Review:

Shazam is a perfectly okay super-hero origin story. Asher Angel and Zachary Levi are great, but I there were times where Shazam was acting out of character. I'm a comic fan, but I can admit that the entire Captain Marvel/Shazam character is one of the most ridiculous ideas, but while Sandberg does lean into it, there were many times where Zachary Levi is too Shazam and not enough Billy Batson and it was hard to buy into it. Mark Strong is a fine actor, but Doctor Sivana isn't presented well here and he serves more as bookends to the story than a consistent threat. Really, the pacing overall isn't great. I loved all the time spent with Billy/Shazam, but there is too much downtime, Billy's search for his mother and whenever we cut to Sivana are boring and push the limits of suspension of disbelief (even for a comic book movie), and the second act argument cliche really drag it down. Shazam isn't as serious (or terrible) as BvS and Justice League but it isn't as stupid and campy as Aquaman. Shazam knows how ridiculous it is and it's much more interested in being fun and heartfelt than serious or epic. I wish there was more to the plot and I wish they gave Sivana more to do (or at least a better backstory and motive), but I did love Seth Cohen and I audibly laughed at purposeful comedy in a film for the first time in a long time. Shazam! is DC's Ragnarok and hopefully a sign that the DCU is headed in a better direction.