Shazam! - Review: Overabundant Charm Smothers Some Noticeable Cliches and Flaws
Release date (US): April 5th, 2019
Starring: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Asher Angel, Djimon Hounsou
**DISCLAIMER**: This is a subjective, opinionated article that does not have, nor should have any effect on your opinion. As such, my opinion is entitled to change over time and whatever is written here at this point in time may not and should not be held to me in the future. You are not meant to agree with me 100 percent of the time, because the nature of subjectivity is we see everything differently. If there is something you happen to disagree with, I absolutely respect your point of view if you will respect mine. Please keep this in mind.
The DCEU as we know it has not been the most celebrated franchise. As Marvel has put out quality film after quality film, DC has struggled to replicate their success with films like Suicide Squad, Justice League, and Batman v. Superman. However, as of late, it looks like they may be turning a corner with a lighter tone. Wonder Woman was critically acclaimed and made a showing at the box office as well. Aquaman was enjoyable and cracked a billion dollars. This new model of taking each film one at a time and not connecting them to an overarching cinematic universe seems to be working amazingly for DCEU.
Then we turn to Shazam!.
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This would not have been the first film that I would've done after well-known IPs such as Aquaman and Wonder Woman. It honestly wouldn't have been the fiftieth either. Granted, I am not a DC comics reader, so I don't know the elaborate history of these characters. But again, Guardians of the Galaxy worked, so why shouldn't this?
Where I got stuck was really the trailers. I thought the first couple of trailers were some of the worst pieces of marketing that I had ever seen. But trailers don't make movies; plenty of good movie shave had bad trailers. All to say that I was not excited at all about this movie entering the month of March. But as critical buzz and positive audience reactions began to surround the film, my interest peaked, until I found myself sitting in a theater, genuinely curious and excited to see where this film would go.
Here's what I'll say about Shazam! right off the bat. It knows exactly what it is, and it's not original AT ALL. The director, David F. Sandberg, who is known for his horror projects in the past, has said as much. He said this was a mix of Big meets Superman. He knows that this film is drawing entirely from outward source material,
On top of that, this film is riddled with cliches and tropes that have been used millions and millions of times. DC made the unfortunate mistake of putting a lot of those in the trailer. We see Billy Batson and Freddy Freeman being beaten up by bullies. Shots of Shazam! flossing didn't course confidence through me either. There is this element of trying to be relatable to the audience while also trying to be appealing and Shazam! toes the line with that sometimes.
BUT, what Shazam! has that not a lot of other superhero movies have is charm. It has an overwhelming sense of joy. And because of that, it works. Because it's not trying to a Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker or an Avengers: Endgame, it uses those tropes to its benefit. And it uses them well. It would be one thing to say that Shazam! uses an exorbitant amount of cliches and it becomes stale, but they're used to well into the film that you forget about them.
We see Billy Batson, a boy running from foster home to foster home trying to make it on his own, until he finds himself in a foster home with Freddy Freeman, played wonderfully by Jack Dylan Grazer. Chaos ensues, and Billy finds himself in a different dimension, faced with the wizard known as Shazam, who bestows his powers unto Billy. And thus, the movie takes off.
The first fifteen minutes or so of the film did feel slow. When a movie is slow, you begin to notice things that you normally wouldn't have picked up on, for better or for worse. Slow in itself is not inherently bad. But the first fifteen or twenty minutes of this film made the cliches stand out so much more than the rest of the movie. Again, Shazam! is not inventive. It's downright copying some other films at certain points. But that's okay because it's bolstered by Zachary Levi and the rest of the supporting cast. But you don't get to see Levi until about forty-five minutes into the film, and especially in the first thirty minutes, there is so much set0up and exposition going on that the film feels like a drag to a degree.
But then Zachary Levi as Shazam appears. I can't say enough good things about him. I thought that the casting was great, even if the trailers didn't do him any favors. He's the perfect mix of dopey, charming, witty, and "kid-like". And that's what the film relies on; the duality of this character in that there's really a teenage boy living inside a superhero's body. Granted, it doesn't work all the time. There are points in the film where it really does feel like Zachary Levi and Asher Angel (Billy Batson) are playing completely different characters, to where if one transforms into the other, it's almost like they're transforming into the a different person.
But there are other points in the film where the transition between the two is seamless. They meld together so that you feel they are the same character going through the same struggles; one just happens to have the power of the gods.
Jack Dylan Grazer, as well as ht4e rest of his family, were surprisingly charming as well. They fit their roles extremely well EXCEPT for the last thirty minutes, which I will discuss later. They provide a home for Billy, who never really had a home. Freddy, as cliche as his character is, was written so well and Grazer was given some amazing dialogue to deliver so that his cliche character felt unique.
Mark Strong plays the villain in the film, and while his motivations are set-up on paper, they don't quite come across as well as they should have. That being said, when you bring in a world-class talent such as Mark Strong, you're bound to get a great performance, and that's exactly what you get. A great performance out of a villain that was otherwise extremely average in terms of comic-book movie standards. He had his usual "bad-guy" lines and did his "bad-guy" things, and played a nice foil to Shazam in the end. What more could we ask for, I suppose? He's no Thanos, but he's no Steppenwolf either.
I felt the movie really felt the strongest during the second act, when Shazam and Freddy are experimenting to find out wha tShazam's powers are. You see a bit of that in the trailers, but you don't nearly see enough because it works so well in the finished film. There's a very nice choice of music used as well, which fits so perfectly with the character.That was where Sandberg was allowed to really make this movie his own and allowed to give these characters the "oomph" and the "realness" that they desperately needed. And because of that, we care about them despite a slow first act.
But then the third act comes along. I will say this: it's nowhere close to as bad as the third act for Batman v. Superman. But as far as third acts go, this follows the trend of DCEU movies not being able to quite stick the landing. It comes close, but it doesn't quite do it. As someone who doesn't follow DC comics at all, they pulled a couple fast ones on me that I didn't see coming. At first, when they did that, I thought that they were absolutely amazing. But then I continued to watch the third act unfold and realized that the execution was rather poor. They felt shoehorned and just there for the sake of fan-service. Did they serve the story? Essentially, they did, but did they need to be there? Not really.
The third act as well showcased some other weaknesses of the film. The action in the film was rather generic, and there wasn't much unique visually throughout the entirety of the movie. I think that while the action wasn't necessarily bad, there were so many more creative things they could have done with it. Granted, they didn't have a crazy huge budget, but I felt that films like Ant-Man did creative things with a smaller ("smaller") budget. There are also certain things the film lays out that they never pay off, which was rather frustrating, especially when Shazam was in danger.
The CGI wasn't great either at times. There are some points where the costume looks great - it's hilarious in the right way, in the way that the supporting characters are laughing at it as well. But there are some points, ESPECIALLY in the last thirty minutes, where the CGI is rather laughable. Without going into spoilers, almost all the characters presented in the third act look very, very, very CGI and that frustrated me a little bit.
In Conclusion: But again, all of that aside, what this film has that a lot of others don't is charm. Zachary Levi knows exactly what kind of film he's in; he knows exactly what he wants to do with the character. He makes those cliches seem original and funny because his charisma is so magnetic. You're able to see how much he loves playing the character. Without him, this film would be nothing if not mediocre at best.
The Review
The DCEU as we know it has not been the most celebrated franchise. As Marvel has put out quality film after quality film, DC has struggled to replicate their success with films like Suicide Squad, Justice League, and Batman v. Superman. However, as of late, it looks like they may be turning a corner with a lighter tone. Wonder Woman was critically acclaimed and made a showing at the box office as well. Aquaman was enjoyable and cracked a billion dollars. This new model of taking each film one at a time and not connecting them to an overarching cinematic universe seems to be working amazingly for DCEU.
Then we turn to Shazam!.
This would not have been the first film that I would've done after well-known IPs such as Aquaman and Wonder Woman. It honestly wouldn't have been the fiftieth either. Granted, I am not a DC comics reader, so I don't know the elaborate history of these characters. But again, Guardians of the Galaxy worked, so why shouldn't this?
Where I got stuck was really the trailers. I thought the first couple of trailers were some of the worst pieces of marketing that I had ever seen. But trailers don't make movies; plenty of good movie shave had bad trailers. All to say that I was not excited at all about this movie entering the month of March. But as critical buzz and positive audience reactions began to surround the film, my interest peaked, until I found myself sitting in a theater, genuinely curious and excited to see where this film would go.
Here's what I'll say about Shazam! right off the bat. It knows exactly what it is, and it's not original AT ALL. The director, David F. Sandberg, who is known for his horror projects in the past, has said as much. He said this was a mix of Big meets Superman. He knows that this film is drawing entirely from outward source material,
On top of that, this film is riddled with cliches and tropes that have been used millions and millions of times. DC made the unfortunate mistake of putting a lot of those in the trailer. We see Billy Batson and Freddy Freeman being beaten up by bullies. Shots of Shazam! flossing didn't course confidence through me either. There is this element of trying to be relatable to the audience while also trying to be appealing and Shazam! toes the line with that sometimes.
BUT, what Shazam! has that not a lot of other superhero movies have is charm. It has an overwhelming sense of joy. And because of that, it works. Because it's not trying to a Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker or an Avengers: Endgame, it uses those tropes to its benefit. And it uses them well. It would be one thing to say that Shazam! uses an exorbitant amount of cliches and it becomes stale, but they're used to well into the film that you forget about them.
We see Billy Batson, a boy running from foster home to foster home trying to make it on his own, until he finds himself in a foster home with Freddy Freeman, played wonderfully by Jack Dylan Grazer. Chaos ensues, and Billy finds himself in a different dimension, faced with the wizard known as Shazam, who bestows his powers unto Billy. And thus, the movie takes off.
The first fifteen minutes or so of the film did feel slow. When a movie is slow, you begin to notice things that you normally wouldn't have picked up on, for better or for worse. Slow in itself is not inherently bad. But the first fifteen or twenty minutes of this film made the cliches stand out so much more than the rest of the movie. Again, Shazam! is not inventive. It's downright copying some other films at certain points. But that's okay because it's bolstered by Zachary Levi and the rest of the supporting cast. But you don't get to see Levi until about forty-five minutes into the film, and especially in the first thirty minutes, there is so much set0up and exposition going on that the film feels like a drag to a degree.
But then Zachary Levi as Shazam appears. I can't say enough good things about him. I thought that the casting was great, even if the trailers didn't do him any favors. He's the perfect mix of dopey, charming, witty, and "kid-like". And that's what the film relies on; the duality of this character in that there's really a teenage boy living inside a superhero's body. Granted, it doesn't work all the time. There are points in the film where it really does feel like Zachary Levi and Asher Angel (Billy Batson) are playing completely different characters, to where if one transforms into the other, it's almost like they're transforming into the a different person.
But there are other points in the film where the transition between the two is seamless. They meld together so that you feel they are the same character going through the same struggles; one just happens to have the power of the gods.
Jack Dylan Grazer, as well as ht4e rest of his family, were surprisingly charming as well. They fit their roles extremely well EXCEPT for the last thirty minutes, which I will discuss later. They provide a home for Billy, who never really had a home. Freddy, as cliche as his character is, was written so well and Grazer was given some amazing dialogue to deliver so that his cliche character felt unique.
Mark Strong plays the villain in the film, and while his motivations are set-up on paper, they don't quite come across as well as they should have. That being said, when you bring in a world-class talent such as Mark Strong, you're bound to get a great performance, and that's exactly what you get. A great performance out of a villain that was otherwise extremely average in terms of comic-book movie standards. He had his usual "bad-guy" lines and did his "bad-guy" things, and played a nice foil to Shazam in the end. What more could we ask for, I suppose? He's no Thanos, but he's no Steppenwolf either.
I felt the movie really felt the strongest during the second act, when Shazam and Freddy are experimenting to find out wha tShazam's powers are. You see a bit of that in the trailers, but you don't nearly see enough because it works so well in the finished film. There's a very nice choice of music used as well, which fits so perfectly with the character.That was where Sandberg was allowed to really make this movie his own and allowed to give these characters the "oomph" and the "realness" that they desperately needed. And because of that, we care about them despite a slow first act.
But then the third act comes along. I will say this: it's nowhere close to as bad as the third act for Batman v. Superman. But as far as third acts go, this follows the trend of DCEU movies not being able to quite stick the landing. It comes close, but it doesn't quite do it. As someone who doesn't follow DC comics at all, they pulled a couple fast ones on me that I didn't see coming. At first, when they did that, I thought that they were absolutely amazing. But then I continued to watch the third act unfold and realized that the execution was rather poor. They felt shoehorned and just there for the sake of fan-service. Did they serve the story? Essentially, they did, but did they need to be there? Not really.
The third act as well showcased some other weaknesses of the film. The action in the film was rather generic, and there wasn't much unique visually throughout the entirety of the movie. I think that while the action wasn't necessarily bad, there were so many more creative things they could have done with it. Granted, they didn't have a crazy huge budget, but I felt that films like Ant-Man did creative things with a smaller ("smaller") budget. There are also certain things the film lays out that they never pay off, which was rather frustrating, especially when Shazam was in danger.
The CGI wasn't great either at times. There are some points where the costume looks great - it's hilarious in the right way, in the way that the supporting characters are laughing at it as well. But there are some points, ESPECIALLY in the last thirty minutes, where the CGI is rather laughable. Without going into spoilers, almost all the characters presented in the third act look very, very, very CGI and that frustrated me a little bit.
In Conclusion: But again, all of that aside, what this film has that a lot of others don't is charm. Zachary Levi knows exactly what kind of film he's in; he knows exactly what he wants to do with the character. He makes those cliches seem original and funny because his charisma is so magnetic. You're able to see how much he loves playing the character. Without him, this film would be nothing if not mediocre at best.
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