Shazam!

David F. Sandberg’s Shazam! is the seventh film in the DC Extended Universe, based upon the fictional superhero created by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck for Fawcett Comics, later to be owned by DC Comics. Originally named Captain Marvel up until DC’s 2011 reboot, there has been a history of legal tug-of-war between DC and Marvel Comics, with DC owning the character but Marvel owning the name, which they have used for several of their own superheroes, the most recent of which being Carol Danvers, portrayed by the controversial Brie Larson in the MCU’s Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck), which came out just before the release of the DCEU’s Shazam!. Upset at, and critical of, Larson’s attitude, her performance, and the execution of her movie, many fans looked to Shazam! to give them “the real Captain Marvel” and from the looks of things many of them seem to be happy with the result. Now, it’s not my place to say someone is wrong if they enjoyed a movie, but if you’re looking for the real Captain Marvel, an accurate portrayal of the character, this isn’t it.

Let’s start with Billy Batson, portrayed by Asher Angel, and by Zachary Levi when he transforms into his alter ego. The film completely misses what Billy Batson is all about. In the comics, Shazam is more of a boy scout than Superman – having been inspired by him – despite his outlook as a foster child. In the movie, he gets in trouble with the law, has no interest in superheroes whatsoever, and when he gets his superpowers he has very little interest or drive in fighting crime or saving lives. This guy is supposed to have the Wisdom of Solomon and the Courage of Achilles, yet he’s a dumb coward who makes up fake proverbs and hesitates or runs yelping in the face of danger. It’s not like he has to earn these traits, either – they come complete with Strength of Hercules, the Stamina of Atlas, the Power of Zeus and the Speed of Mercury.

Being a good kid doesn’t mean he can’t have character flaws. As a child in a man’s body he can be immature and that can get him into tricky situations, but again in the movie this trait is blown out of proportion to the point where the portrayal of the character misses the point. The movie does have a lesson for Billy to learn about accepting a new foster family, but as a character/story arc it is terribly underplayed to the point where when the time comes for Billy to accept his new siblings, it feels out-of-nowhere and like nothing has been earned.

Speaking of nothing being earned…

So in the story, there is a wizard named Shazam who gives the hero Shazam his powers. Confusing. In the movie, Shazam (Djimon Hounsou) is looking for someone to pass his powers onto, but he will only give them to someone who can pass a test to prove they are incorruptible – he uses magic to kidnap children one by one, takes them before the statues of the demonic Seven Deadly Sins and sees if they will be tempted to take an evil artifact called the Eye of Sin; if they fail, they are banished back to Earth. The wizard has been doing this for a very long time, decades at the very least though possibly much longer, and yet with so much time and successive trials, plus having supernatural wisdom himself, he never figures out that no one is 100% good. After the villain Doctor Sivana (Mark Strong) steals the Eye of Sin and becomes the vessel for the Seven Deadly Sins, the wizard summons Billy Batson and, being out of time and unable to test him, gives him his powers, not because Billy is such an idealist like he is in the comics, but for no other reason than he was next on his list.

After the wizard passes his powers and his duties onto Billy, he dies and disappears. The movie disposes of him early on, precluding his role as Billy’s beloved mentor that he had in the comics. So you’d think that with such incredible power thrust upon him and a man dying before his eyes, Billy might feel some sort of obligation or responsibility to heed the wizard’s dying words and use these powers to fight evil, right? Nah, he uses them to become a YouTube personality and get money. Billy Batson is despicably unlikeable in this movie.

The idea of morality being learned by the individual was explored somewhat in Man of Steel (Zack Snyder, 2013), so perhaps Shazam!is trying to follow that theme. However, the wizard is not the main character. Billy is. But instead of rehashing Superman’s ethical journey from Man of Steel, the creatives of this film could have come at it from a different angle. What if Billy, an idealistic child who draws inspiration from Superman, was chosen to become Shazam for his desire to uphold good, but he was faced with dilemmas or conflicting situations where he had to possibly make choices that would compromise his morality or outlook in order to save the day. That is conflict, that is drama, that is a lesson about growing up, that is interesting, and it shouldn’t get in the way of the movie being a comedy. Hell, you could even make it play into Billy’s lesson about family if you wanted.

Speaking of missed opportunities…

Doctor Sivana is horrifically underdeveloped as a villain. As a child, his father and brother abused him, and to make matters worse the wizard summoned him only to reject him for failing his test. He spends the rest of his life looking for a way to travel back to the Rock of Eternity and, once there, he confronts the wizard, steals the Eye of Sin, becomes the vessel of the Seven Deadly Sins and leaves the wizard for dead. Later he goes to get revenge on his father and brother, and after that his goal is to steal Billy’s powers from him. Do you see the problem? Doctor Sivana’s motivations are weak and his goals are confused at best. Getting revenge on his father, brother and the wizard makes sense, especially with the wizard telling him that he wasn’t good enough to receive his powers, but if that’s Sivana’s motivation then why does he take the Eye of Sin without taking the wizard’s powers right then and there? Why does he wait ‘til after the wizard gives his powers to Billy Batson to try and take them? What did Sivana plan to do with these powers before he returned to the Rock of Eternity after decades of research to get there and acquire them? Why does he want Shazam’s powers, since the Seven Deadly Sins inside the Eye of Sin already grant him the same abilities as Shazam if not more and allow him to match if not surpass him?

Not to mention the demonic septet of the Seven Deadly Sins only amounts to a physical threat once they’re partnered with Doctor Sivana, despite the fact they’ve been shown to be able to influence people’s minds and, according to the wizard, they once threatened to destroy humanity. Wouldn’t it be way more interesting if the Seven Deadly Sins used their powers to corrupt the populace and have humanity destroy themselves, and that’s the problem that Billy had to solve? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how the Seven Deadly Sins might influence Billy’s mind, if at all, or the minds of his friends and family, and how that could play into a lesson that Billy has to learn?

The tone of the film is really inconsistent. It wants to be a lighthearted goofy comedy, but, lest we forget, this is the DC’s Murderverse. There’s a very harsh child abuse scene right at the beginning, and a little bit later there’s a graphic death where an innocent woman disintegrates, screaming.

There are some genuinely funny jokes, but the humour is so frequently awkward and in-your-face that it becomes obnoxious. There’s a scene where Shazam goes to help a woman being mugged, and she chastises him because she was able to fend the mugger off with pepper spray; Billy awkwardly tries to deflect the woman’s rancorous criticisms towards someone who was just trying to help, telling the mugger to “get woke”, and it’s cringey. Then you have the two extra-extroverted foster parents Victor and Rosa Vasquez (Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans) who seem completely oblivious to how uncomfortable a foster child might feel in a new environment despite them fostering five already; plus a later scene where Billy and Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) are having an argument at dinner over Billy’s behaviour as Shazam, trying to keep his identity a secret in a way that makes it utterly obvious, and it comes off like the kind of cheap comedy Michael Bay would have in one of his films. I seriously considered getting up and walking out of the cinema. I have never had that thought before.

On the plus side, the performances, despite what the actors are given to work with, are honestly okay. The mise-en-scène seems to be designed well enough, with colour grading varying depending on the location, though some of the night scenes are a bit under-lit, cinematically speaking. Scenes inside the Rock of Eternity are the hardest to see. There are only a couple of action scenes in the movie, but only the action scene towards the end has any sense of fun.

Many of Shazam!’s problems exist for the same reason as those of Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2017). The DCEU only exists to compete with the success of the MCU. In almost every instance, DCEU films have had poor excuses for plot, little to no understanding of the iconic characters they’re adapting, and/or a downright miserable tone. Their lack of humour is so bad that they had to turn Shazam into a doofus to trick people into thinking this was a good comedy. It’s all a matter of economic profit for them, which is why they don’t care about being faithful to the heroes we hold dear or understanding how to apply them to a good story, so long as they can get the butts in the seats. With the sorry state of the DCEU, plus all the talk of how the MCU is going to be handled after Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019), perhaps our current cinematic age of superhero movies should come to a close. Avengers: Endgame represents what should be the end of the series for the MCU anyway. It may have run its course at this point. I think it could save a lot of heartache, drama and money.