Here it is, Captain Marvel 2, and surprisingly it didn’t suck. It’s better than that other Captain Marvel movie and it’s the best DC movie in a long while, but it still has problems.
When I made that Comic Con thing back in July I was somewhat open to this movie, but as we got closer to the release I started to get more interested. It looked better than all of the new Marvel movies coming out this year as it appeared it was going to spice up the familiar and boring superhero formula. Now that I have seen the movie I think it did half and half.
The idea of Shazam is that the man is the superhero while the secret identity is the kid, which is an interesting concept and Shazam does play around with that. Billy’s reaction to becoming Shazam is as you would expect from a child of his age. The most enjoyable scenes of this movie are Shazam messing about with his super powers and trying to figure out what they are with his mate Freddy. They really nailed Shazam as he’s just a complete clown and the tone of this movie really works. Zachary Levi is perfectly cast as this character and he looks like he is having a lot of fun.
Shazam is great and he really plays well off everyone but when you start to focus on anything other than this guy the movie has some issues. I couldn’t find it in me to care for any of the other characters. Billy Batson is okay but I kind of can’t see him as Shazam as they feel like completely different people. Billy is a pretty serious kid and when they try to make him look silly I didn’t really buy it. It doesn’t help that Billy’s normal life is boring. None of his relationships get enough proper development for them to feel genuine. They’re just people he shares a house with.
The first 20 minutes of the movie feels quite rushed but also unnecessary to the overall plot and could have been cut out. Especially Billy’s search for his mummy subplot as it reminded me a bit of The Amazing Spider-man 2’s usage of subplots.
I think what would make a great superhero movie would be not to include a big super evil baddie for our hero to fight. Deadpool 2 and even The Lego Movie 2 experimented with this a bit and I think Shazam should have dumped the evil one eyed bald man because he sucks! He works well with Shazam but seriously this guy is one dimensional. He has a backstory which is completely forgotten once he gets his superpowers but it does provide the funniest scene in the movie where an old wizard with a lightning bolt on his chest scares a little boy half to death and then almost kills his family. (That’s comedy!) We also learn baldy has a whole research team dedicated to finding this old guy which is never mentioned again once he gets what he wants.
My main problem with Shazam is it’s just not experimental enough. Shazam works just fine but I would have loved to have seen the movie take a step further. Shazam is tonally inconsistent. You’ve got the goofy super kid messing about with his powers and taking selfies with strangers. You also have orphan children being bullied and worrying about where they’ll fit in the world. It just doesn’t work with both. Shazam is also too safe as I don’t see anything special about it. It has an interesting concept but doesn’t really dive in far enough to stand out over all the other superhero movies. It’s dumb fun for the whole family and sadly all I see is another movie that will blend straight into the crowd over time.
Overall Shazam is still a fun movie. It’s light hearted feel was the best part of the movie and you’re better off overlooking the serious stuff. I like how it’s somewhat self-aware of how stupid this premise is and it just goes with it. Shazam is probably the best superhero in this universe as of now and I hope the sequel just jumps into the deep end with this character. DC is finally heading in the right direction with their movies and I’m interested to see where this goes. I’m giving it a 6 to 7/10. If you’ve got some younglings or you are a youngling then I think this is the movie for you. As for everyone else, I’ll let you decide.
That’s it for now and more stuff in the coming days, so until next time I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.
