Shazam!

And so, everyone, we've now come to the first DC movie of 2018, Shazam. I wasn't that excited for this movie to be honest, even with the trailers coming out. I was hoping this would be a fun movie, but I didn't expect it to super mind-blowing or anything. And yeah, I'm not gonna lie, even at the end, while I was holding out some hopes, I personally wasn't the biggest fan of it, to put it gently. I was entertained and I do think it's fairly all right, but I did have problems with it. And, like I always say, I'll go no spoilers first and then all the spoilers later. So, let's go over the story quickly. What's the story? It opens up with a boy named Billy Batson, played by Asher Angel, looking for ways to locate his mom who he's been separated from since he was a child. After doing another illegal attempt to do it and getting caught, he moves to another foster home after coming from constant ones before. At this new one, he even makes friends with every other kid there, especially one guy there named Freddie, played by Jack Dylan Grazer. Some day later, he helps Freddie from some bullies at school and as he's running from them, he gets on a train and appears in some fortress with a wizard who says he gonna transfer his powers to Billy and now he can transform into an adult superhero whenever he says "Shazam", played by Zachary Levi. Meanwhile, a man named Dr. Sivana, played by Mark Strong, has gained the power of creatures called the Seven Deadly Sins and is after Billy because he wants that power for himself. So, firstly, I want to go over the positives, and then I'll get into the positives. Easily, the best part of the movie is Zachary Levi as Shazam. He's perfect as this character. He's funny, likeable and any emotion he has to convey, especially since it's a child's emotions, he does it really well. Asher Angel is really great as Billy Batson and Jack Dylan Grazer was fantastic as Freddie. He's really funny and even has some emotional scenes that work really well. Mark Strong was pretty good as Dr. Sivana. He's nothing amazing in regards to comic book movie villains, but it was pretty fun in a kinda over the top way and that kinda fit here. That kinda goes for this entire movie as a whole. It sorta felt like a movie that knew it was based on a comic book movie and so it just does some stuff that makes it feel like it's making fun of the superhero genre in a way. If you go see the movie, you'll know what I mean. A lot of the other side character I thought were likeable, especially the foster family. Not just the parents, who were really great, but I thought the kids were good too. Nothing great, but nothing terrible. I also thought some scenes were pretty emotional. Nothing made me cry, but some actually kinda hit me, especially in regards to the final 40 minutes of the movie. In terms of action, yeah, it's solid, but it's not like there's anything here that stands out as amazing. Same for the effects. While some are bad, most is great. Honestly, it's kinda hard to pin down exactly what I liked here because, while I had a good time with nearly all of it, some parts here were kinda poorly done in regards to filmmaking and storytelling. I know that's kinda obvious when talking about negatives for a movie, but still. And now, I'm going into the negatives, 'cause when going into DC movies these days, it's kinda hard not to. First off, there are some horrible performances here. Most are great, especially the main actors and I'm surprised by how well a lot of the kids pulled this off, but in terms of other performances, like some adult actors, some are really bad. Something else is that this has a really terrible opening. Not only with the bad performances that I just mentioned, but also really bad dialogue and that whole scene was really cringeworthy. Like I said, some effects are pretty bad, especially during the first scene where Shazam and Sivana first fight. And, there were just some scenes I thought were a little boring. Not just that, but in regards to some scenes like that, I thought they slowed the pacing down and ended up making the film a bit too long. And a lot more of the issue are about Dr. Sivana. I don't know what it is with DC villains these days, but a lot of them are coming as super boring and too over the top. Not just that, but his entire story was not something that I was invested in because his motive was so lame. Overall though, I thought Shazam was fine. It's definetly not one of the better comic book movies in recent years and there were some things that I thought dragged the experience down a bit, but I can't say I didn't enjoy most of it. It's honestly just a fine movie to me. I'd say check it out if you're interested. And so, everyone that's my review of Shazam. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think. Okay, now we're gonna get into the spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie yet, go see it and then read the rest of this.
Spoilers:
So there's not that much to spoil about this movie, so I'll just rapid fire through all of these. First off, that scene with Dr. Sivana that I thought was lame was the fact that he was so fixated on this power that the wizard denied him and I thought it was lame that he spent that whole time wanting so bad. The fact that he was trying to get it so bad for so long was just kinda lame and at point, even a bit hilarious because of some scenes. I thought the scene where Billy found his mom was kinda sad although, I don't know what other people thought of it, but I thought it made the mom come off as a bit unlikable. She does explain what happened, but still. And then with that finale with the foster kids becoming versions of Shazam themselves, I actually did see that coming because before seeing this, I saw a video of Shazam's origin and it spoke about that. So it wasn't that big of a surprise. Still though, it was pretty cool and it did make for a really fun climax, even if I felt it went on for a bit too long. And then at the end when Shazam shows up to the school and helps Freddie, that was really nice and then we actually see Superman, which was honestly really awesome. I know we don't see his face because I don't think Henry Cavil is doing the DC movies anymore unfortunately, but it was still cool and not seeing his face I think was actually a bit better. And then with the end credit scenes, the first one with Dr. Sivana in jail with that writing on the wall that he was doing was fine. And then something comes into his jail and talks to him about business. I don't know who that was. When I looked it up, it said it was a character named Mister Mind, A.K.A, this slug character who's probably gonna get him his powers back. And then the final one with Shazam and Freddie making fun of Aquaman, yeah, that was pretty funny and I'm glad they didn't try to make a set up for this movie like BVS. Although, I am curious to know what DC movie is next. And so, everyone that's my review of Shazam. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.