Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Over the weekend, I saw DC’s newest superhero offering, Shazam! By superhero movies this is a small film. It was done on a $100 million budget, which means its entire production cost less than it cost to film Iron-Man and Dr. Strange's NYC park battle with 2 of Thanos’ minions. But Shazam was never meant to be a mega-super-extravaganza. It’s actually a sweet little story about a likeable orphan wanting desperately to find the mother he was separated from as a toddler, but instead finding a real family. And yes…it also has super-heroes and super-villains. What’s really great about Shazam is that it pays honest tribute to the source material, material that originated in a much simpler time. In 1938 DC comics came out with Superman and followed up with Batman in 1939. That same year, a small publishing company decided to create their own Superhero, Captain Marvel. Unlike Batman and Superman whose alter egos were adults, Captain Marvel’s was a 14 year old orphan who sold newspapers and slept in doorways. One day Billy Batson is visited by Wizard named Shazam who choses Billy to be his instrument of good. There’s a historic context to the choice of alter egos. In 1939, the Great Depression was a decade old, and people were still suffering. There were lots of children who were left in orphanages by parents who couldn’t feed themselves let alone a child, there were even more who were shipped off to live with relatives. Literally, there were thousands of American kids lying awake at night wondering where there parents were and if they would ever come for them. And if you weren’t an orphan, becoming one might have been your greatest fear. The creators of Captain Marvel were telling the world the least fortunate might just be heroes good needs to defeat evil. WWII would start a couple years later and prove them right. Whenever Billy would say the wizard’s name, he would be turned into Captain Marvel, an adult imbued with the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the speed of Mercury, the lightning hurling of Zeus and the courage of Achilles. Basically, Captain Marvel was Fawcett’s answer to Superman. Fawcett had a hit on their hands and DC wasn’t happy about it. They thought Captain Marvel was too similar to Superman and sued for copywrite infringement. The case would drag on past WWII and Fawcett would eventually settle with DC agreeing never to publish Captain Marvel again. In the 1960s, Superheroes would have a rebirth of popularity and DC brought back Captain Marvel. But Marvel comics would bring out their own “Captain Marvel” in the form of a renegade Kree warrior. DC Comic’s Captain Marvel was the original, and has the right to the name. But Marvel got their Captain Marvel into the theaters first, so they apparently get to call Ms. Marvel “Captain Marvel.” Here’s the thing, despite the fact that Marvel’s “Captain Marvel” is the bigger, splashier and more expensive movie…Shazam is the better movie. The script is a solid story about getting the family that loves you rather than the one you think you want. As a teacher and uncle, I found the children very believable. And the casting of Billy’s foster parents and foster siblings was just perfect. I really believed every character because I know those people. The little girl who can’t stop talking is my niece. The chubby quiet kid who fails the test sits in my front row. The kid waiting for parents to somehow show up, that was me living with Grandma wondering why my dad never came to find me. All of these less-than-perfect people come together to make a heroic family. I really want to give kudos to the producers of this movie for casting comedic actor Zachary Levi as Captain Marvel, rather than casting your typical action movie star. Levi, who played the lead character in the action-comedy TV show Chuck was perfect as the 14-year-old who suddenly finds himself in a superhuman adult body. Because of his great performance, this movie had more in common with Tom Hanks’ Big than with anything DC/Warner Brothers has brought to the screen. Shazam is probably the best DC comics movie to come to the screen since Watchmen. But Watchmen was a psychologically tense movie about the nature of good-and-evil with graphic violence and giant blue phalluses, nothing you could take a 6 year old to. Shazam is the most family friendly superhero movie since Sky High, which wasn’t something that comic-book fanboys flocked to the theater to see. Shazam manages to be a true comic book movie with something for fanboys and fangirls of all ages.