Krishna
The movie really starts in a limp fashion. The whole first few scenes were so drab and boring. The story starts with a family in a car, where the young boy Thaddeus Silva, he of the impossibly well groomed hair and spectacles, is playing with an eight ball. He is tormented by his older brother and shouted at by their father, who is driving the car. All artificial stuff and about as convincing as a high school play.
He then suddenly is transported to a mythical place called Rock of Eternity. More corny scenes follow – he meets a wizard who looks even more artificial than the Mall Santa with a clearly artificial hair, beard and eyebrows stuck with the equivalent of a scotch tape and carrying a wooden wand with what looks like an LED on top of it.
OK, so I am being a bit unkind here : but to those who are used to the Industrial Light and Magic level of digital wizardry or the technical excellence of the Disney superhero movies, this feels like a poor cousin trying to imitate its rich neighbour.
It is also full of TV actors making the switch to the movies – the heroes (Billy Batson and Shazam) are played by Asher Angel and Zachary Levi of TV fame, as is the villain Dr Sivana (yes, the boy of the first scene) who is played by another mainly TV actor Mark Strong.
The movie redeems itself a little by the new trend of focusing on comedy rather than serious adventure – as exemplified by almost all the new movies (Avengers, Thor, the cartoon Spiderman) but here the comedy is a bit overemphasized (Zachary Levi seems to be a clown rather than a funny superhero – Asher Angel is a lot more credible in my eyes). Even Mark Strong starts out a bit of a cardboard character before solidifying into a delightfully evil villain.
Even the emotional scenes fall flat. Where Billy goes to meet his real mom and does meet her, the emotions of the mother and the supposedly poignant moment where he hands over the keychain compass to her saying ‘Looks like you need this more than I do’ does not convince.
And don’t even get me started on the seven ‘Sins’ and how they are represented. Can you imagine Lust or Greed looking like how they look in that movie? Or how they ravage the entire boardroom of Sivana’s father?
The ‘rich cat’ angle of destroying the entire boardroom for the sins of the President does not bear closer analysis. Why would part time directors, who had nothing to do with the father son rivalry pay the price to be ripped apart by the ghoul slaves of the son? Because he is “oh so evil”? And the good folks keep telling Dr Sivana that the demons he thinks he is controlling will end up controlling him. But I saw no such thing right till the end. Just bluster from the heroes?
Is this movie really that bad? Did the audience and critics get it wrong to love it? Not at all. The comedic scenes work well. The scene where Shazam asks the robbers to shoot at his various body parts to check out his invincibility are hilarious. So is his complete surprise at his adult body and ‘clumsy adult fingers’.
Also what gives you the chills is that the super villain is searching for him and getting closer and closer but the hero is not even aware of his powers, let alone sense the danger. That is done very well indeed.
Many parts of it are really funny but due to a ton of artificial stuff, the movie does look like a good concept ruined by needless economy and does not look like the extra effort was made to keep it flawless.
A carnival has been used throughout the movie – in the beginning when the kid gets lost and later, when the villain and the groups of Shazam and his friends take on in an epic battle.
OK to watch but I did not see the quality to justify the buzz generated.
6/10
– – Krishna