Pros:
Unusual protagonist; self-irony; performance by child actors
Minuses:
The movie is perceived as a B teen family comedy; the level of jokes is low; magic as a source of superpowers; general predictability and straightforwardness of the plot
Shazam! movie meaning
Comic book movie genre
Directed by David F. Sandberg
Starring Zachary Levi (Shazam), Escher Angel (Billy Batson), Mark Strong (Dr. Sivana), Jack Dylan Grazer (Freddie Freeman), Djimon Hounsou (The Wizard of Shazam), Grace Fulton (Mary Bromfield), Yen Chen (Eugene Choi), Jovan Arman (Pedro Peña), Faith Herman (Darla Dudley), Cooper Andrews (Victor Vasquez), Martha Milans (Rosa Vasquez), and others.
New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Studios.
Year of release 2019
IMDb Sites
Shazam was born in 1939 when, on the heels of the success of Batman (1938) and Superman (1939) from National Allied Publications (the company would become DC Comics in 1977), Fawcett Publications created its own comic book division, Fawcett Comics, and introduced its own superhero, Captain Thunder, who combines the powers of six mythical heroes. Basically, Captain Thunder was a copy of Superman, from his appearance to his abilities, except that the source of his powers was different. Shortly before publication, Fawcett Comics learned that Captain Thunder was already a registered trademark and changed the name of the hero to Captain Marvelous, and then to Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel actually appeared under this name in the pages of Whiz Comics #2 for January 1940 (publication date December 1939).
Captain Marvel is the alter ego of twelve-year-old orphan Billy Batson, who, by uttering the name of the wizard Shazam, transforms into an adult superhero with the powers of six mythical heroes and gods. In fact, the word Shazam is an acronym consisting of the first letters of the names of these very six heroes. S – Solomon (King Solomon, wisdom), H- Hercules (Hercules, strength), A – Atlas (Atlas, endurance), Z – Zeus (Zeus, lightning control), A – Achilles (Achilles, courage and invulnerability) and M – Mercury (Mercury, speed). Unlike most other superheroes, Captain Marvel’s powers are purely magical in nature, having been bestowed upon the twelve-year-old by an ancient wizard.
During the Golden Age of comic books (late 1930s to early 1950s), Captain Marvel was the most popular character in drawn stories. Comics featuring him sold better than comics featuring Batman and Superman. Not only that, Captain Marvel was the first comic book character to appear on the big screen: Adventures of Captain Marvel was filmed as a 12-episode black-and-white movie series. The series was shown one episode a day before the main movie show (instead of today’s trailers) in March 1941, just two years after the character was created. Adventures of Captain Marvel was re-released in 1953 and again in 1966 as a complete, nearly four-hour movie.
Back in 1941, National Allied Publications (the future DC Comics) sued Fawcett Publications over the apparent resemblance between Captain Marvel and Superman. The litigation lasted 7 years and only went to trial in 1948. Due to the negligence of National Allied Publications in patenting, Fawcett Publications won in 1951, but the plaintiff appealed the decision in 1952. By that time the Golden Age of comics was over, the circulation of drawn stories had fallen several times and the popularity of Captain Marvel had waned. As a result, Fawcett Publications gave up further attempts to defend itself, agreed to stop publishing Captain Marvel comics and to pay National $400,000 in compensation. Fawcett Publications closed its comic book division in 1953, with the last, 150th issue of Captain Marvel Adventures published in November 1953.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, during the so-called Silver Age of comics, National Allied Publications, which had already changed its name twice, first to National Comics Publications in 1946 and then to National Periodical Publications in 1961, was looking for new characters for its publications and decided to license from Fawcett the character that had once been the source of a dispute between the companies. Since Marvel Comics already had its own character with the same name, created in 1966 by Stan Lee (Marvel’s Captain Marvel was still a man at the time), National Periodical decided to rename Fawcett’s Captain Marvel as Shazam! Interestingly, the first issues of Shazam comics were published with the subtitle The Original Captain Marvel, which had to be changed to The World’s Mightiest Mortal after Marvel’s claims. Since then, nothing has connected Shazam to his real name, and several generations of comic book fans know him specifically as Shazam!
I hope it’s clear to you now that DC/Warner Bros. didn’t choose a random character for the new movie, but one of the oldest heroes, who was also the first superhero to get an official movie adaptation. Now let’s get to the 2019 movie after all.
Shazam! – is a teen comedy that masquerades as a superhero movie. All of the first in another reboot of the Spider-Man movies have been made along the same lines. The same Spider-Man: Homecoming, for all its desire to break the old scheme, remains a movie about a lonely teenager who doesn’t know what to do with the superpower that fell on his head and therefore does one stupid thing after another. Young Billy Batson finds himself in a similar situation.
Like many superheroes, he is an orphan. His mother abandoned little Billy at the fair, which is clear to everyone but Billy himself, who continues to believe that his mother is waiting somewhere and is still looking for him (why the police have not found this woman by name is a big mystery). Billy runs away from shelters and temporary parents and tries not to make friends until he falls in with the Vasquez family, which already has five foster children living with them. Quite by accident, Billy Batson gains powers he wasn’t looking for and intervenes in the eternal confrontation between good and evil.
What would a modern teenager do if he got superpowers? That’s right, he’d make a YouTube vid or an Instagram broadcast and start monetizing his audience. In fact, Billy and his new friend/brother Freddy don’t have the brains for much else. Teenagers goof around, take revenge on angry fellow majors, try to buy beer since Shazam looks like a grown man, foil a store robbery, charge passersby’s phones with pocket zippers, etc. Take any teen movie, add superpowers to it, and you get Shazam!
The problem is that Shazam! doesn’t look like a modern blockbuster. The level of script, jokes, filming, and special effects here is on par with a mid-80s B-movie. The actions and even the lines of the characters are yawningly predictable, the script does not contain a single original plot move, the humor at times sinks to the mark of youtubovskie yearsplay. From the very first frame we know that the offended boy in the car will grow into an evil villain, and the rebellious Billy will eventually find a real family.
Shazam’s powers also contribute to the strange impressions of the movie. This is pure magic, which looks strange and alien in modern superhero movies. Wizards and magic staffs, robes and spells, the seven deadly sins in the flesh, thrones of ancient kings… Yes, in Doctor Strange from Marvel magic also works, but there it is at least veiled under the manipulation of space and reality.
What’s frankly good about Shazam! is that DC/Warner Bros. stopped being too serious and dark. They started joking about themselves and their own universe (the animated credits in the finale are worth it), breaking the fourth wall, trying to make movies in different genres.
Also good in Shazam! are the young actors who played the named siblings of Billy Batson. Asher Angel, who played the lead role, seemed too stiff, but Jack Dylan Grazer, who played Freddy, and little Faith Herman as Darla are just great.
After the phenomenal commercial success of the frankly weak Aquaman and Captain Marvel, which grossed over $1 billion at the box office, I have a hard time predicting how this movie will be received by audiences. Shazam! – is a weak and very predictable movie, but audiences have been picking very strange shows lately, voting for them with their mane.
But you can go to this movie with the whole family, including younger schoolchildren. No blood, death, grievous bodily harm, sex and swearing here. And although formally rated by Shazam! as PG-13 (Viewing is not desirable for children under 13), it doesn’t pull more than G (The movie is shown without restrictions).
Conclusion:
A teen family comedy disguised as a superhero movie
