For the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), it seems that it has the opposite focus on movies compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). While Disney has been busy crafting the MCU into a vast universe of superheroes and plotlines to create the biggest, most speculator pivoting movies, the DCEU has found its success not with rapid expansion and convoluted movies, but by focusing on a singular story for each movie. This has worked for the DCEU in Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and recently Shazam where the character building, plot, and overall effort was more appealing and successful compared to movies where they stuffed in as much as possible such as Justice League, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Shazam is a comedic adventure which navigates the life of Billy Batson who is trying to find his biological mother but who is then called by the wizard Shazam to fight against Dr. Thaddeus Sivana who is the vessel of the Seven Deadly Sins. With the support of his crippled superhero enthusiast and new brother Freddy, Batson has to learn how to use and control his powers responsibly while perhaps getting into some mischief.

Shazam is the most comedic movie the DCEU has released to date. The comedy in the movie is derived from the antics which the adult Shazam can do in comparison to the restricted foster child Batson is. In one scene they go to a convenience store and buy some alcohol (the cashier for some reason doesn’t check for ID) when the store is being robbed. Shazam is scared because he doesn’t know how powerful he is and closes his eyes only to be immune to bullets. Excited, Freddy tells the robbers to shoot at him again and again until they run out of bullets, and eventually Billy throws them out of the window. Another scene is when Shazam and Dr. Sivana are fighting, and Sivana goes on this whole evil monologue on how the wizard Shazam rejected him and how he was treated poorly by his family along with all of his evil visions. While he does this Shazam cannot hear him at all as they are separated by a block and the accurate portrayal of how sound travels hundreds of feet in the air in a crowded suburban city. So while the monologue continues, Sivana is shown to be oblivious to his own voice and the whole time Shazam makes fun of him. Comedic moments like these really make the movie feel fresh and new compared to the nitty gritty portrayal of the rest of the DCEU.

The movie’s weakest point is its villain. Sivana does not seem like the correct character to contrast to the playfully immature Shazam. His background in the movie is so grim and vague that  I had to ask myself what his motive was. His origin story is that he was rejected by the wizard Shazam who sent him back into his time after teleporting him to his lair as a young boy. Sivana wants to go back to the lair because he supposedly wants the power but the movie is not clear about that.  But he screams and struggles to go back which causes his father driving the car to be distracted and in a car accident he loses both of his legs. It’s heavily implied that since then his father and brother basically treat him like dirt while Sivana begins to have an obsession with his childhood incident and spends his life and fortune to research how to get back inside the cave where the wizard Shazam was. Sivana’s motive is unclear as it is implied that he is obsessed with the cave and the power of being stronger, yet he is also jealous of why Batson was picked for his “purity”. Nevertheless, the villain is way too unfocused to provide a good foil to the lighthearted Shazam. From what I understand he is supposed to be the cruel, heartless adult who is stuck in the past compared to the fun-loving, innocent Shazam who grows throughout the movie, but the portrayal of the villain’s powers, motive, and his personality is not very descriptive other than typical evil boss. Other than cruel, obsessive, and evil, there are no other character traits that has created a weak and unfocused villain to an upbeat, coming-of-age movie.

Shazam is on the better side of DC movies despite its PG-13 rating, most of the humor will relate to a pre-teen. At the ending scene of this movie a glimpse of Superman is shown which could mean that the DCEU isn’t just adding more characters to their universe, but it seems that the DCEU want to find how to make the next movie with multiple main characters more successful than their last. I look forward to the next film as it seems that with the introduction of the superhero Shazam, the DCEU is only going to get more exciting.

Graphic courtesy of COMINGSOON.NET