Two stars. Rated PG-13, and quite generously, for scary fantasy violence, intense action and relentless mental cruelty
By Derrick Bang
There’s an old parable about three blind men encountering an elephant for the first time.
“It’s a snake,” says the first, having felt the trunk.
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| With the eager help of Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer, left), who imaginatively suggests a series of potential powers, the newly christened Shazam (Zachary Levi) discovers that — among other things — he can shoot powerful lightning bolts from his fingers. |
“No, it’s a spear,” opines the second, awed by the long, sharp tusk.
“It’s definitely a tree,” insists the third, unable to wrap his arms around one of the huge legs.
Scripters Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke — and, I’m certain, a sizable number of uncredited “sweeteners” — are the blind men, and this film is their elephant.
Shazam! feels like it was “written” by half a dozen people — one of whom is a sadist — working independent of each other. Apparently the resulting pages then were jammed together randomly, with no attempt to integrate tone, characterization or (God forbid) plot continuity.
And, hey presto! That’s how you get a movie as inept, haphazard and insufferably stupid as this one.
Newbie horror director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation) brings nothing to the party, and how could he? He has no meaningful template, from which to construct anything remotely artistic.
This Frankenstein’s monster of a flick is best described as Big (the 1988 Tom Hanks comedy) meets television’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, with the intelligence of the latter. Adults are advised to steer well clear, and I’m pretty sure even children will curl their lips with disgust.
When superhero movies go bad, they go very bad.
You’d think Warner Bros. would have learned, after 2011’s equally atrocious handling of Green Lantern, that the “Oh, wow; aren’t these powers cool?!” approach to these stories doesn’t work. At all.
Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with humor; indeed, a certain degree of smirky self-awareness is essential. But too much disrespects the nobility of these modern mythic characters, who (for the most part) deserve a measure of reverence. They’re not cartoons.
Gayden and Lemke treat this character — who dates back to 1939 (!) — as if he were a 5-minute Saturday Night Live sketch. Trouble is, this film runs a butt-numbing 132 minutes.
Sandberg opens with an unspeakably mean-spirited prologue, several decades ago, as young Thaddeus Sivana (Ethan Pugiotto) endures a savage tongue-lashing by his viciously cruel father and older brother. (See “writer as sadist,” above.) They’re driving somewhere, late at night; all of a sudden Thad is magically whisked into a massive subterranean lair — the Rock of Eternity — to face an ancient, white-bearded wizard (Djimon Hounsou) who explains that he’s seeking somebody “pure of heart, and strong in spirit,” to become his replacement “chosen one.”
This individual will be charged with protecting the mortal realm (Earth) from the soulless depravities of the Seven Deadly Sins, held captive in stone by said ancient wizard.
Alas, Thad fails the test; he’s not pure of heart. Being bounced back into the car with his father and brother proves calamitous.
Flash-forward to present-day Philadelphia, as we meet orphaned Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a 14-year-old scalawag who has bolted from numerous foster homes: always seeking the mother from whom he was separated, as a toddler, by a boisterous carnival crowd. We’re apparently expected to excuse his selfish, larcenous behavior because he’s a forlorn “troubled kid” — given that he’s clearly gonna become the “chosen one” — but that’s an uphill struggle.
Given one last chance by the system, Billy is assigned to compassionate foster parents Victor and Rosa Vasquez (Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans), who run a group home already occupied by college-bound Mary (Grace Fulton), monosyllabic teenager Pedro (Jovan Armand), genius adolescent hacker Eugene (Ian Chen), hyper-affectionate little Darla (Faithe Herman) and physically disabled Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer).
They’re a rowdy and warmly loving group … and they don’t deserve what this movie’s about to do to them.
But that comes later. Freddy attaches himself to Billy, to the latter’s stand-offish discomfort; both quickly are targeted by school bullies Burke and Brett (Evan Marsh, Carson MacCormac). Apparently they can beat other kids to a pulp — in full view of the entire school — without getting suspended or expelled. (Seriously? In 2019???)
Burke and Brett — like young Thad’s father and brother — are a level of real-world brutal that’s simply beyond the pale … and wholly inappropriate for the rest of this film.
As is the outcome of Billy’s quest to find his mother. But that comes later.
Freddy is an over-eager geek, and Grazer’s annoying performance wears thin quickly. But Freddy also is the resident pop-culture superhero expert, and therefore the one who’ll prove most useful when the inevitable occurs.
So, Billy gets the mystical call; one intoned Shazam! and a bolt of lightning later, he transforms into red-suited, white-caped, hunky and heavily muscled Zachary Levi (late of TV’s Chuck, currently of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). But here’s the rub: As with Tom Hanks in Big, it’s still 14-year-old Billy in an adult’s body. (Which, just to be clear, was not the case with the original comic book character.)
Naturally, Billy has no idea how to use his new talents, or indeed what they even are. (The aforementioned ancient wizard doesn’t hang around long enough for a tutoring session.) Cue Freddy’s enthusiastic assist, as they investigate everything from super-speed to bullet-bouncing invulnerability.
In fairness, this would have been a clever hook on which to hang a better story, and the limber Levi is well-suited to the golly-gee-whiz exhilaration of a young teen suddenly granted the amazing powers of “immortal elders” Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury. But Gayden and Lemke play that “giddy selfish jerk” card for much too long, and with cringingly deplorable consequences.
The nadir occurs when Billy-as-Shazam accidentally causes a bus to crash off a bridge, where it dangles over the edge, then sways to full vertical; our “hero” stands paralyzed below, as bus riders fall the full length of the bus, Titanic-style, before crashing painfully against the interior windshield … impacts that would leave them crippled for life, if not dead outright.
And we’re supposed to admire this guy?
Excuse his immobility, because he’s not yet familiar with his powers?
No sale.
Little Thad, meanwhile, has grown up to become Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong, always great at being evil). He has found his way back to the Rock of Eternity, and “linked” with the monstrous incarnations of the Seven Deadly Sins. But he/they can’t take over the world, until the “chosen one” is defeated.
Blah-de-blah-de-blah.
The resulting battles may involve impressively gruesome CGI monsters, but the skirmishes have all the romp and stomp ’em silliness of the rubber-suited beasties that wrestle each other in old Godzilla films. I also question the moment when one of said monsters bites an innocent person’s head off, while we watch; that seems a needlessly repugnant act in a mostly frivolous adventure, and a stretch of this film’s PG-13 rating.
Needless to say, by this point — indeed, much sooner — it has become obvious that nobody involved in the making of this film demonstrated the “wisdom of Solomon.”
This is a sad, overlong, unbearably dim-witted mess. I dunno where the folks making (most of) the Marvel superhero films get their vastly superior mojo, but (most of) the creators behind these DC universe competitors sure as hell missed out.
Shazam! leaves us with the potential promise of a sequel.
God forbid.
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