April 2019 Movie of the Month: Shazam

I want to continue good natured discussions of movies that are relatively fresh and not part of a mega-franchise. True Shazam is part of the DC Expand Universe, but DC is radically reinventing themselves a lot so they don't have the relative contuity.

I believe DC has turned a corner with Aquaman and they are steering away from team up movies and just trying to make stand alone movies that are fun popcorn movies rather than trying to make Frankenstein abominations combining the dark gritty realism formula from the Nolan Batman movies with the irrereverent snarkiness of the MCU.

I am a cheap skate, so I will probably wait a week from today for half-price Tuesday rather than watch it opening weekend. That and the recent Skaven infestation has given me the sniffles and I am hoping to recover by then. I don't want to annoy and/or infect a crowded movie theater.

 

No one ever heeds the warnings: "Don't pet the Plague Monks".

 

My local movie theater has moved from $5 movie nights on Tuesday to $5 before sales tax. This thirty five cent price hike is outrageous but I didn't let it stop me. I just saw Shazam.

Shazam is everything a superhero movie should be. It's no Dark Knight, the greatest comic book film that ever was and ever will be, but Shazam had a compelling villain, good supporting cast, well formed character arc, and good action scenes.

What I thought Shazam did best was balance serious and comedic elements. This is something that in opinion Marvel used to do fairly well with their first several movies but has slipping in recent movies where they undercut every serious scene with a joke. Shazam leans towards the comedic side of things but it includes serious elements in it fairly well. That is hard to do and this puts Shazam above average for superhero movies.

I would compare this film favorably to Aquaman. If you liked Aquaman you should like Shazam. I will note that Shazam does not have the extensive special effects and scenery budget that Aquaman has but the effects that Shazam did have were good.

I hope DC continues this formula for the foreseeable future. The next Wonderwoman movie will be a test to see if DC has truly turned a corner. The current DC franchise has yet to debut a sequel.

And if you haven't watched it yet, there are TWO end of credit scenes. The end of credits have some stylistic cartoons for the firs tpart followed by a brief end of credit scene that theoretically sets up a sequel. Then at the very end of the credits there is a scene that does not advance the plot but is funny.

 

No one is biting.

Seriously, we cannot talk about any movies that aren't Star Wars or Marvel?

I will try to stimulate discussion by talking about my least favorite part of Shazam. Note, I liked Shazam a lot. I don't complain about things I don't like, I simply avoid them.

Bullying tropes. The movie was a bit too far. Tropes aren't evil, they can communicate characterization and can be given all sorts of interesting spins. One very common thing for superheroes with an everyman backstory is to use their powers to turn the tables on their bullies. This is very common with child and teenaged superheroes but you can see it with adults.

One of the problems of twenty-first century culture is anti-bully bullies.

I was a geeky fat kid who got bullied a bit in junior high and high school. Not a lot, but some. My favorite response was to humiliate them in some manner. In one case, a kid demanded I let him copy my worksheet during class, so I changed the answers to make them wrong. Took a very long bathroom break in which case he shared the answers with much of the class. Then I changed the answers back to right ones at home before turning it in. That is what I believe is an appropriate level response.

With the Internet, bullies brought to light get obliterated with pile ons that I believe are disproportional.

Okay I'll get off my soapbox.

So Shazam had playground bullies as a subplot.

Spoiler: Minor Spoilers for Shazam

Shazam is almost as powerful as Superman. There is only so much he can do to get revenge on a bully and keep the moral high ground. The writers and directors seemed aware of this, so they compensated...by making the bullies an 11 on the Bully Scale out of possible 5.

Arrogant rich kid, check. Bigger and older, check. Make fun of the foster kids for not having a proper family. These are all things I can see a normal bully doing. In my experience, the most physical bullies are usually the poor kids, not the rich kids. Rich kids tend to just ignore people they see as beneath them. But they specifically bullied the foster kid on crutches. And the other kids and to a lesser extant the adult authority figures tacitly supported this. WTM. That is beyond the pale. I have NEVER seen bullies like that and I am fully aware of what sort of jackasses kids and teenagers can be. They also spit on babies and did a hit and run against a pedestrian with no remorse. These are not bullies. These are dangerous sociopaths who should be isolated from the rest of society.

I had no moral problems with Shazam wrecking their car but the bullies were too awful for me to get beyond my suspension of disbelief. That's right suspension of disbelieve. In a movie with living demon statues, a lightning wizard named Shazam, and a bunch of other over the top stuff, that was the most unbelievable.

Anyway, if you have a superhero story with petty bullies and evil villains. You are almost guaranteed to have a scene where the hero shows how heroic they are by saving the bullies from the true villain. One very common thing you see is for the hero to carry them out of the way of danger, but drop them roughly, often in water or mud afterwards. In this case, they got a super wedgie after being saved. Very predictable and not compelling film.

Considering the main arc of the film is Billy Batson having a character arc of growing in maturity, empathy, and morality, (and it was a well executed arc). The bully subplot did not contribute.

 

Agree with @ravagekitteh

I enjoy reading your stuff, even though I haven't seen the movies.

But to be honest I am not a moviegoer at all. There is only a very small amount of movies that I am ready to spend time and money on.

If they were on Amazon Prime I'd give them a try.
Or in two years or so when they are on TV.
If they are considered really great by a certain amount of people I might even buy the BluRay to watch them, if it isn't too expensive.

 

Will I like leaving my house to do things and my small city has two options to watch movies for $5-$6. New releases can be watched at half price on Tuesdays. We also have a playback theater where we can watch last month's new releases for about $5.