Review: Shazam! (2019)

Shazam! (2019)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action, language, and suggestive material

Score: 4 out of 5

Damn, the DC Extended Universe has gotten good. Just a year and a half ago, I was reading its obituary in my Justice League review, thinking that Wonder Woman might wind up as the only truly great thing to come out of it after Zack Snyder's multiple attempts to craft "darker and grittier" versions of Superman and Batman ultimately belly-flopped and provoked the animus of critics, moviegoers, and comic book nerds alike. Little did I know that Wonder Woman would turn out to be the foundation for the DCEU's reinvention -- in a mold, incidentally, not unlike that of the early Marvel Cinematic Universe that it had once been self-consciously trying and failing to emulate. Just as Marvel Comics, thanks to a decade's worth of licensing deals with various studios, had to lean on second-string characters like Iron Man, Thor, and the Guardians of the Galaxy instead of bringing out the big guns like Spider-Man and the X-Men right out of the gate, Warner Bros. and DC Comics, having previously squandered audience goodwill towards the idea of future Superman and Batman movies, had to dig into their roster and turn their B-listers into stars. Much like the Incredible Hulk and maybe Captain America at Marvel, Wonder Woman was perhaps the only character that DC had on hand who was both well-known to people who didn't read comics and untainted by recent, poorly-received films, and even she was once thought to be impossible to bring to the big screen in a "serious" movie due to the mythological nature of her comic book universe (that, and people supposedly wouldn't see a movie about a female superhero). Yet not only did they give her a movie, they then proceeded to do the same with Aquaman, who had been rendered a joke since the '70s due to the Super Friends cartoon and the question of "he's a merman who speaks to fish, what can he possibly contribute?". And not only were both movies awesome, I'd wager that the lack of "name value" for the characters was precisely why they were so good and so well-received -- unlike Superman and Batman, DC couldn't rest on name recognition alone to bring people into the theater, and knew that they had to compete on quality.

So it is again with Shazam!, the latest in a DCEU that's seemingly cast aside the misguided obsession with building the next multi-billion-dollar cinematic universe in favor of doing what they should've been doing right from the start: making good movies first, then worrying about franchise-building later. The only vague connections we get to the rest of the DCEU are that Superman, Batman, and the other DC Comics superheroes exist in this world as real people, and the way it's written, a fan of any version of those two could easily pretend that it's their preferred takes who the characters are talking about. It's a standalone origin story, made on a surprisingly modest budget for a superhero movie but feeling no less grand and impactful, that walks the line between a lighthearted parody of the genre and a full-fledged celebration of what it represents, taking a character who served as wish fulfillment for kids in the '50s who wanted to be grown-up and "cool" and using him as a metaphor for kids in troubled homes who have been forced to grow up too fast. It packs some impressive visuals in both its fantasy elements and its more grounded "real world" setting, and a final fight scene that doesn't need much in the way of extravagant special effects to truly nail it, not when it hinges less on spectacle and more on the interactions of a great cast of well-rounded characters who the film had previously given most of its rightful focus. Shazam! may not be a revolution, but it's a film that probably nails the spirit of Superman better than most of Superman's actual appearances in the movies.

It all starts with Billy Batson, a teenage orphan who was lost by his mother at a fairground when he was a toddler, and has spent the last ten years searching for her while bouncing between foster homes. After another run-in with the law, he's put in the care of Victor and Rosa Vasquez, who are raising a gaggle of foster children in a home in Philadelphia. After protecting Freddy, one of the oldest of his new siblings, from a pair of bullies at school, Billy finds himself mystically whisked away by an ancient wizard who bestows upon him a super-powered adult form that he can activate and deactivate by saying the word "Shazam", so named because he gains the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. Billy and Freddy, fanboys of the real superheroes in their midst, initially geek out over Billy's new superpowers, a likely outcome for any adolescent boy who's just learned that he can turn into an off-brand Superman, and much of the humor in the first hour or so is mined from the jackassery that one would logically expect from a kid like Billy: using his adult form to buy beer and get into strip clubs, taking selfies with people and then magically charging their phones, and showing off his lightning powers to a crowd on the Rocky Steps in a way that totally can't go horribly wrong. It's odd, given the radically different tone, but it feels almost like a counterpart to Man of Steel's portrayal of Superman acting in some very un-Superman ways, both films eager to show how a normal person would behave with superpowers. The difference? Whereas Man of Steel was trying to be dark and gritty for the sake of it in order to establish that this wasn't your daddy's Superman, this film does so in service of Billy's character development from a well-intentioned but rough-hewn teenage boy to somebody worthy of being called a hero. Billy is soon confronted by the responsibility that he has to his foster siblings and the expectations that they place on him, especially once they learn about his powers, as well as by his lifelong obsession with finding his real mother, a journey that goes in some dark directions that are somewhat telegraphed early on -- but the way it plays out, those signs only add to the incoming tragedy once you realize what awaits Billy. One could almost call it the movie that Man of Steel should have been and wanted to be, one in which Clark Kent spends the movie grappling with the responsibility of being Superman before fully growing into the role in the third act. Both of Billy's actors, Asher Angel in his normal boy form and Zachary Levi as the grown-up superhero he turns into, are great in the role, the former carrying many of the bigger dramatic moments and the latter getting to handle most of the comedy bits as he engages in super-dickery across town; that said, it's always clear that the two of them are the same person underneath, and by the end, Levi steps up to the plate and proves that he's a lot more than just the funny guy from the show Chuck.

In the end, this film's themes comes down to family, and it's in the supporting cast where the film really shines. I loved all of the kid and teen actors playing Billy's adoptive family, especially as each of them, first Freddy followed by little Darla and then the teenage Rose, slowly realizes the true nature of the secret that Billy is hiding and the reason for his erratic behavior. Billy's relationship with his family, especially in contrast with that of his birth mother, is where this film's heart truly lies. Without spoiling anything, it's why, despite the action at the end being mostly confined to a fairground, the climatic battle between Billy and the villainous Dr. Sivana managed to work better than the grand but empty spectacle of so many movies with twice this film's budget. Dr. Sivana, a physicist who had been rejected by the wizard as a young boy and spent the rest of his life trying to get that power for himself, isn't really a great villain on his own; while Mark Strong gives an appropriately evil performance as the mad scientist, he's pretty forgettable as a character on his own. Rather, he serves as a dark mirror for Billy, a troubled young boy with parental issues who grew up into somebody who never got over his rejection by the wizard, having never had people around him to pick him up when he fell. He's what Billy could have turned into without his foster family. Again, as before, I called it after a certain line early on, but again, as before, that made the scene where Billy's family shows that they have his back even more impactful, demonstrating the fundamental difference between these two characters above all else.

As for the parts that most people go to see a superhero movie for? All really good! David F. Sandberg has a background in horror movies like Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation, and we do get some of that in a few scenes, most notably in a scene where a scientist is graphically turned to ash and whenever Sivana's minions, grotesque monsters representative of the seven deadly sins, come out to play. However, just like James Wan and Gareth Edwards, Sandberg proves that he can shoot action just as well as most of Hollywood's blockbuster directors, and even better than some of them. This film is another bullet point backing up my belief that the skill set for making a good horror movie -- a focus on pacing, coherent visuals, and the build and release of tension -- translates exceptionally well to making a good action movie, even at the biggest-budgeted levels, as John Carpenter and Sam Raimi demonstrated over the course of their careers. And while the film waits to really dive into the action, when it does come Sandberg demonstrates that he certainly knows his way around such, delivering scenes that look like they could've come from the pages of a '50s comic book as Shazam both takes on Sivana and his minions and just flat-out goofs around in between. The comic timing is also impeccable, my favorite bit being a call-back to Freddy's bullies giving him a "suitcase wedgie", as well as lots of fun moments that play on what one might expect the goofier sides of a world with real superheroes to be: namely, the fact that merchandise of them would be just as prolific as it is in our world, that they'd be all over social media, and memorabilia like bullets that bounced off of Superman would go for hundreds of dollars.

The Bottom Line

It's already been overshadowed by Endgame, but I expect this movie to stick around as a hidden gem of the genre, a funny, family-friendly superhero flick that's equal parts parody and homage and pulls off both with a great human core behind it. Let's be honest, you're probably still headed to see Endgame this weekend (probably for a second time), but if they're still sold out of Endgame tickets, make this your backup option.