We’ve all dreamed about being our favourite superheroes at one point in our lives. “Shazam!” (2019), directed by David F. Sandberg, spins this dream off into a reality and sucks us into the life of an ordinary but rebellious superhero-turned teen—BIlly.
When he’s first adopted to a family with two parents and lots of adopted children, Billy’s immediate reaction is to figure out a way to run away, but he’s stopped by Freddy, another adopted child and part of Billy’s new foster family. Like Billy, Freddy’s also obsessed with superheroes! The two have a complicated love-hate relationship, but Freddy’s part of what makes Billy stay in the end.
After dodging some bullies at school narrowly by catching a train in the nick of time, Billy is randomly thrown into the lair of a wizard, and made to touch his staff (“Ew!” Billy says), which transfers the wizard’s superpowers into Billy. Suddenly, Billy becomes a middle-aged, buff man with a cape and—you guessed it—superpowers. And, well, the rest is history.
The one thing that I didn’t enjoy about the movie was that the plot was quite predictable. The storyline followed the typical “normal person-turned hero fights off a bad guy with some friends and restores peace.” Don’t go in expecting for “Shazam!” to completely blow you away in that respect, but rather watch it with anticipation for a good time.
Overall, I’d rate it a solid 3.5 out of five possible stars, but it may differ from person to person. Rotten tomatoes rated “Shazam!” 90%, which is fairly high considering the majority of their films hover around the 60-70% mark.
There’s no explicit scenes in this movie, but there’s quite a bit of profanity. Personally, I didn’t find this as a big problem but if you’re so inclined on keeping your children pure you might want to turn on “It Chapter 2” or “The Nun” instead. (I’m joking, don’t do that). Apart from that, kids would love this film.
