’Zam Zaddy: Shazam! Sparks Enough Joy to Matter

After nearly flatlining with the vapid bowl of super-gruel known as Justice League, DC superhero movies are back on track. And whaddya know, they’re funny, too!

Marvel’s archrivals are taking a play from their competitors’ book and are keeping it simple with a renewed focus on stand-alone films. The DC Extended Universe is finally allowing its individual characters to have a second to catch their breath before being shoved into a busted-up blender for a team-up effort. These films will always go down more smoothly when they’re not overstuffed. 

Shazam!’s premise is a cosmic and unwieldy one, but it thrives due to its separation from the rest of the DCEU herd, the wiggle room allowing us to get used to what’s at stake. It’s not that audiences can’t handle the space oddities of comics’ wackier subject matter — after all, a pair of films featuring a talking raccoon and his angsty anthropomorphized-tree companion pulled in the better part of a billion dollars apiece. No, we can handle strange. We just need strange to handle itself.

The tale of a teen orphan being given ultimate superpowers by a haggard wizard from another realm might catch you off guard, but the film relishes the concept’s core zaniness — that 14-year-old Billy Batson turns into an adult superhero (Zachary Levi) when he utters the word “Shazam!” Director David F. Sandberg (2016’s Lights Out) cut his teeth with horror, as so many in the superhero genre do. That experience with the macabre allows him to grapple with the mechanics of the story and its unlikely ethical dilemmas. Sandberg manages to mount a multifaceted production, one that features Levi as a caped crusader who flosses and does tricks to go viral (do it for the ’Zam!), poker-playing crocodiles, and spirited debate regarding nature versus nurture and the “whoever is worthy, pull the sword from this stone” trope that has crowned heroes for centuries. 

As Shazam! posits, the standard for the hero and who the hero is deep down may not always be congruent, but as long as that standard is met, the hero arises all the same. The film also finds that heroes are much more rooted when nurtured by love only a family can give; our sympathetic villain is merely a product of his environment. Shazam! wants to think about such things while also paying homage to Big in a way that explores the innate fun of watching 38-year-old Levi behave like a 14-year-old. The combination works a lot better than you’d expect. 

Regarding Levi — the Chuck alum had yet to really find his signature role on the big screen, but Shazam! is at last his pièce de résistance. He gives our hero Tom Hanksian gee-whiz enthusiasm and Little Rascals mischief, as well as astute modern reads of the American teenager. It’s a ball to watch Levi balance it all.

Shazam! doesn’t necessarily do a ton that recent works like Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Guardians of the Galaxy films haven’t already. Nevertheless, Sandberg plays it loose and silly enough to keep the film buoyant and fresh, while still contemplating enough to make it stick. It’s the kind of movie DC needs to continue to make — never too grim, always grinning.