After Wonder Woman and Aquaman, DC slowly starts to move away from the extremely dark settings that Zack Snyder, among others, created. A positive development and this movie continues that line with perhaps the most colorful film (at least in terms of marketing), Shazam!. The character was once more popular than Superman (and was originally called Captain Marvel). DC started a lawsuit against the publisher in the 1940s (because Captain Marvel looked too much like Superman) and eventually bought the rights. Despite that eventful history, it is the first time that Shazam! appears on the large screen. Does director David F. Sandberg succeed in making it memorable?
14-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a foster child, has been searching for his mother for years. While being placed in a new family, he gets super powers and can turn into an adult superhero. He must find out what superpowers he has and how to use them when the bad Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) finds him.
Shazam! can perhaps best be described as a superhero version of Big (in which a child ends up in an adult body through a magical fairground device), with elements of the fights between Neo and Agent Smith from The Matrix, the dynamics between Peter Parker and Ned in Spider-Man: Homecoming (just not that good) and elements of the superhero films from the 90s. Sandberg has made horror films in the past, such as Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation and unfortunately this results in a number of very dark, violent scenes that in my opinion will be too intense for younger kids. The advertisements on children’s channels such as Nickelodeon over here when it came out make you think that this is a film for the whole family, but I personally recommend that you first look at it as a parent yourself to decide whether you want your children to watch this title. That is unfortunate, because apart from those moments it is nice to see how Billy slowly has to find out what his powers are and also what he can do in the body of an adult man.
Zachary Levi plays his role of Shazam in a very nice way. The only problem is that as a viewer you never get the idea that it is an adult version of the role that Asher Angel plays. His Billy Batson is very quiet and closed and that is what Shazam isn’t at all. They seem to be two separate characters. In addition, the film contains a subplot about how Billy tries to find his mother, but that storyline feels underdeveloped and never has the emotional impact that is targeted, partly because Angel shows little emotion. Mark Strong is completely absorbed in his role as the one-dimensional villain. Because of its odd tone and other minor issues, Shazam! isn’t a great film. There is enough entertainment to at least watch it, but its characters could have had more depth, which would have helped in stronger relationships between these characters.
[score6]