Shazam (1 & 2)

SHAZAM! (12)

D: David F. Sandberg

Warner Bros / New Line / DC / Seven Bucks / Mad Ghost (Peter Safran)

US 🇺🇸 2019

132 mins

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Comedy

W: Henry Gayden & Darren Lemke [based on characters from DC comics]

DP: Maxime Alexandre

Ed: Michel Aller

Mus: Benjamin Wallfisch

Asher Angel (Billy Batson), Zachary Levi (Shazam), Jack Dylan Grazer (Freddy Freeman), Mark Strong (Thaddeus Sivina), Faithe Herman (Darla Dudley), Grace Fulton (Mary Bromfield), Ian Chen (Eugene Choi), Jovan Armand (Pedro Peña), Djimon Hounsou (Shazam)

Nearly 20 years in the making, Shazam was in initial pre-production in the early 2000's under the original character's name (Captain Marvel) and was only really greenlit following the huge success of other DC movies, and eventually released shortly after Marvel's take on Captain Marvel, sparking an internet war between rival fans.

Coming out at a time when a new superhero movie seem to be released every single month, Shazam does something different with the usual tropes in the respect that a big, tough superhero actually has the mind of a teenage boy.

Adolescent Billy Batson is the alter-ego of the adult superhero, a troubled teenager searching for his long-lost mother in-between spells at various foster homes. He is given his superpowers by a dying wizard who has chosen him as his champion and finds a nemesis in Dr. Thaddeus Sivina, a super-villain powered by the seven deadly sins.

In short, it's Kick-Ass meets Big, with its tongue firmly in cheek as it displaces a child's mind in an adults body as well as having a superhero who doesn't quite know how to discover his true potential. Zachary Levi is great as the title character and both juvenile actors in the main parts do a great job with their fraternal-friendship double act.

Though the film is very much to be treated as a comedy, it does have some dramatic plot points and dark moments, and these shifts in tone don't quite marry as well as they should. The biggest negative, however, is Mark Strong's villain, who is incredibly poorly written and even the opening scene to the movie isn't nearly enough to explain why he's evil for the sake of being evil. In fact, the opening scene to the film could have been thrown away and the film would have been much better for it, as it really needed to be at least 20 minutes shorter than it actually is.

Highly enjoyable as a throwaway piece of popcorn entertainment, and though a sequel is inevitable, it really doesn't need one.

Personally, I think the comparison of this to Marvel's Captain Marvel is stupid. They're both completely different stories and have no real base for comparison at all.

6/10

SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS (12)

D: David F. Sandberg

Warner Bros / New Line / DC (Peter Safran)

US 🇺🇸 2023

130 mins

Science Fiction/Action/Comedy

W: Henry Gayden & Chris Morgan [based on characters created by DC comics]

DP: Gyula Pados

Ed: Michel Alier

Mus: Christophe Beck

Zachary Levi (Shazam), Asher Angel (Billy Batson), Adam Brody / Jack Dylan Grazer (Freddy Freeman), Helen Mirren (Hespera), Lucy Liu (Kalypso), Rachel Zegler (Anthea)

A disappointingly flat sequel to a film which really didn’t need one, especially coming into a time when most people are getting quite tired of superhero movies.

Adolescent Billy Batson & Shazam are back, trying to save his city from everything bad, only to be resented by the population for doing so. However, he and his gang are truly tested when three Greek goddesses come to take power.

The superhero narrative really is more of the same, and there’s very little to see here that hasn’t been done before, even in the context of a comedy superhero movie.

Helen Mirren attempts to give this some gravitas, but an actress of her stature can’t perform miracles, especially when she’s often in the same frame as Lucy Liu, who gives a horribly terrible performance.

Zachary Levi is likeable enough as a comic book hero who is completely out of his depth, but considering this film acknowledges that it takes place in the same universe where stronger & more powerful heroes exist, there really isn’t any sense of peril here and it isn’t particularly funny either.

4/10