Film Review: SHAZAM!

Sexuality/Nudity Acceptable
Violence Acceptable
Vulgarity Acceptable
Anti-Catholic Philosophy Acceptable

I loved Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  It was an excellent piece of writing and directing that took the super hero genre and used it to ask big questions about God, power, right, and wrong.   It was a serious movie that took its characters and subject seriously.

And most people hated it.

DC has since been attempting to do a course correction to the tone set down by Man of Steel and BvS.  Suicide Squad attempted to be dark and funny, with mixed results.  Justice League tried to blend Zack Snyder's serious tone with Joss Whedon's lighter tone which did not seem to please audiences.  Aquaman embraced a much lighter and more fun vibe and has become one of DC's biggest hits.

And now we come to SHAZAM!, which is the exact opposite of BvS.  SHAZAM! is a full-out comedy.

The story centers around Billy Batson (Asher Angel).  He is a 14-year-old kid who has bounced around from foster home to foster home as he tries to find his parents.  Hardened, cynical, and crafty, Billy gets caught in one of his scams and is sent to live with foster parents Victor (Cooper Andrews) and Rosa (Marta Milans).  These two are former foster kids who no run a group home.  Billy is taken in by this new foster family that includes:

-Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer): an awkward handicapped boy around Billy's age who is obsessed with super heroes.
-Mary Bromfield (Grace Fulton): the over-achieving oldest of the fosters who is applying to colleges.
-Eugene Choi (Ian Chen): a nerdish child obsessed with video games and technology
-Pedro Pena (Jovan Armand): a rotund, silent teen who wants to become "swole"
-Darla Dudley (Faithe Herman): the youngest of the group who is as precocious as she is sweet.

Billy is reluctantly drawn into their world, but through circumstances not of his choosing, he finds himself in the magical Rock of Eternity, where he encounters the elderly Wizard (Djimon Honsou) named "SHAZAM."  For years the Wizard has been trying to find a person "pure of heart" to whom he can transfer his power.  Circumstances are forcing the Wizards hand.  One of the people he test years earlier, Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), has found his way back to the Rock of Eternity and let loose an evil power.  The Wizard has no choice but to use the flawed and self-centered Billy to be his champion.  When Billy says the Wizard's name, he transforms into the super hero of the same name: SHAZAM! (Zachary Levi).  The rest of the movie explores his new life as a caped crusader.

As I wrote earlier, the most important thing to keep in mind when going into this movie is that it is not like most super hero films, which are action films with some comedic elements.  SHAZAM! is primarily a comedy with big action set pieces.  Because of the highly subjective nature of comedy, enjoyment of the movie will probably vary a bit more than standard super hero films.  But the humor is broad and varied, with plenty of silly jokes and slapstick.  The main source of the film's humor is in the concept of a young, immature child with the powers of someone like Superman.  The comparison to the Tom Hanks movie Big are unavoidable and the filmmakers lean heavily into it, even making a funny visual reference to that movie during a scene in a toy store.

Director David F. Sandberg has taken a break from his usually horror movie work to give us a movie that fun and light-hearted.  The movie is delight to watch.  The film is set in a Philadelphia winter, which creates a bleak, colorless background.  But this makes the over-top look of our hero pop out of the screen even more.  He is magic brought into a cold world.  He knows how to stage a good action scene, but has an eye for comedic framing.  You can see the two styles blend together when SHAZAM and Freddy go to try and buy beer at a local convenient store which then is accosted by robbers.

The biggest issue with the movie is the script.  Henry Gayden's script hits all of the major story and character beats well and he does a good job of giving each of the kids in the foster home distinct voices and personality.  In addition, the movie tries to bring up larger thematic questions like "What does it mean to grow up?" and "What really makes a family?"  But every once and a while there is a shallowness to the writing where there should be greater depth.  I often got the impression that the script was originally written as a pilot for a series and that a lot of the character development was back-loaded for later.

But this quibble about the script is overcome by the performances.  Zachary Levi is perfectly cast as child in an adult body.  His sense of wide-eyed excitement, his selfish immaturity, and fear and confusion at adult responsibilities all ring true.  His work as the lead on the TV show Chuck made good preparation of this movie, since both the show and this film often require him to radically shift in tone from the comedic to the dramatic without feeling false.  Strangely Asher Angel as Billy seems more world-weary and mature than Levi.  But the two of them create enough of a character cohesion that it works.  You can see the exuberance in Levi as Billy is released from the constraints of childhood.

Mark Strong does a superb job as the villainous Sivanna, just as he did as Sinestro in Green Lantern.  He brings a gravity to his work that acts as an emotional anchor to ground our hero's comedic adventures.  Jack Dylan Grazer is also excellent as Freddy.  He has to play a tricky balance because Freddy has to be at least somewhat annoying and off-putting in order to make his position as a social pariah understandable.  But Freddy must be relateable and likeable enough to be the audience's surrogate as he walks through exploring Billy's powers and abilities.  He is the fanboy whose super hero obsession comes to life.  The rest of the cast does a very job as well, especially Faithe Herman whose man job is to be horribly adorable, which she accomplishes wonderfully.

I was especially pleased with a good deal of subtle Catholic imagery throughout the film.  For example, in the foster home, there is a statue of Jesus of the Divine Mercy in the background.  Before each meal, the family prays together.  One of the movie's main themes is "Family is what you decide it to be."  I'm a little conflicted about this from a Catholic point of view.  There is a great message here about seeing people who are not blood relatives as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus told us that whoever does the will of God is mother, brother, sister to Him.  I have not problem with expanding the view of family to include others.  But my one reservation is that this message seems to de-emphasize the importance of our natural family relations.  God gave us very specific parents (and maybe siblings) that He chose from all eternity.  This is a bond that is permanent, even if the ones to whom we are bonded are horribly flawed.  Perhaps I am reading too much into the movie's message, but it felt a little more like an "either/or" choice rather than a "both/and."

The humor also gets a little bawdy, with some references to strip clubs, but it never becomes vulgar.  It reflects the moral compass of an undisciplined child with sudden access to adult vices.  Despite his cynicism, Billy is more innocent than he lets on, so the film never gets too racy.

As a comic book fan, I thought they nailed the tone and feel of the SHAZAM! story from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.  That story has one of my favorite comic book reading moments of my life.  I wasn't sure if this film would have that moment.  But when it happened, I was filled with a child-like joy.  This feeling overwhelmed any flaws in the film-making.

SHAZAM! is not Batman v. Superman, and it is not trying to be.  In fact, SHAZAM! is not like any other super hero movie I have seen. 

And that is a very good thing.