Review of Shazam! (2019) by Euu — 05 Apr 2019

While I still think that Man of Steel and even BvS are overall better movies, Shazam is still a very strong entry in the DCEU and one of the best superhero movies in years. And that's because it's not exactly a superhero movie but more of a 80's kids movie starring a superhero. With all the cheesiness, heartfelt moments and a few dark ones as well.

The trailers really made the film seem like a dumb comedy, but even though it's mostly lighthearted fun, I was surprised to see that it has a lot of dramatic moments and even some pretty dark ones that makes me wonder how they got away with it in a kids movie. After all, not many family friendly superhero films have as villains demons that embody the seven deadly sins and bite peoples heads off. But the best quality of Shazam is how it knows when to do comedy,drama and action without breaking the tone. So there are no serious dramatic moments ruined by crappy jokes 30 seconds later. The characters are good, the acting is decent enough and the villain is one of the best we've gotten in recent years.

Unfortunatelly, there are issues that stop this film from being great, mainly the writting. First, it's the protagonist. He's a pretty fun character and well acted by both the adult and the kid, but he is pretty inconsistently portrayed. He actually seems more mature as a teenager than he is in the adult form. And then there are the rest of the kids. The movie doesn't spend a long time developing their relationship with the protagnist, Billy, so when the time comes for him to finally accept that they are his new family it seems pretty forced as he barely interacts with most of them. Also, the moment when they all turn ino Power Rangers at the end is corny as hell. The movie should have spent more on these characters and Billy instead of the overdrawn action climax at the end.

But despite all its problems, Shazam is so far the most entertaining movie of the year. DC seems to be on a roll latelly and who knows, maybe if they keep putting up good movies with no SJW crap in them they might take Marvel's place after Endgame.