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Author
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Topic: SHAZAM! (Read 11844 times)
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Setanta
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1516
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Took my 10yo daughter to see this today. She is normally not a DC fan "Superman is boring, Batman needs to get over himself" sort of kid who enjoyed WW and Aquaman. She really enjoyed Shazam as did I. It wasn't cerebral, it wasn't grimdark, it was just a thoroughly enjoyable film. Mark Strong made an excellent villain - he could pull off a fantastic Lex Luthor I suspect. Zachary Levi was great as a kid in an adult body. You could see touches of Big happening (including the floor piano) without him trying to be Tom Hanks. The supporting cast did their job well. The cameo at the end in the lunch room was a nice touch.
If DC can start making more films in the vein of this and Aquaman and lose the dark elements of Superman and BvS then they might actually go places.
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"No man is an island. But if you strap a bunch of dead guys together it makes a damn fine raft."
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157
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I really enjoyed this. I was surprised and pleased that they didn't save
for a sequel.
Just generally, I thought this was a great job of rethinking the original property for a contemporary film--way better than DC itself has been in some of its bad attempts to freshen-up or revive these characters over the years. Making Billy Batson not a sickly-sweet paragon of virtue, making his adopted family so emotionally resonant (often Billy has operated on his own, with his adopted family except for Mary being quite secondary to his life), giving Freddy a distinctive personality, etc, all very smart. Making Captain Marvel himself (though what ARE they going to call him? He can't say his own name if his character's name is Shazam) be goofy and child-like in such a full-on way is great--the early version of the character was so stolid and boring because of "the wisdom of Solomon", with all the child-like fun being in the cartoonish villains and the sidekicks like Uncle Dudley and Tawky Tawny. Just overall a smart example of adapting existing intellectual property to make a new version suited to its own time and place.
Lot of fun Easter Eggs too if you know the character. If they go for the full Monster Society of Evil in a sequel, they've got Sivana and Mr. Mind already. Not sure what they're doing with Dwayne Johnson playing Black Adam, but maybe they'll have that rolling so he could fit in. We saw Crocodile Men, so they're in. Mister Atom.
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42629
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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The portrayals of the adopted family were taken directly from the DC mini-series Flashpoint including the powers they portrayed as the Marvel family. Since Geoff Johns wrote that and has been heavily involved in charting the creative direction of both the TV and movie properties since Snyder bowed out of Justice League, his influence in the story is pretty significant. The family was just awesome, IMO.
I think Black Adam is going to have a standalone movie that will probably only loosely tie into this one, but I don't know how much has been said about it beyond that.
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Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19220
sentient yeast infection
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Saw this last night. Afterwards my girlfriend turned to me and said "wait, that was a DC movie? It was so... GOOD." Pretty much sums it up.
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"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
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