Loved this new superhero movie from the DC universe!
As always, I was unfamiliar with the comic book when I went into the movie. Basically, Shazam! is a 14-year-old kid who gets imbued with superpowers that make him into “the best version of himself” which is, apparently, in his late twenties. So it’s kinda like if Tom Hanks in Big got superpowers.
I did feel like the beginning was just a bit slow as they set up their characters, beginning in the distant past with the villain’s origin story. I didn’t catch that that’s what was happening, and I think it might have helped it I had.
Then we meet Billy, a kid in foster care looking for the mother he lost many years ago. He rings a doorbell, thinking he might have found her and…no luck. He’s picked up by the cops and placed into yet another foster home.
One of the things I loved most about this movie was that it did NOT villainize foster parents. This is tragically rare, given how many good people there are trying to make a difference in kids’ lives. Of course, there are some bad ones, but anyway. Breath of fresh air. Billy gets put in a home with five other foster kids, and the foster parents were themselves foster kids once upon a time and just really have their hearts in the right place.
Ultimately, Billy’s journey involved accepting this new family instead of fighting against it. This was well done, and my favorite part of the movie.
Although…the HUMOR can’t be downplayed. I laughed out loud so many times I cried. His sidekick Freddy played a big role in this humor, and was an amazing teen actor.
Oh, and speaking of Freddy, how cool was it to have a disabled character play a primary role in a show and his disability wasn’t terribly important at all? Yep. Don’t even know why he walked with a crutch. So much don’t care.
This was a very good movie on a lot of levels, and I really can’t recommend it enough to superhero fans, even marginal superhero fans like me. Well worth it!