DC Comics and Warner Bros. might’ve finally figured things out.
We all know Disney has spent the past decade ruling the comic book movie realm with the mighty “Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
Outside of Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” movies many moons ago, the DC offerings from Warner Bros. have been lacking.
“Shazam!” enters the DC Extended Universe foray with a movie that is funny and heartfelt.
The movie starts out with a 1974 prologue that finds a young Thaddeus Sivana (Ethan Pugiotto) riding in a car with his dad and brother, playing with a Magic 8-Ball. It is during this sequence that Thaddeus is magically transported to a mysterious lair (the Rock of Eternity), meets the wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), and sees seven stone statues representing the Seven Deadly Sins.
The wizard has been looking for someone worthy of taking up the mantel, but the boy fails the test — and devotes the rest of his life trying to find his way back to the wizard.
The film jumps forward to present-day Philadelphia (during the Christmas season). Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is a 14-year-old who found himself separated from his mom at a carnival when he was a small boy. As a result, Batson has bounced around from foster home to foster home, looking for his mother along the way.
It is during one of Batson’s attempts at reuniting with his mother that he is picked up by police (after employing a clever method to use the laptop in a cruiser to track a license plate number) and is sent to child services.
He is sent to the group home of Rosa (Marta Milans) and Victor (Cooper Andrews) Vasquez. They are a loving couple who have four other foster kids. Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer) is Batson’s roommate.
The affable Freddy walks with a crutch and is self-proclaimed expert on comic books and superheroes. Billy is has little interest in the topic.
When Freddy is bullied by some boys at school, Batson comes to his aid and is subsequently chased by the bullies into a subway station. He narrowly escapes on the train, but soon finds himself transported to the wizard Shazam’s lair.
During that sequence of events (with the wizard) is when Batson magically transforms from a teenager into a an adult version of himself (played by Zachary Levi), wearing a ridiculous superhero constume and anointed with super powers.
I won’t give away any spoilers, but the movie proceeds from there like a superhero take on the Tom Hanks movie “Big” — with Freddy and Billy trying to navigate the latter‘s newfound superhero status.
There are some fun scenes in that regard (including a montage set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”). One scene in particular is a direct nod to the movie “Big” (I’ll let you discover it for yourself).
I liked that “Shazam!” had a campy tone, and opted to forgo an over-produced and over-stylized look (something that has plagued some of the DCEU entries).
Zachary Levi is really good playing a 14-year-old trapped in an adult’s body. Jack Dylan Grazer is solid as the geeky “manager” to Batson’s superhero (I liked Grazer on the short-lived CBS series “Me, Myself & I”). Both had terrific chemistry.
Overall, the entire ensemble is enjoyable on screen.
Mark Strong plays the adult Thaddeus Sivana — the antagonist our hero has to deal with in “Shazam!” I must say, I was sort of “ho hum” on the villain in this movie. It’s a common affliction suffered by the glut of comic book movies we see annually at the box office.
The film is directed by David F. Sandberg — a relative unknown who previously directed the horror film “Annabelle: Creation.”
I liked the vibe of the movie. It wasn’t the perfect superhero film, but it had a lot of laughs and a lot of heart. In that regard, my mood leaving the theater was similar to the feeling I had after seeing “Bumblebee” last December (read my review of that underrated reboot).
I’ll warn you upfront that the first 15 minutes or so might leave you scratching your head. Those early scenes feel like the setup for a low-rent version of “Harry Potter.”
But don’t be alarmed — “Shazam!” gets better from there.
When you couple this with last December’s “Aquaman,” you start to see where the DCEU is going. While neither movie is perfect, I like the direction Warner Bros. is headed.
They’ve ditched the “Zack Snyder weirdness” for a much more lighthearted path.
Check out “Shazam!” I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did...
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