Over the years, there have been several instances of two films that end up getting released in the same year while also sharing the same general premise (e.g. when two insect-themed films were released in 1998, Pixar’s A Bug’s Life and DreamWorks’ Antz). This year sees a situation that’s sort of like that… but only in the sense that we have two superhero films that are based on characters who’ve notably shared the same name, Captain Marvel. Now when that title comes to mind, most would probably think of Marvel’s badass heroine who recently had her excellent feature film debut last month courtesy of the MCU. And yet, some may be surprised to learn that Carol Danvers wasn’t the first to be called ‘Captain Marvel’. Instead, that honor goes to a character from, believe it or not, DC Comics known as Shazam. However, the adventures of a young Billy Batson technically didn’t start at DC. Instead, it was through a different publisher, Fawcett Comics. This Captain Marvel was created in 1939 by artist C.C. Beck and writer Bill Parker and officially made his comics debut in 1940 in issue 2 of Fawcett’s Whiz Comics series. Over the next few years, Captain Marvel would end up becoming the most popular superhero of the Golden Age of Comics to the point where he even managed to outsell the Man of Steel himself, Superman. However, because DC (then known as National Comics) believed that the character was a rip-off of their iconic hero, they ended up suing Fawcett for copyright infringement in 1941, with Fawcett being forced to discontinue their superhero titles in 1953 after more than a decade of litigation. DC would eventually purchase Captain Marvel’s character rights in 1972 and immediately began to incorporate the character into the DC universe.
However, by that point, Marvel had already established their own Captain Marvel in 1967, thus resulting in DC having to rename the character Shazam, which is an acronym combining the names of the six immortal beings that his powers are based on. This includes 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. But now we come to the character’s big feature film debut (that is if you don’t count the 1941 12-part serial Adventures of Captain Marvel) in the seventh official installment of the DC Extended Universe. It’s worth noting, though, that plans for a Shazam film have been in the works since the early 2000s with the likes of William Goldman, John August, and DC’s own Geoff Johns working on the script at various points in time. For the longest time, it was reported that Dwayne Johnson would star in the film as Shazam’s most iconic adversary, Black Adam. Ultimately, though, Johnson decided that it’d be better to have Black Adam debut in his own solo film that’s currently in development at the time of this review’s publication, although he’s still attached to this project as an executive producer via his production company Seven Bucks. Shazam officially headed into production in 2017 under the direction of David F. Sandberg, who’s had two big hits with Warner Bros. thanks to his work on 2016’s Lights Out and the 2017 Conjuring spin-off Annabelle: Creation. Zachary Levi, meanwhile, took on the title role of Shazam after notably playing a minor supporting role in the MCU as Warriors Three member Fandral in Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarök. What follows is a highly entertaining superhero flick that basically serves as an antithesis of the early DC Extended Universe films (save for Wonder Woman, of course).
For much of his life, orphan Billy Batson (Asher Angel) has run away from the various foster homes that he’s been sent to after being separated from his mother at a young age. After another failed attempt at trying to find his mom, he ends up being sent to a foster home run by Victor (Cooper Andrews) and Rosa (Marta Milans) Vazquez in Philadelphia. There, he becomes the roommate of Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), a paraplegic who’s also a huge fan of superheroes. And after saving Freddy from some bullies at school, Billy finds himself transported to another realm while on the run from the bullies. There, he comes across an ancient wizard named Shazam (Djimon Hounsou, in what is notably his second role in a DCEU film after playing the Fishermen King in Aquaman… not to mention the fact that he also appeared in this year’s other Captain Marvel film) who chooses him to be his new champion. Thus, whenever he utters the name ‘Shazam’, Billy is instantly transformed into an adult superhero (Zachary Levi) blessed with the wizard’s powers… the only problem, however, is that he’s totally clueless about how to be a superhero. As a result, he turns to his new foster brother Freddy, who helps him conduct various experiments to test out the powers that he now possesses. In the process, however, Billy ends up getting confronted by a dangerous adversary in the form of physicist Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), who had a run-in with the ancient wizard Shazam himself when he was a kid. After being rejected by the wizard for being easily corrupted by the demonic creatures that Shazam has been watching over, the Seven Deadly Sins, Sivana unleashes the Sins from their imprisonment so that they can wreak havoc upon the world.
It can very well be argued that Shazam is the most light-hearted installment to date of the DC Extended Universe. Instead of focusing on a dark and intense superhero-related struggle a la Batman v Superman, this film is basically the superhero equivalent of the 1988 classic Big right down to it making a direct reference to that film. However, there are also some incredibly dark moments in this film that are practically straight out of a horror film, and while this is probably not that surprising considering director David F. Sandberg’s previous films, it’s still kind of jarring, nevertheless, given the film’s generally light-hearted premise. Thankfully, though, this isn’t the case for the entire film, even when taking the main antagonist’s demonic henchmen into account, as it gets the darkest moments out of the way in the first half-hour. Once it properly gets into the main plot of Billy and Freddy testing out the former’s newfound powers as the mighty Shazam, that’s where the film really shines. The humor is on point throughout and everything’s tied together by a strong emotional hook that does an excellent job of showcasing the arc that Billy Batson goes through as the DCEU’s newest hero. After he starts out by doing things that any kid his age would do if they were given superpowers, he slowly but surely begins to learn what it truly means to be a hero while also learning the truth about why he got separated from his mom which, simply put, paves the way for the film’s most gut-wrenching emotional moment.
As noted in the intro, Shazam sees Zachary Levi transition from his minor supporting role in the MCU to a starring role in the DCEU. And because the role of Shazam is a perfect fit for his comedic sensibilities, Levi kills it in the role. Asher Angel, meanwhile, does a very nice job handling the character’s emotional arc whenever Billy’s just his normal self. And to close out this film’s excellent lead trio, Jack Dylan Grazer has wonderful camaraderie with both Angel and Levi while also contributing to plenty of the film’s best humorous moments as superhero fanboy Freddy Freeman (“You have bullet immunity!”). But the three of them are then backed by a solid supporting cast which is highlighted by Billy and Freddy’s foster siblings, consisting of college-bound Mary (Grace Fulton), tech-savvy Eugene (Ian Chen), introvert Pedro (Jovan Armand), and the adorable Darla (Faithe Herman, who’s easily the standout of the bunch). While the film obviously doesn’t focus on them as much as Billy and Freddy, they do contribute nicely to the plot and it all leads to a very satisfying payoff at the end. And finally, this film boasts one of the DCEU’s best villains to date in Mark Strong’s Dr. Sivana. While I’m aware that some people feel that Strong is perhaps a bit miscast as a character who’s meant to be a lot more diminutive in stature, he still does a fantastic job with Sivana’s backstory, which establishes him as someone who’s always been tormented by others (even his loved ones) for being a weakling. It’s also nice to see Strong finally get the chance to play a properly-developed supervillain role after his turn as Sinestro in the disastrous adaptation of Green Lantern ultimately didn’t go anywhere.
A lot has been said about the DC Extended Universe’s struggles to match the Marvel Cinematic Universe when it comes to quality outings. Whereas Marvel took its time to properly set up its characters before bringing them all together in one film, DC rushed into the situation with films that were seemingly more intent on having their characters do cool stuff rather than being given any sort of legitimate character development. Thankfully, though, it seems like DC is starting to realize that these films work a lot better the other way around. Wonder Woman kept the franchise from going under, Aquaman did the same to the point where it shocked everyone by becoming the highest-grossing DC film to date, and now the DC Extended Universe has been granted its finest installment yet, Shazam. Sure, it’s not the most visually-stunning installment of the franchise, but it more than makes up for it with a strong narrative, layered characters, great humor, and fun action sequences. In other words, one could say that Shazam is the closest that the DCEU has ever gotten to making an MCU film. And while I know that this will piss off some of the hardcore parts of the DCEU fandom who are still lamenting the downfall of Zack Snyder’s ambitious plans for the franchise, it just goes to show why the franchise has been doing a lot better without him. Both Wonder Woman and Aquaman could be described as cases of ‘course correction’ because they took characters who were underdeveloped in Snyder’s films and properly fleshed them out. And as for Shazam, it’s basically the exact opposite of a Snyder-directed DCEU film by being a character-driven film first instead of a visually driven one. Simply put, this is what DC and Warner Bros. should’ve been doing all along with the DCEU.
Rating: 5/5!
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