Shazam!

[Replay]

If you love superhero movies at all, this is well worth your time and money.



It's funny, touching, and tragic by turns, immensely entertaining, and easily the best comics movie I've seen in a decade, beating out everything since The Dark Knight - including the Avengers movies.

Zach Levi is capable as the titular hero, exuding a what-if-Deadpool-was-really-a-fourteen-year-old-boy vibe - but the real scene-stealer is Mark Strong as the reimagined Doctor Sivana. He exudes such gripping menace and evil that I have to put him up there with Heath Ledger/Aaron Eckhart as Joker/Two-Face in The Dark Knight and Terence Stamp's legendary performance as General Zod in the original Superman II as one of the finest screen supervillains of all time.

It's currently at 91% critical and 89% audience on Rotten Tomatoes. It's really, really great. Go see it!

[Julius Seeker]

At the risk of sounding like I am speaking from atop a very tall horse: I was wondering about that one, the trailer caught my eye. I don’t know if I have said it yet, but super hero films - even the so-called good ones like Guardians of the Galaxy and Dr. Strange - mostly seem kind of samey to me. Once in a while an interesting one pops out that I like (Logan, Deadpool, First Class, some of the Batmans), and I find it exciting too see something like that. It’s kind of like when in the 2000-2010 era when a horror film came out that I liked.

[Replay]

This one is super different - I recommend! It's the antithesis of the Zack Synder grimdark that got the early DCEU movies panned, and it's getting rave reviews for it.

I have not seen any of the Deadpool films yet in their entirety, but the clips I have seen from those movies make me think that Shazam! is really very nearly DC's Deadpool. The thing they got absolutely right about this movie is nailing the way that Shazam, the superhero, is really kind of based on what a magical fourteen-year-old thinks his adult life as an awesomely powerful adult superhero ought to be. As a result the jokes never stop coming, and they are actually funny, like Deadpool funny - mild spoiler incoming:

Spoiler: show

The first thing he does after gaining an adult body is to "stop" a mugging that a young woman in the park had already stopped herself, offering to further beat up a robber already writhing on the ground from being pepper-sprayed - at which point she thinks he's such a weirdo that she literally pays him to go away. So he goes to buy a bunch of beer with Freddy Freeman, and ends up stopping a convenience store robbery instead - after which they buy the beer, which of course they think "tastes like vomit", so they end up binging on soda instead. After that, he and Freddy head right to a strip club, where he performs incredibly inappropriate "reconnaissance" as Freddy waits outside, setting up an even more hilarious joke later on in the film that I'd be just cruel to spoil here.

The "Big Red Cheese" identity from the comics is there and it's brilliant - Levi as Batson is pure comedy throughout at least half the film. The movie never takes itself seriously, and yet the few parts that are genuinely dramatic are brilliantly tear-jerking.

It is super freaking amazing and I think you might like it if you like Deadpool!

[Replay]

I actually think this is the better trailer:

[Replay]

Also as a side note, it's making me learn more about the character's comics backstory, which really does have some cool writing to it.

For instance - this panel depicts the Rock of Eternity where the statues of the Seven Deadly Sins/Enemies Of Man sit, the ones Shazam is supposed to watch over and guard humanity from, at one point having taken the forms of seven of the members of the Justice League, including Shazam himself:



Brilliantly, each of the sins corresponds very closely with a character whose overall production history incorporates elements of that sin:

• Pride - Mr. Terrific is obsessively driven to use his genius-level intelligence to become the "best at everything" and to outcompete every other human on Earth.
• Envy - Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern perpetually lives in the shadow of Hal Jordan, his predecessor, known as the greatest of the Green Lantern corps.
• Greed - Plastic Man was an avaricious thief nicknamed "Eel" before becoming a superhero, only repenting when left for dead by his gang after a botched heist.
• Wrath/Anger - Batman's never-ending rage and and obsessive hatred of crime caused by his grief over his dead parents may ultimately make him more dark and terrifying than any of the criminals he fights.
• Sloth - Doctor Fate's preference for mysticism and arcane learning are implied as a cosmic cop-out, a weakness for a man who deep down might not truly be a man of action after all.
• Lust - Power Girl's hyper-confident sexuality and tendency to put her body on display are implied to be a cover for some very deep-rooted insecurities. (This one is all kinds of problematic, since the character's infamously large cleavage and cheesecake tendencies were originally the result of a disgruntled male artist - but at the same time it's consistent with how writers have tried to add some depth to the character over the years.)
• Gluttony - Shazam's a cornball teenager of bottomless appetites trapped in an oversized adult superhero fantasy, often with excesses to match.

Pretty good writing to incorporate insights on a few decades of design for seven major DC characters into a single panel.

[Shellie]

Yeah? I'm in desperate need of a new show to watch.

[Replay]

It's a movie, though. Releases on video next month.

[Julius Seeker]

Apparently, there’s some kind of meme going around that this is a remake of a 1990s film starring Sinbad.