Shazam! * * *
Not the most inspiring of teen movies, but the multiplexes don't seem interested in showing the one's I reckon are good, so what would I know?
Shazam! is an okay fun film, and if the kids get a kick out of it good on them.
The background story is of a fourteen year old lad, Billy who has been shunted around from foster home to foster home. Either they can't manage him or he keeps running away. I must say for a young person with such an upbringing he is remarkably polite.
Billy's lot improves when he is adopted into the best foster family you can imagine: all the other kids in the family are under foster care too. The foster parents are near perfect: loving, caring, non-judgmental.
But Billy still searches for his natural mother. For me, the most powerful and emotionally moving scene in this film is dealt with cursorily and left unresolved. It's when he finally meets her and she doesn't want to know him. It's like the screenplay doesn't really want to deal with that awkward stuff (reality) but feels obliged to mention it.
However, nonsense calls and something else is going on in Billy's life: We learn Billy is "chosen", when he is transported to another realm where he meets a Wizard who has just been defeated by a force of evil. (The manner in which Billy is transported is not particularly imaginative if you ask me).
The Wizard tells Billy the spirits of "the seven deadly sins" are out and about and being carried by a Doctor Thaddeus. He is the other super power in the film. One that we were introduced to earlier when he was a child. His upbringing wasn't easy either. I guess that's why he sold his soul. Now he's all grown up and he's the bad guy. Billy will be invested in super powers to go get Doctor Thaddeus and return the seven spirits back to captivity.
At first Billy is not sure what to do with his superpowers but his roommate and foster brother Freddy is a superhero freak and helps him with his training. As Billy can tun into an adult superhero by simply saying "Shazam!" he's ready to take full advantage of his ability to transform - the adult part that is, never mind the superpower; there are quite a few funny scenes in relation to that: "Hey, I can buy beer. I can get into a strip joint". There are also some funny scenes of Billy using his superpower wastefully once he gets control of it. Predictably he uses it as a fourteen year old boy might.
But Billy eventually gets his act together as a Superhero and thus commences his conflict with the wicked Doctor Thaddeus.
The seven deadly sins are portrayed as monsters that come out of Doctor Thaddeus, but there is not much emphasis on what they represent. I'd say most viewers will simply remember them as CGI monsters. The final conflict with The Doc and his monsters just seems to go on and on and on and on....It's a tough fight, Billy might lose, but suddenly his siblings are empowered to help him, so once again the fight goes on and on and on and on.....
I wonder if it might have been a little more inspiring if it acknowledged that such monsters don't just reside in Doctor Thaddeus but in all of us, and each of us have to face them without the help of a Superhero.
Anyhow, why not take the test and ask yourself which of these "sins" you did NOT commit today: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride.
How'd you go? Better than me I hope. (Especially on the Sloth bit).
Shazam! is an okay fun film, and if the kids get a kick out of it good on them.
The background story is of a fourteen year old lad, Billy who has been shunted around from foster home to foster home. Either they can't manage him or he keeps running away. I must say for a young person with such an upbringing he is remarkably polite.
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| "I got 7 sins inside me". "Is that all?!" |
But Billy still searches for his natural mother. For me, the most powerful and emotionally moving scene in this film is dealt with cursorily and left unresolved. It's when he finally meets her and she doesn't want to know him. It's like the screenplay doesn't really want to deal with that awkward stuff (reality) but feels obliged to mention it.
However, nonsense calls and something else is going on in Billy's life: We learn Billy is "chosen", when he is transported to another realm where he meets a Wizard who has just been defeated by a force of evil. (The manner in which Billy is transported is not particularly imaginative if you ask me).
The Wizard tells Billy the spirits of "the seven deadly sins" are out and about and being carried by a Doctor Thaddeus. He is the other super power in the film. One that we were introduced to earlier when he was a child. His upbringing wasn't easy either. I guess that's why he sold his soul. Now he's all grown up and he's the bad guy. Billy will be invested in super powers to go get Doctor Thaddeus and return the seven spirits back to captivity.
At first Billy is not sure what to do with his superpowers but his roommate and foster brother Freddy is a superhero freak and helps him with his training. As Billy can tun into an adult superhero by simply saying "Shazam!" he's ready to take full advantage of his ability to transform - the adult part that is, never mind the superpower; there are quite a few funny scenes in relation to that: "Hey, I can buy beer. I can get into a strip joint". There are also some funny scenes of Billy using his superpower wastefully once he gets control of it. Predictably he uses it as a fourteen year old boy might.
But Billy eventually gets his act together as a Superhero and thus commences his conflict with the wicked Doctor Thaddeus.
The seven deadly sins are portrayed as monsters that come out of Doctor Thaddeus, but there is not much emphasis on what they represent. I'd say most viewers will simply remember them as CGI monsters. The final conflict with The Doc and his monsters just seems to go on and on and on and on....It's a tough fight, Billy might lose, but suddenly his siblings are empowered to help him, so once again the fight goes on and on and on and on.....
I wonder if it might have been a little more inspiring if it acknowledged that such monsters don't just reside in Doctor Thaddeus but in all of us, and each of us have to face them without the help of a Superhero.
Anyhow, why not take the test and ask yourself which of these "sins" you did NOT commit today: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride.
How'd you go? Better than me I hope. (Especially on the Sloth bit).
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