As It Turns Out, ‘Shazam!’ Is A Heck Of A Good Time At The Movies
Summary
is that the movie kind of realizes it’s about a dopey character, so they lean heavily into the dopiness. Throughout the course of the movie, it’s a running punchline that the title character doesn’t even have a superhero name. For those who don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, Shazam* is actually Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a surly teen who is given superpowers by an old wizard named Shazam (Djimon Hounsou, who is somehow in both movies released in the last month based on a character named Captain Marvel) that allow him to summon a lightning bolt that turns him into (Captain Marvel) Shazam, a grown man pushing 40 (Zachary Levi) with superpowers. At his latest home, around the same time he meets the wizard, is where he meets his new “brothers and sisters,” which includes the aforementioned Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), and also Mary Bromfield (Grace Fulton), who at some point become Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel. So, yes, with Shazam!, we get a movie like Vice Versa or Like Father, Like Son, only Billy gets to completely control when he’s a kid and when he’s adult.