Shazam! (2019)
Directed by David F. Sandberg
A boy is given the ability to become an adult superhero in times of need with a single magic word.
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52 films that influenced Shazam!
What critics say influenced Shazam!
Adventures of Captain Marvel fue un serial encantador de 12 episodios que se proyectó en cines en 1941, 1953 y, luego, como una película de cuatro horas, en 1966.
For this filmic reboot (Captain Marvel was the first comic book superhero to be adapted for film in a 1941 Republic Pictures serial titled Adventures of Captain Marvel ), we get a take on the New 52 version relaunched with Flashpoint .
That honor goes to the serials which ran in 1941 featuring Frank Coghlan, Jr. as Billy and Tom Tyler as his alter-ego Captain Marvel in Adventures of Captain Marvel .
Therefore, this revival of a hero whose last cinema outing was Adventures Of Captain Marvel in 1941 (before lawyers took away his name) is as much an entry in the kid-in-a-grown-up-body genre ( Freaky Friday , Vice Versa , Big ) as it is yet another addition to the currently crowded roster of superheroic spectacle.
The references to Batman , Superman , and Aquaman along with allusions to Big and Monster’s Inc, all help to create a playful atmosphere.
Director David F. Sandberg’s new entry into the DC Comics universe, though, takes an approach to family and superherodom that feels remarkably old-school, more in line with the Power Rangers than Superman , although this movie puts its characters in the same universe as the dark and broody A-list caped crusaders.
You can go down the list with the tongue and cheek “Deadpool” or Tony Stark’s sarcastic “Iron Man,” or even the screwballish “Superman” and “Flash Gordon” (all of which seem to provide some type of inspiration to Graydon’s script).
Shazam! has the sense of wonder you want (but don't always get) out of a superhero movie, channelling Christopher Reeve's Superman movies through a modern-day lens.
“Shazam!” founders because of an inconsistent attitude that can’t decide whether it wants to be a comedic superhero version of “Big” or a straight action-adventure feature with a no-nonsense villain who appears not to be in the film’s jokey premise.
…arguably looks like Tom Hanks’ Big mashed up with “The Greatest American Hero,” but the real arc is about finding your tribe; family don’t end with blood (shoutout #SPNfamily).
The latest superhero movie may borrow heavily from Big, but ends up telling a sweet story about finding one’s family and themselves.
La cinta es una genial mezcla entre filmes como Big, Gremlins, Deadpool, Goonies y Superman.
…reminded me of Big, Kick-Ass, Hell Boy, Ghostbusters and, yes, a few of the best Spider-Man movies.
This gives Levi the chance to do a Tom Hanks-in-Big kind of shtick, and he’s good at it.
With this 2019 feature, one tiny corner of the DC Extended Universe has finally embraced the concept of “humor,” pushing aside the darkness that has extended all the way back to Tim Burton’s Batman and taking a page from the likes of Deadpool and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The references to Batman , Superman , and Aquaman along with allusions to Big and Monster’s Inc, all help to create a playful atmosphere.
Invariably, ‘Shazam!’ is good-natured in its looseness as it takes silly-minded shots, particularly at its own expense as well as poking fun at Shazam’s biggest DC stablemates, Batman and Superman.
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The Sins, for example, are like the red-eyed Gozer dominions from Ghostbusters, and their nightmarish takedown of a company board meeting in the film's opening stages isn't without a heady dose of horror.
…reminded me of Big, Kick-Ass, Hell Boy, Ghostbusters and, yes, a few of the best Spider-Man movies.
Thaddeus está acompañado de siete demonios (no me pidan que les explique) y todos gozan de un diseño grotesco, similar en textura a los memorables perros infernales de Ghostbusters y otras criaturas del cine gringo de los 80 (no es casualidad que John Glover, uno de los malos principales de Gremlins 2, sea el padre de Thaddeus).
…puede permitirse crear trajes ridículos; puede hacer montajes y recordar a Rocky en Filadelfia; puede mostrar al viejo mago milenario (Djimon Hounsou) de la forma más caricaturesca; puede representar a los siete pecados capitales como unos engendros de los perros de Gozer en Ghostbusters (1984); y puede mofarse de la solemnidad de los villanos sin tener que pasarse al bando metarreferencial nihilista de Deadpool .
All Billy’s gotta do is say “Shazam,” and he becomes a mega-powerful adult charged with protecting the world against the Seven Deadly Sins — here envisioned as the gargoyles from “Ghostbusters.”
It also has to be, well, “a superhero movie,” with a stock villain, some random wizard, a glowing whatzit MacGuffin, and a menagerie of CGI monsters that look like they weren’t good enough to make the cut in the original Ghostbusters .
If you substitute "radioactive spider" for "lonely wizard in purple bathrobe", then Shazam! isn't too far away from the Spider-Man origin blueprint.
Sandberg borrows plenty from ’80s blockbusters — particularly those from Steven Spielberg — and also takes some tonal cues from 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” (Like “Spider-Man,” “Shazam!” ends with a Ramones song playing over the credits, which is either a winking homage or a blatant rip-off.)
It might not be terribly original – cribbing from a wide swath of feel good movies from Spider-man to Big and everything in-between – but it’s hard work making a piece of honest entertainment within the confines of the micromanaged and megabudgeted studio system.
Yet even that movie had the flaw of not being able to really savor the superhero's origin; Peter Parker (Tom Holland) had already been given his superpowers by the time we met him (thanks to the MCU not wanting to repeat the story already told twice, in "Spider-Man" and "The Amazing Spider-Man," over the previous 15 years), and had already appeared as Spider-Man in "Captain America: Civil War."
And unlike Raimi’s first Spider-Man, Shazam! doesn’t have to deal with being set in New York right after 9/11.
However, he has plenty of fun ramping up the humor when it comes to exploring Shazam’s abilities with Freddy’s help in a manner that calls to mind Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films.
…plays a lot like Michael Ritchie's The Golden Child: another fantasy film with a charismatic lead pitched at children but packed with stuff just over the line of appropriate.
“Flash Gordon,” in 1980, presented its space-jock hero as a delicious beefcake joke (the fact that you could scarcely tell whether Sam J. Jones was an actor or a high-school gym teacher was part of it).
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The humor can hedge on the side of being a touch immature but that’s to be expected with the 13 Going on 30 conceit of a teenager suddenly embodying a grown man.
A now-adult Billy (Zachary Levi) and new friend/foster brother Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) at first delight just as much in his abilities to buy beer and visit a gentlemen's club as they do the amazing superpowers he now possesses, but their adolescent fun and games come to an end when Billy's archenemy is revealed: Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), a once-jilted candidate for Billy's otherworldly gifts who is willing to do anythingeven unleash monstrous representations of the seven deadly sins on the worldto attain them.A teenage kid suddenly made bigger has been covered in everything from 1988's wonderful "Big" (amusingly referenced here in one brief scene) to 2004's charming " 13 Going on 30 ."
It's the superhero equivalent of 13 Going On 30 where a teenager suddenly turns into a superhuman adult and enjoys his newfound superpowers and freedom—before the supervillain catches up to him, that is.
Sandberg borrows plenty from ’80s blockbusters — particularly those from Steven Spielberg — and also takes some tonal cues from 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” (Like “Spider-Man,” “Shazam!” ends with a Ramones song playing over the credits, which is either a winking homage or a blatant rip-off.)
Shazam! doesn’t necessarily do a ton that recent works like Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Guardians of the Galaxy films haven’t already.
The only recent superhero movie that is anything like it was "Spider-Man: Homecoming," which also revolved around the wonder a child would feel if given the opportunity to be a superhero.
With so much responsibility being thrown around it’s no surprise that Shazam! has a lot in common with Spider-Man: Homecoming ; both feature a song from The Ramones, the patron saints of teen superheros, fraternal figures are everywhere, and parents are a letdown.
But when you pitch it up against similar superior comic book films like Spider-Man: Homecoming , Ant-Man and the first Deadpool , it pales in comparison.
For comparison, consider Spider-Man: Homecoming .