Better Late than Never on "Shazam"

I haven't written about a quarantine date night movie in awhile, and yes, even though we have loosened a very little bit on who we see and where we will go, we are still, for all intents and purposes, quarantining, and everyone else should too. Anyway, my wife and I still have our Friday night "date" night where we order from a local restaurant and rent a movie online. This week we had some dynamite tacos from a small mexican restaurant, and we watched the movie "Shazam".

The tacos were great, but that isn't the point of my blog today. I want to talk about "Shazam". I do want to say that RD has been on this movie from the moment it was released. He has talked to me about it, he has raved about it on the pod, he loves this movie. And you know what, he is right. I have very similar movie tastes to RD, and even though he might not admit it, his taste mirrors mine. We like the same type of movies. We recommend movies to one another. When we lived together we showed each other many, many movies we would have never seen on our own. We like, mostly, the same stuff. But I was on the fence with "Shazam". I am not a DC guy. I'm Marvel all the way. DC movies are too moody and bleak and dark, both in tone and color. I'm not a fan. But "Shazam" is different. "Shazam" achieved what I think the "Harley Quinn" movie was trying to do, except more blue. "Shazam" is like a Marvel movie that just happens to have the DC logo. It is fun, funny, colorful, sweet, doesn't meander, has a funny and evil villain. Everything about the movie works. Sure it can get a little too sweet and gooey at times, and there are definitely moments where I cringed because it was so cliche, but that was few and far between.

First and foremost, the kids in this movie are wonderful. They are good actors who had good scripts and had a good time making the movie, at least it seemed that way to me. I don;t know much about any of the kid actors, but Shazam is a superhero that acquires his powers as a fourteen year old. This is essentially a kids superhero movie made with adults in mind. The kids are all foster kids that live in a home with parents that were fosters themselves. Each kid has a quirk too, and that is important to the plot and finale of the movie. Billy Baston, who is Shazam, is played by Asher Angel, and he is the prototype foster kid that has been getting in trouble since he was abandoned, but he has a heart of gold. And no matter how much he looked like Arya Stark, this kid did a solid job portraying that. Jack Dylan Grazer is Freddy, the foster kid who loves superhero lore and just happens to walk with a crutch. He is goofy, funny, gets picked on, but all in all, he is a fun loving kid that knows all about superhero lore. Faithe Herman is the precocious little sister, and she is sweet, smart and the heart of this movie. Grace Fulton is the college bound, older sister but kind of a mother figure to the other kids. She was great. Ian Chen, who I adore watching on "Fresh Off the Boat", is the nerdy video game kid, but he always wants to help. And Jovan Armand is the quiet kid that only speaks when it is needed. They all do a wonderful job. They never felt too cloying. They did their job, and they did it well. Angel and Grazer are essentially the main characters, and while they may not be brothers by blood, they sure do seem like real life brothers. They were great. As for the hero of the film, when Billy becomes Shazam, Zachary Levi embodies him, and he is awesome. He is so funny. He really acts like he is fourteen. This is as close to Will Ferrell's Buddy the Elf, where an adult plays a child essentially and you buy it, that I have seen. He is great. I called him a low rent John Krasinki, but after seeing him in this role, he went up a whole other level for me. He was so perfectly cast, and he did such a great job in this role. There were many moments, especially when he first realized his powers, that made me laugh pretty hard. Mark Strong, who is an underrated, constantly working actor, was great as the villain too. He was menacing, but was also being controlled by beings greater than him. And the way he snarled and spoke and came across, he would be scary to kids, who he was after in this movie. He did great as well.

All in all, "Shazam" is a fun movie about a kid that unexpectedly becomes a superhero. There is good stuff all over this movie. There is also funny stuff all over this movie. It is light, quick, has cool fight scenes and introduced me to a superhero I knew little to nothing about. I liked it and I hope DC makes more, and uses this template to make more of their movies going forward. "Shazam" is more than worth your time. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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