for a kid like Billy to think of how being
a man/ having a superpower benefits one’s self rather than how it benefits
others. In that aspect, Shazam
relates the boy-trapped-in-a-man’s-body narrative as well as the superhero
narrative with the archetypal coming-of-age theme of a youth’s loss of
innocence. The whole movie is essentially an allegory on adulthood, how the experience
continuously challenges Billy’s childlike perspective of things in real life.
It explores Billy’s immaturity and maturity effectively as both a comedy and a
drama.
A childlike perspective of being a man
is being exposed to the adult stuff. And yes, this movie plays that element for
laughs. It puts Billy in many situations where he takes advantage of his Shazam
persona to engage himself in age-inappropriate activities, like going to a
strip club or trying out beer. But then again, there’s more to being a man than
just that. Being responsible is part of the adult stuff, something that Billy
often shies away throughout the movie. Billy is used to the street life, having
to fend for himself. But for the first time in his life, he has to learn the
importance of caring for others. Shazam
shines a light on the idea that adulthood isn’t measured by independence, but by
how much one is a role model to others.
As a superhero movie, a childlike
perspective of the superhero life is that it’s cool, exciting, full of action
and butt-kicking. At certain points, such perspective marks Shazam’s rise and
fall. A hero is at his lowest point when it’s his own ego beating him to the
ground, not necessarily the villain. Shazam’s lowest point is when he gets too
carried away with the coolness of having superpowers that he starts to forget
why he has it in the first place. Rather than use his powers for good, he uses
it to earn the extra bucks for himself. In the end, a hero’s true triumph is when
he beats selfishness with selflessness. Shazam’s highest point here isn’t when
he lands a fist on the bad guy’s face, but it’s when he starts to put others
before him. At that moment, it gives him a clearer understanding of what makes a
superhero’s life cool and exciting, so full of action and butt-kicking. And the
answer is simple: it’s when a superhero can use his powers for good.
Shazam is also a story
about friendship. And the source of all things enjoyable about the movie is the
chemistry between Billy Batson/Shazam and comic book enthusiast Freddy Freeman
(Jack Dylan Grazer). Billy and Freddy’s
friendship typifies its overall tone: it’s filled with so much heart, fun and
laughs. Content-wise, these two boys’ interplay is heaven for comic book nerds,
loaded with a chock full of references and theories. People don’t go to these
movies to see characters talk, but way the boys discuss comic books is as fun
(or even more than) as the superhero fights. Every word is infused with so much
passion that it’s infectious, regardless of whether one’s a comic book fan or
not.
In a comedic sense, the movie uses the
characters’ comic book passion to pay homage and poke fun at the genre. That’s really
where the movie’s comedic set-up and punch line come from. That is plain to see
in the character’s dynamics, with Billy/Shazam deconstructing everything people
know about the superhero myth with his kiddie persona and Freddy playing into
the genre’s tropes with his knowledge.
In a dramatic sense, the movie also
wants to show that their friendship extends beyond just comic book passion. Billy
and Freddy's relationship feels almost like a relationship between an older
brother and his younger brother, and the movie doubles down on this familial angle
to give their relationship more personal depth. Their whole relationship arc
revolves around them finally and genuinely accepting each other as brothers,
which ups the stake when that’s under superhero-level threat.
And this leads to the movie’s other big
theme: family. Shazam highlights the
role of family in defining the trajectory of Billy Batson and his villain
Thaddeus Sivana. It’s the simple case where good relationship helps create a
hero while bad one creates a villain, and where these characters go rest on
their choices. On the one side, there’s Billy’s relationship with his new
foster home family. At first, Billy chooses to reject the family’s kindness,
which happens at the same time that he hasn’t mature yet in his role as
superhero. Billy matures in his role when he chooses to opens up to his new
family and accepts their kindness. It helps a great deal that the foster family
are such wholesome people, particularly little scene stealer Darla (Faithe Herman). It also helps that they’re given more screen-time
to emphasize how meaningful they are to the protagonist’s superhero journey.
On
the other, there’s Sivana’s relationship with his father (John Glover). As evident through the movie’s opening sequence, they
have a deeply troubled relationship. Like any young boy, Sivana starts off as
an optimistic kid who wants to open up and impress his father, which doesn’t
matter much when his father continuously sees him as a disappointment. At the
same time, it doesn’t help that the father is a rather awful human being. While
still out trying to prove his father wrong, Sivana descends into villainy when
he chooses to make his point through retaliation than reconciliation.
Beyond that opening sequence though, the
villain just stops becoming interesting. There’s no denying that Mark Strong is a talented actor. As far as villainous roles go, he’s the most
qualified. Strong has such a broad
acting style that makes his villainous characters, particularly the
over-the-top kind, shine. In the comics, Doctor Sivana has established a
reputation as being the larger-than-life villain-type, but it’s clear that the
movie deviates slightly from that and paints him instead as a more tragic
character. In that aspect, Strong isn’t
the right fit for the role.
There’s room for over-the-top villainy,
but there needs to also be room for subtlety, and that is hardly going to
happen with an actor like Mark Strong.
Sivana is set up as a three-dimensional villain, whose villainy stems from his anger
towards childhood rejection, but Strong
isn’t the most believable actor to carry the character’s deeper dimension. Also,
his personality doesn’t gel with the movie’s tone. Every hero needs a threatening
foe, every light needs its darkness, but Sivana is way too self-serious, too
dark to feel like he belongs in this lighter side of the DCEU. If it’s the
grim, Zack Snyder-era, then maybe he
would.
Strong plays Sivana with
the same note: the moustache-twirling baddie note, coming off like a villain who
wants world domination just for the sake of world domination rather than as an
act of supposedly reasonable payback to those who have wronged him. For that
reason, he is a boring villain.
It makes the superhero v. villain
showdown a huge letdown. After all, superhero movies exist so that the hero and
villain can meet up and fight to the death. In keeping with Shazam’s lighthearted tone, there’s
nothing in the fights that’s as intense. But it’s disappointing that the best
the movie can offer is a series of generic, been-there-done-that fights. The
idea is the same: they fly around the city, punch each other and leave
destruction in their wake. But it can feel fresh if it has any emotional
meaning. Instead, the fights mean nothing more than just punches and chaos.
For all the technical efforts, the fight
sequences get pretty repetitive. Imagine if all of Neo and Agent Smith’s fight
scenes in the Matrix Revolutions
(2003) are the climactic fight. Revolutions
is a bad movie, but at least the climactic fight has more emotional meaning since:
a) everything leads up to that moment, b) the fights that come before are different,
more low stake than the climactic fight and c) it’s saved for the third act. In
Shazam, every superhero fight is just
the same climactic, third act fight as before, which makes the climactic fight
less climactic.
Thankfully though, Shazam has some badass secondary villains. In this case, they’re Sivana’s
henchmen the Seven Deadly Sins monsters. In keeping with the movie’s childlike aesthetics,
the designs for these demonic gargoyles are purposely cheesy and campy, almost Goosebumps-like, but in Shazam’s law, the more ridiculous the
villains look, the scarier. With lesser screentime, somehow, the monsters are
more menacing than the actual mastermind.
At the same time, it is clear that the director
David F. Sandberg has more fun
directing the monster sequences than the superhero fights. If the superhero
fights feel like a studio telling Sandberg
what to do, then the monster sequences are a sign of a director that’s in
complete command of his craft. After all, he was the director of a
monster-related horror movie Lights Out
(2016). Shazam follows DCEU’s recent
tradition of hiring horror movie directors for their superhero movies, after James Wan in Aquaman. It also follows the tradition of a studio letting these directors
have one scene where they can do their horror movie thing.
If the Trench sequence in Aquaman convinces the studio enough to
commission a feature-length horror movie adaptation, then the monsters’ sequence
here should get the same treatment. It’s probably the most out of left field scene
in the movie, but it stands out above the other samey superhero set-piece. That
one scene suggests that what the superhero set-piece needs is a bit of a creepy
touch. And the monsters’ attack on Sivana’s father’s office is easily the movie’s
most thrilling set-piece, a subversion of the everyday superhero movie action that
relies on all the standard horror movie tricks, from body horror, jump scares, suspense-building
to Gothic fog-like smoke coming together in exciting fashion.
If only the movie had more of the
superhero and the monsters fights, then the fights, especially in the climax,
would have been as close to flawless. Based on the movie’s rules though, the monsters
need a leader to put its evil plans into action, and if so, then it deserves a
much better leader.
Shazam’s magic would
not come alive without the cast. Asher
Angel portrays the 14-year old version of Billy Batson, and he’s the one
who has got to do a lot of the dramatic heavy lifting, in which he does so
genuinely. But since it’s a comedy and a superhero movie, it’s the Zachary Levi’s show. Powered by his unabashed childlike
demeanor and action hero physique, Levi
perfectly blends humor, wonder and muscle in a high octane performance as adult
Billy Batson/Shazam. Rare in the DCEU movies has there been a superhero that is
as captivating with his self-aware ramblings and kiddie smile as when he is
throwing bad guys out the window.
Meanwhile, Jack Dylan Grazer perfectly blends comic book brains with plenty of
heart and (like Levi) humor as
Freddy Freeman. Grazer, with his
own kind of charm, gives this weird world a much-needed regular kid presence, one
who is as sincere and relatable when he is talking about comic books as when he’s
struggling socially in school.
CONCLUSION:
Shazam
beautifully
and successfully taps into the inner child in every comic book fan, imbuing the
superhero genre with the much-needed infectious dosage of fun, self-aware humor
and heart to set it apart from other superhero movies, DCEU in particular.
Score: 9/10
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