Review: Shazam! (2019)
Directed by David F. Sandberg; screenplay by Henry Gayden based on characters from DC Comics; starring Zachary Levi, Mark Strong and Asher Angel.
3/5
Shazam! was the 2019 addition to the DC Extended Universe and is directed by David F. Sandberg, a fairly recent success story for the online film community, actually having gotten his start when his second short ‘Lights Out’ originally published online, picked up and adapted into a feature film.
Now, quite honestly, the DCEU has been a mixed bag at the very best. At worst, it’s probably a lightly problematic mess (I will be uploading my recent Justice League reaction to the site shortly.) My issues with the films of course pertain to each one individually, but there have been a few more universal lines to my disdain for how the whole thing has gradually been unfurled – the chief of these being that Zack Snyder being picked to mastermind the whole thing was probably a fairly terrible idea.
Aside from this sticking point – and my other issues mainly concerning the inflated sense of self-importance many of the franchise’s entries share (see point A for why this probably is) – a more general concern many have expressed about the franchise has always been its huge technical incompetence. It appears film after film has seen at least some controversy concerning either Warner Bros’ unwanted meddling in the creative process or the films being rushed out in various states of incompletion in order to compete with other similar franchises (it’s not hard to see which one I’m talking about here, clearly Universal’s Dark Universe Cinematic Universe.) Personally, though I think this is certainly a defining characteristic of everything DCEU at this point, it feels slightly unfair to the artists involved – much as I may dislike some of their work – to discount everything on these grounds. Besides this, and more to the point, the tendency for viewers and critics to label entries as “one of the good ones” for merely being coherent also rubs me the wrong way and I really think this stems from the massively low expectations some of the earlier entries set.
So, to circle back round to the point, I find Shazam! to be a bit of an aberration within the DCEU – in the sense that it’s not bad by any means. Firstly, yes, it’s technically competent (bleh) but more importantly, it really shifts focus away from the characteristics that define many of its peers. Far from the spiteful, grimdark world that Snyder has been trying his utmost to establish, Shazam! is light-hearted, actually funny at times and seems more born out of the tradition of those Spielbergian coming-of-age stories of the 90s (updated with a bit of that late-noughties action blockbuster sensibility thrown in) than anything else it could have potentially leaned on.
The film takes no time to set up its main villain. Sometime in the early 70s, a family of three drive through the night. Thaddeus Sivana (played initially by Ethan Pugiotto, then by Mark Strong as an adult), a nervous young boy, is being picked upon relentlessly by his chauvinistic father (John Glover) and brother (Landon Doak, then Wayne Ward) when all of a sudden he finds himself transported to lair of a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) who is searching for a champion of pure heart. Decades later, in modern-day Philadelphia, the young Billy Batson (Asher Angel) has run away from his umpteenth foster home and is hunting relentlessly for his birth mother. Eventually, Billy is fostered by two of the friendliest and most kind-hearted foster parents (Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews – I adore them here) I’ve seen depicted (maybe ever) and when he too is transported to the wizard’s lair, the powers he is subsequently given (that transforms him into Zachary Levi, of all people!) put him directly in Thaddeus’, who was passed up for not being worthy, sights. Billy must simultaneously learn to handle his new powers, which are activated with a yell of the magical words (“shazam, exclamation mark”), deal with the oncoming threat of Thaddeus – powered apparently by the seven deadly sins incarnate – and come to terms with his own turbulent relationship to all things family. No biggy then.
And it is just as shamelessly pulpy as it sounds. What I think I really like about what Sandberg’s done with this is that he fully strays into maybe all of the now slightly cringe-inducing clichés of the American high school experience, the only ever quirky difficulties of the superhero origin and coming-of-age stories, but he executes them with such a light-heartedness it becomes really hard to dislike what you’re watching. It does devolve into the punchy-blasty superhero showdown in the end, but it’s not just about raw strength masquerading as some great moral dilemma. It’s just about a kid realising what family really is and what ultimately ends up happening is really fun and builds seamlessly upon everything that’s come before.
I also think the cast plays no small part in helping things along as they’re pretty much all incredibly likeable. Billy’s closest confidant in his new foster home – which I should add consists of six other kids (all of whom are fleshed out surprisingly well over the course of the film) and the two parents – is Freddy, played by Jack Dylan Frazer (most notable for his work in the recent It and It Chapter Two) who gives every scene he’s featured in this frenetic, excitable energy. When Billy transforms in Shazam, as I’ve mentioned the young Asher Angel is replaced by Zachary Levi, and though Levi really doesn’t ever match what Angel is going for with Billy, he’s just the perfect counterpart to Freddy’s wonderfully conspiratorial charm and obsession with all things superhero. Levi plays a child imbued with unimaginable power in the most delightful way you could see that going, even when things go sideways, he’s convincing as a kid in an adult’s body.
So, yeah, I would say this is maybe one of my favourite DCEU films – as much as that doesn’t really sound like a compliment given everything I’ve said. Sure, it’s not exactly reinventing the wheel and it’s certainly not shattering any conventions – it’s really just revelling in them to be perfectly frank – but it doesn’t feel like it’s going for that and marking it on those merits feels disingenuous. This is perhaps one of the only entries to the franchise I feel like kids (actual kids, not angsty preteens) might actually enjoy and there’s something actually quite heart-warming about that.
Watched on 8th May 2021