SHAZAM! NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Well, a new DC film has arrived upon us in the form of one of comics oldest heroes, created in 1939, from Fawcett Comics, Captain Marvel, uhh, I mean, Shazam makes his cinematic debut, directed by David F. Sandberg. This is a non-spoiler film, so let's go.

The film focuses on foster kid Billy Batson, who moves in with a new family in Philadelphia. Billy finds himself commanded by the wizard Shazam, who grants the pure of heart boy the powers of "SHAZAM". These powers include Solomon's wisdom, Hercules' strength, Atlas' stamina, Zeus' power, Achilles' courage, and Mercury's speed. With his new granted powers, Billy learns how to control them with his superhero fanboy friend Freddy Freeman, as he tries to protect his city, but most importantly, his family.

Let's start off discussing the character of Billy Batson/ Shazam. Asher Angle played the Billy Batson in the film, and he was pretty good. I do feel like the character played more on the base that he was a foster kid who was sort of sad all the time, and just overall down on his luck. It was a really good, and what I would assume a realistic depiction of what a real-life Billy Batson would be like.
Zachary Levi was great as Shazam. The enthusiasm he has being a superhero in a glowing super suit shined through in the film, and it helped create the tone of the film. There was also a lot of humor played into the superhero form of the character, as we see a 15-year-old doing what adult things he wants to see.

In the middle of the film, I did feel like there was a small disconnect between Angle and Levi. It seemed like that was a little more on the script and the base of their performances. I feel like the disconnect arose from the bases of the character where Billy as a kid was a little down and depressed, and Levi was super energetic to play Billy with powers. However, it all came to a full circle, and the two characters aligned, and all were on the same path and alignment.

One of the other characters that I really enjoyed was Freddy Freeman, played by Jack Dylan Grazer. I loved the character and his development throughout the film. As a supporting role to a superhero, Freddy may be the best there is. His enthusiasm with the situation matched that of Levi's performance, and the two worked well on screen together.

When going into Shazam, the one thing I was looking forward to was the tone of the film. The has a consistent tone, it mostly leans on the lighter side like the more recent DC films, have. One benefit that this film had like Aquaman was that from the start of the script it leaned more on the lighter side and didn't need an uncanny amount of reshoots to balance out the tone. The lighter tone of the film was a really neat thing to say as it played well with the main characters in the film and duality between Billy Batson as a kid and in his Shazam form.
This isn't to say that the film didn't have its darker moments, it definitely did, but they worked as they had the main purpose to develop certain characters and progress the story.

The action in the film is pretty awesome, it all flows well. A lot of the humor of the film is derived from the action, such as Billy testing his powers, and other wacky antiques Billy gets himself into when in fights, as he does not have a full grasp of his powers.

There are some interesting twists in the film which are from the comics, which I don't want to spoil here, I will later on, and that was all fun, and something I was kind of hoping for, but did catch me off guard, and it was awesome to see.

In conclusion, Shazam is a fantastic film, which does have a lot of heart in the themes that it deals with. However, the film is built off its humor through Billy and Shazam, in addition to the twists the film offers. I would recommend seeing Shazam and also stick around for the two post credit scenes. I am pretty sure you can find the second one online though.
What did you think of Shazam? Comment below your thoughts on the film.
You can click on the left for more Shazam, or on the right for more DC, and also subscribe. As always, thanks for reading, take care.

                                               

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 17, 2019 at 8:54 AM

    i saw some very nice scene here https://www.portalultautv.com/shazam-2019/

    ReplyDelete

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