Sense of humor can't carry Shazam!

Asher Angel in Shazam! Image courtesy Warner Bros.

Shazam! is supposed to be the fun D.C. movie, the one where the humor is intentional and the characters aren't as dark as they have been in the last decade. It's designed to be the wink to the audience saying they, too, think things went a little too serious over the past 10 years. Shazam! is almost an apology, although a quick look through the pee jokes and hamming reveals the same mean streak that plagued the worst parts of the Snyder films.

Shazam! stars Asher Angel as Billy Batson, a foster child whose search for his mom gets him sent to a new home with the kindly Rosa (Marta Milans) and Victor (Cooper Andrews). His new family is a collection of quirky folks, from the enthusiastic hugger Darla (Faith Herman) to video game addict Eugene (Ian Chen) to the quiet Pedro (Jovan Armand) to college applicant Mary (Grace Fulton). Billy falls into a strange friendship with his new roommate and superhero enthusiast Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), who keeps finding ways to get into trouble. Billy ends up defending Freddy during one of those moments, resulting in a meeting with the mighty wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou). Somewhat desperate at the moment, the wizard Shazam gives Billy his powers, turning him into the super powerful hero, Shazam (Zachary Levi). Billy stumbles into acts of heroism shortly thereafter, but is soon pursued by the villainous Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), who has a history with the wizard and an revenge against society on his mind. Billy has little time to learn about his complex powers as he defends Philadelphia from Sivana and the seven deadly sins.

Shazam! is a throwback, more akin to Adam West's Batman movie than the Ben Affleck or Christian Bale flicks. It sort of suits the character, a legendary boy scout who is a bit out of step with the modern teenager. Shazam as a character is something of a goofball, mildly dim-witted and often out of his element because of his super powers. Levi ramps up his character's goofiness to a degree that is nearly insufferable, but never quite crosses that boundary due in large part to his inherent earnestness. His sincerity is charming and sometimes endearing, aligning himself with the overarching silliness of the whole endeavor. And it's kind of realistic given the scenario the movie paints for him. Giving a 14-year-old brilliant powers and zero guidance will result in mayhem and mild disaster. When faced with an evil being with powers equal or greater than his own, his instinct is to run as far away as possible from the angry man with magic powers and a killer grudge. It's probably the best joke the film has going for it, the consistent inability for its hero to be heroic because he has absolutely no idea of what to do.

Yet the Shazam sections of Shazam! are also the least interesting aspect of the film. The superhero sequences have pretty much been done, with no visual flairs or execution to distinguish it from the rest of the genre. And the story of Billy Batson is far more engaging than the story of how Billy Batson turned into Shazam. That's due in large part to Angel, who gets a lot of mileage from a soft voice and a subtle sense of crushing disappointment in his life. There's a really excellent film in Shazam! centered solely on Billy Batson rediscovering his trust in his family, and Shazam! comes somewhat close to finding that movie. Throwing in Levi's silly antics diminishes that story, leaving a more generic superhero movie in its place.

 

The film is oddly regressive with its treatment of its female characters. The filmmakers make a really, really troublesome choice on how the film portrays Batson's mom, turning her into the biggest villain in the film. The film gives Sivana more justification to murder people than it does Batson's mom for making what should be a soul-crushingly difficult choice. Mary also gets a strange scolding for debating whether or not to leave her family to go to college. The film gives her room to be conflicted, but it paints the decision to better her future, and perhaps the prospects of her family, as the selfish choice.

 

Shazam! has a lot of these weird little choices in its story. Freddy does something incredibly stupid and selfish, and yet Billy is painted as the bad guy. Two high school jocks threaten to beat a child who needs a cane and no one bothers to help the kid. This movie's version of Philadelphia is less of a comic book version and more of an illogical one. For a movie that aims to be lighthearted and friendly, it's filled with an incredible amount of wanton cruelty.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

 

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 134 minutes

Genre: Action

tl;dr

What Worked: Asher Angel, Zachary Levi, Sense of Humor

What Fell Short: Story Issues, Sexism

What To Watch Instead: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Legend of the Sword lacks coherent vision

Charlie Hunnam in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

Any ability to take King Arthur: Legend of the Sword as a serious piece of cinema falls by the wayside once the enormous elephants of war come out of the miasma swinging their trunks like wrecking balls while destroying Camelot, which happens within the first five minutes. For many movies that would set the tone for a campy, goofy movie that entertains in spite of itself. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword shies away from carrying a singular tone forward consistently, more content to lob spaghetti on the wall and hope enough sticks to create a sticky, coherent piece of art.

This is really the major fault (although there are many, many others) that drags down King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Director Guy Ritchie and his cadre of writers have many ideas about how they want to interpret the King Arthur legend, but they don't select one to serve as the focus, instead creating an awkward action/crime/fantasy mishmash that never comes close to coming together.They start with a Shakespearean tragedy – a prince (Jude Law) killing his brother (Eric Bana) to become king – move to a low-level crime flick with Charlie Hunnam (acting a lot like Ritchie staple Jason Statham) as the future king Arthur but current minor crime boss, then toss in bits of magic courtesy a mage (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) who controls animal. They toss in a few action sequences, a little Djimon Honsou for gravitas, and some goofy sidekicks (Kingsley Ben-Adir, Neil Maskell, Freddie Fox, and Aiden Gillen) to reduce that gravitas, and what's left is something close enough to a movie to send out to theaters. A movie like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword doesn’t have to stick to any one of those concepts, but not deciding on one to drive the movie mucks things up for Ritchie and company. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword needed vision, some clear direction to follow to sort through all the muck and guide the audience to a satisfying conclusion.

Of the many films within King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, the best and the worst of the lot is the small-time crime drama depicted in the first act. This is clearly the area Ritchie and his fellow writers are most comfortable delving into. They get to engage in the banter and editing tricks that make movies like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels as fun to watch as they are. The fascination with small time hoods and hustlers is obvious and justified based on how they're portrayed in those films and, to an extent, this one. Yet it also allows Ritchie to indulge in the bad habits he developed as a young filmmaker, most notably some wanton sexism. His earlier films reduced the problem by simply limiting the number of female characters involved, effectively creating one overarching problem that is more difficult to notice. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword has many female characters who contribute little to nothing to this movie besides serving as plot devices and dying when the plot deems it justified. That the only female character who does any fighting, Bergès-Frisbey's mage, commands her creatures from afar and doesn't join in on the brawling leaves a fair amount to be desired.

The rest of the elements are treated poorly, as expected. The narrative is infected by the disorganized tone, with little logic put into the plot machinations. Ritchie shows little talent as a director of large fight sequences – his battles lack cadence and rhythm – and even less on the use of special effects to supplement the action on screen. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is carried by digital renditions of creatures and action sequences, none of which look particularly well made or are good enough to be leaned on as a crutch, as this movie does.

The one point of optimism stems from the movie's messiness. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is such a cluster of poorly formed ideas enough weirdness sneaks through so it isn't completely dull. The giant elephants are ridiculous, as are the enormous snakes and bats that get tossed in during a Empire Strikes Back-inspired soul searching trip. Weird is workable in its own way, just enough to keep a bad movie from being dire so the viewing experience is neither painful nor overly dull. That the best compliment offered to King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is to describe it as remarkably silly doesn't speak very well for the film either.

Rating: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 126 Minutes

Genre: Action
 

Ask Away

Target audience: People who are down with Guy Ritchie, Jude Law, Charlie Hunnam and giant snakes.

Take the whole family?: Stick with the PG-13 rating, or at least within a year or two of it.

Theater or Netflix?: Feel free to skip it.

How old is Jude Law, anyway?: The answer is not old enough to be Charlie Hunnam's uncle. This isn't a movie in which Hunnam was a teenager when his uncle murdered his dad, either. Young Arthur is 2 years old when the movie starts, and using their real ages as a benchmark Law would have been about 10 when those events occurred. The lack of age gap is a bit distracting and something the movie never seems to account for.

Watch this instead?: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch represent Guy Ritchie at his best as a director. For something more King Arthur related, watch either the beloved Disney movie The Sword in the Stone or the classic comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, probably the best cinematic take on the King Arthur legend.