Movie Review - Shazam!

Shazam! ***(out of 5)(PG-13) Throughout the swarm of comic-book superheroes leaping onto movie screens, I’ve long preferred the relative comedy element in the Marvel products to the darkness and gloom of the DC Universe. I’ll take wisecracking dudes like Iron Man and Deadpool over the sourpuss grumblings of Batman, and others in that legion who take themselves waaayy too seriously. Thankfully, DC has been trending lighter in its last couple of releases. But they really move the needle with this family-friendly origin story of a middle-schooler who is given great powers without any preparation or understanding.

I have no idea how faithful this script is to whatever has existed in print lore, but it works well for us newbies. Billy Batson is tired of bouncing around the foster care system. He’s obsessively devoted his life to finding the mother who lost him at an amusement park years earlier. Now at 14, he’s leery of his newest “family”,even though the parents and handful of “siblings” seem almost absurdly warm and welcoming. A wizard (Djimon Hounsou) lays the powers on young Billy in an otherworldly emergency. Unfortunately (for Billy; though essentially, for having a plot), there’s a villain (Mark Strong), with comparable skills, a better understanding of how to use them, and a monstrously large set of grudges for motivation.

Similarly to The Greatest American Hero sitcom from the 1980s, or the first Spiderman movie, there are lots of laughs in how our hero (Asher Angel as regular Billy; Zachary Levi in his empowered, red-suited form) crashes against the learning curve, and tries on a bevy of potential hero names. Two kinds of clumsiness for your entertainment dollar. The story is rather uneven, and somewhat longer than needed, but it’s a worthy entry into the crowded field, marking a more kid-friendly branch of the DC collection of characters. That means related products and sequels are nigh upon us, and that ain’t so bad in this case. (4/5/19)