Foster child Billy Batson (Asher Angel) escaped from another home to search for his real mother. Heâs placed in a group home with attention-seeking Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), kind Mary (Grace Fulton), hacker Eugene (Ian Chen), quiet Pedro (Jovan Armand), and loving Darla (Faithe Herman), run by Victor & Rosa Vasquez (Cooper Andrews & Marta Milans). After protecting Freddy from bullies, Billy is chased into the subway where he is magically transported to an underground lair to be tested by a Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) to determine if he is worthy to receive the power of SHAZAM. Billy rejects the demonic Seven Deadly Sins, and so is made a superhero, one who appears as an adult. But as a fourteen-year-old with no instruction, he doesnât know what to do, and he and Freddy experiment to learn his abilities. Elsewhere in the city, Dr. Sivana, who had been found unworthy years ago, discovered how to reach the Wizard, and he took the power of the Seven Deadly Sins. He is instructed by those Sins to find and defeat this new superhero while he can.
This is a kids film. Most superhero films of recent times have been family movies aimed at everyone, while a few have been intended for an older audience. But Shazam! is purely constructed for the middle school and below set. Thatâs not just due to a young teen protagonist. Itâs a very simple film, going exactly where even kids would expect it to go. There are no complexities. No shocks. No deeper messages than âlove is goodâ and âfamily is good.â Everyone is a stereotype, the story is jammed with clichĂ©s, emotional attachments develop in a day, and nothing gets too tense for a six-year-old. I wouldnât expect a young child to be unhappy about any of that. And he shouldnât be. This is a good kids film. And itâs reasonably entertaining for an adultâas better kids films often areâas long as you ask very little from it.
Where Shazam! excels is in the relationships of the group home family, and in the humor. I liked all the kids (Darla is adorable) and Iâm a hard sell. The children seem to genuinely like each other in a way that isnât sickeningly sweet, and the parents are not played as fools or fanatics. Iâm used to this type of parentâones who are broadly acceptingâbeing made fun of in film, but they are portrayed as loving and good at what they do. Itâs very nice. Thoughtful? No, but itâs nice and occasionally nice is refreshing.
The jokes work by showing what we should have been seeing in most superhero films, but didn’t because it isnât epic. Our hero tries for clever quips, but isnât good at it (as few people are). Dramatic monologues canât be heard, as they shouldnât be over distances in large cities. And how do you know if you are fireproof? I laughed and I suspect eight-year-olds will be in stitches.
Thereâs lots of minor flaws: The structure is off a bit, the villain barely registers, the CGI is so-so, Billy is too old (12 would have worked better), and itâs too long (whatâs wrong with a 90 minute movie? They donât all have to cross 2 hours). But these are problems for a movie trying to be something more substantial. Shazam! isnât trying to be great. If it was made perfectly it still wouldnât be great. It wants to be a pleasant distraction for people whose brains are still developing (and nope, it isnât trying to help that development), and in that it succeeds.