My thoughts on Shazam!
This lifelong comic book fan must admit, I was never a big fan of the original Captain Marvel, or Shazam, as he has become known; until recently, I have always been a diehard Marvel Comics guy, and I long considered that other Captain Marvel to be a corny character from a long gone era, one whom DC Comics kept trying to breathe life into repeatedly ever since they bought the rights to him in the early 70’s. To me, this square stiff couldn’t hold a candle to Spider-Man and the members of the Fantastic Four; at best it was a comic book for little kids. But times do change, today, I find myself buying more DC titles than Marvel, and the Rebirth version of Shazam managed to draw my interest, and as someone who tries never to miss a live action comic book movie, there was no way I was going not see the live action SHAZAM!
And when it comes to these live action adaptations, I always feel they succeed or fail on the question of whether the film makers understood what made the comic book work, and what drew readers to it in the first place, and kept them there. If they were able to understand this core premise, and get it up there on the screen, then the movie worked; if not, then the results were often not pretty – see Ang Lee and what he did to The Hulk. Happily, the film version of Shazam, directed by David F. Sandberg succeeds mightily in this aspect, giving us an action filled, very funny super hero take on BIG, filled with a lot of heart. And like the recent AQUAMAN, it is blessedly free of the grimness and angst that plagued Warner Brothers recent attempts to bring Batman and Superman to the screen. Shazam was the original teen hero, the story of young Billy Batson, a 14 year old homeless kid, who because of a good deed, proves himself to be worthy in the eyes of an ancient wizard to receive great powers, and transform into an adult super hero. The hook of the story has always been that it is about a kid in an adult body, an adult body with super strength, super speed and the ability to fly among other things. As with the premise, the story all but writes itself.
The movie moves easily through the three act arc, starting with introductions, origins and exposition, then moving on to confrontations and a final resolution. We meet Billy, a kid on the street looking for the mother who abandoned him, once in a new foster home; he comes to the aid a disabled foster brother being picked on by bullies, this prompting the ancient wizard to choose him as a successor. Billy really is a good kid, who might do some questionable things for good reasons, while Thaddeus Sivana, the Big Bad of the story, is selfish and bitter, failing his test when he has the chance to inherit the Wizard’s power, instead being tempted by the Seven Deadly Sins, imprisoned demons who promise him much if he releases them. I give the film makers credit for introducing Sivana’s back story first, giving us the set up for the hero, while giving the villain a believable motive, something too many other super hero movies fail to do. The heart of the movie are the scenes between the transformed Billy, and his foster brother, the crippled Freddy Freeman, as they try to figure out his powers, and exploit them for personal gain as only two 14 year old boys can. There is plenty of comedy as Billy tries to buy beer and get into a Gentleman’s Club using his adult alter ego. This goes to the appeal of the story, and for that matter, the comic book character – the empowerment of teenagers, a time in your life when you are expected to act like an adult, but have absolutely none of the freedom, or power, that comes with it. And they get the right mixture of comedy with darkness; the Seven Deadly Sins are represented as nasty monsters in league with Sivana, a cruel man with no redeeming features, perfectly okay with hurting children.
The other key feature they get right is the casting. Zachary Levi is physically spot on as the transformed Billy – the guy can pull off heroic and comic with ease – but Asher Angel makes it all work as the teenage Billy. Together, these two actors play one character in two different bodies and do it seamlessly. And in Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy Freeman, they have a great partner to play off in some of the movie’s best scenes, which unlike some other super hero films, depend on a lot on dialogue. As with the Bond movies, if they get the villain right, half the battle is done and nobody could have played Sivana better than Mark Strong, there really is something about casting a Brit in these kinds of parts. All praise to the young actors they hired to play Billy and Freddy’s extended foster family, and not making them snarky and annoying as so many films do with young characters today. There is a deep supporting cast filled with familiar faces: Djimon Hounsou, Adam Brody, Cooper Andrews, D.J. Cotrona, John Glover, and Ross Butler. Hounsou is becoming something of a go to guy for comic book movies after appearing in this, along with AQUAMAN, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and CAPTAIN MARVEL (the other company’s hero). Brody, Butler, and Cotrona are great choices to play the super powered versions of Billy’s foster siblings, especially Brody as the alter ego of Grazer’s Freddy. The biggest laugh out loud moment in the movie comes when Shazam asks his brothers and sisters to grasp the magical staff that confers power and say his name.
At more than two hours, the film is a tad long, but the fast pacing helps, it also helps that the screenplay manages to avoid the exposition traps that sometimes sink any fantasy project – Billy grabs the Wizard’s staff, says “Shazam” and becomes a super hero – just like that, and while this may seem on the thin side when it comes to super hero origin stories, its simplicity is its strength. The CGI looks like CGI, for good or for bad, but I don’t find it a problem when the movie is not totally dependent on CGI to sell it. Then again, you got to love a movie that plays The Ramones’ “I Don’t Want to Grow Up” over the end credits.
Many have commented that SHAZAM bears way more than passing resemblance to Penny Marshall’s BIG, and there is a great shout out to the latter movie in the film, but Shazam is one of the original archtypes of comics: the teen super hero, predating both Superboy and Spider-Man, and his influence has been significant, as the small teen transformed into a muscle bound hero trope clearly influenced Hanna-Barbera’s Saturday morning creations, YOUNG SAMSON and SINBAD JR. And they in turn were direct forbearers of HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. So it is nice to see the OG finally get his place in the sun in the 21st Century.
Of course, this being a super hero movie, there are credit sequences, and SHAZAM is no exception, as we are introduced to another one of his classic villains, setting up a sequel that hopefully lead to a show down with Black Adam, who might be played by Duane Johnson. Then there is a certain other heavy hitter from the DC movie universe who makes a brief appearance of a sort.
So with AQUAMAN and now SHAZAM, DC and Warner Brothers is clearly on a winning streak, maybe there is hope the cinematic versions of Batman and Superman yet.
I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords
Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS
And when it comes to these live action adaptations, I always feel they succeed or fail on the question of whether the film makers understood what made the comic book work, and what drew readers to it in the first place, and kept them there. If they were able to understand this core premise, and get it up there on the screen, then the movie worked; if not, then the results were often not pretty – see Ang Lee and what he did to The Hulk. Happily, the film version of Shazam, directed by David F. Sandberg succeeds mightily in this aspect, giving us an action filled, very funny super hero take on BIG, filled with a lot of heart. And like the recent AQUAMAN, it is blessedly free of the grimness and angst that plagued Warner Brothers recent attempts to bring Batman and Superman to the screen. Shazam was the original teen hero, the story of young Billy Batson, a 14 year old homeless kid, who because of a good deed, proves himself to be worthy in the eyes of an ancient wizard to receive great powers, and transform into an adult super hero. The hook of the story has always been that it is about a kid in an adult body, an adult body with super strength, super speed and the ability to fly among other things. As with the premise, the story all but writes itself.
The movie moves easily through the three act arc, starting with introductions, origins and exposition, then moving on to confrontations and a final resolution. We meet Billy, a kid on the street looking for the mother who abandoned him, once in a new foster home; he comes to the aid a disabled foster brother being picked on by bullies, this prompting the ancient wizard to choose him as a successor. Billy really is a good kid, who might do some questionable things for good reasons, while Thaddeus Sivana, the Big Bad of the story, is selfish and bitter, failing his test when he has the chance to inherit the Wizard’s power, instead being tempted by the Seven Deadly Sins, imprisoned demons who promise him much if he releases them. I give the film makers credit for introducing Sivana’s back story first, giving us the set up for the hero, while giving the villain a believable motive, something too many other super hero movies fail to do. The heart of the movie are the scenes between the transformed Billy, and his foster brother, the crippled Freddy Freeman, as they try to figure out his powers, and exploit them for personal gain as only two 14 year old boys can. There is plenty of comedy as Billy tries to buy beer and get into a Gentleman’s Club using his adult alter ego. This goes to the appeal of the story, and for that matter, the comic book character – the empowerment of teenagers, a time in your life when you are expected to act like an adult, but have absolutely none of the freedom, or power, that comes with it. And they get the right mixture of comedy with darkness; the Seven Deadly Sins are represented as nasty monsters in league with Sivana, a cruel man with no redeeming features, perfectly okay with hurting children.
The other key feature they get right is the casting. Zachary Levi is physically spot on as the transformed Billy – the guy can pull off heroic and comic with ease – but Asher Angel makes it all work as the teenage Billy. Together, these two actors play one character in two different bodies and do it seamlessly. And in Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy Freeman, they have a great partner to play off in some of the movie’s best scenes, which unlike some other super hero films, depend on a lot on dialogue. As with the Bond movies, if they get the villain right, half the battle is done and nobody could have played Sivana better than Mark Strong, there really is something about casting a Brit in these kinds of parts. All praise to the young actors they hired to play Billy and Freddy’s extended foster family, and not making them snarky and annoying as so many films do with young characters today. There is a deep supporting cast filled with familiar faces: Djimon Hounsou, Adam Brody, Cooper Andrews, D.J. Cotrona, John Glover, and Ross Butler. Hounsou is becoming something of a go to guy for comic book movies after appearing in this, along with AQUAMAN, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and CAPTAIN MARVEL (the other company’s hero). Brody, Butler, and Cotrona are great choices to play the super powered versions of Billy’s foster siblings, especially Brody as the alter ego of Grazer’s Freddy. The biggest laugh out loud moment in the movie comes when Shazam asks his brothers and sisters to grasp the magical staff that confers power and say his name.
At more than two hours, the film is a tad long, but the fast pacing helps, it also helps that the screenplay manages to avoid the exposition traps that sometimes sink any fantasy project – Billy grabs the Wizard’s staff, says “Shazam” and becomes a super hero – just like that, and while this may seem on the thin side when it comes to super hero origin stories, its simplicity is its strength. The CGI looks like CGI, for good or for bad, but I don’t find it a problem when the movie is not totally dependent on CGI to sell it. Then again, you got to love a movie that plays The Ramones’ “I Don’t Want to Grow Up” over the end credits.
Many have commented that SHAZAM bears way more than passing resemblance to Penny Marshall’s BIG, and there is a great shout out to the latter movie in the film, but Shazam is one of the original archtypes of comics: the teen super hero, predating both Superboy and Spider-Man, and his influence has been significant, as the small teen transformed into a muscle bound hero trope clearly influenced Hanna-Barbera’s Saturday morning creations, YOUNG SAMSON and SINBAD JR. And they in turn were direct forbearers of HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. So it is nice to see the OG finally get his place in the sun in the 21st Century.
Of course, this being a super hero movie, there are credit sequences, and SHAZAM is no exception, as we are introduced to another one of his classic villains, setting up a sequel that hopefully lead to a show down with Black Adam, who might be played by Duane Johnson. Then there is a certain other heavy hitter from the DC movie universe who makes a brief appearance of a sort.
So with AQUAMAN and now SHAZAM, DC and Warner Brothers is clearly on a winning streak, maybe there is hope the cinematic versions of Batman and Superman yet.
I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords
Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS
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