Shazam!

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

Shazam! is DC Comics’ latest and, dare I say, greatest -motion picture release and marks what could be their liberation from chronically furrowed brows and inevitable hypertension diagnoses. Shazam! doesn’t fit into the Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent archetypes and he’s not supposed to. Shazam! does not take itself seriously and through allowing itself to be warm and funny, it delivers its message more powerfully than other DC films.

The film follows foster-system lifer Billy Baston (Asher Angel) as he searches for his birth-mother and upsets a series of foster families. Billy’s obsession with rekindling a relationship with his birth-mother eventually lands him in the home of Rosa (Marta Milans) and Victor Vasquez (Cooper Andrews), a couple who foster a gaggle of other fiercely independent children. Billy is hesitant to bond with the other children, but their charms are too impossible to resist. There’s Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), Darla (Faithe Herman), Mary (Grace Fulton), Eugene (Ian Chen) and Pedro (Jovan Armand). Together they form an eclectic, lovable gang of kids who eventually elicit the love and protection of Billy. While the power of family is a strong theme of the film, there’s a different kind of power that Billy stumbles upon while enjoying a ride on public transportation. Billy soon finds himself in a liminal space and is greeted by a mysterious wizard (Djimon Hounsou) who endows him with unimaginable powers by uttering the titular phrase, “Shazam!”

Billy’s powers aren’t your standard superhero powers. When his powers are being used, young Billy Batson transforms into an Adonis…who just so happens to wear a billowy white cape. Shazam (Zachary Levi), as he grows to be called, looks like a man but thinks and acts like Billy Basher. Zachary Levi and Asher Angel balance their shared persona perfectly and do a tremendous job blending the Big-esque absurdity with heart and humor. Billy’s ascension into herodom is well-received by Freddy and the two begin testing the extent of Billy’s abilities.

Through their trials and tribulations, which are shared and posted on YouTube for public consumption, Billy/Shazam and Freddy discover strength, stamina and an arch nemesis in Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong). Dr. Sivana, as it is revealed early-on, was a wizard reject – a candidate too morally weak to handle the power of Shazam. Instead of adopting the elder wizard’s powers the way Billy did, Dr. Sivana was seduced by the darkness created by the Seven Deadly Sins, more specifically envy. Dr. Sivana, driven by his jealousy over losing the opportunity to absorb Shazam’s powers, embarks on a journey to take down Billy who, at the surface, appears to be nothing more than a lost boy with a very tall alter ego.

The plot of Shazam! is just as whacky as it sounds and that’s part of its charm. Every character in the film, from a broken Billy to a disabled Freddy to a precocious and warm Darla, is used to show the audience that the pure of heart don’t always have the purest of experiences or circumstances – but it doesn’t make them any less heroic.

The bottom line is Shazam! works. And while Zachary Levi may be the biggest name, the entire cast does a superb job of telling a story about how anyone, big or small and young or old can become a hero.