***SPOILERS***SHAZAM SPOILER THREAD***SPOILERS ALLOWED***SPOILERS***DID I MENTION SPOILERS?***

[Legion Again]

On 3/24/2019 at 5:12 PM, MyMovieCanBeatUpYourMovie said:

Really, the one main issue I have is that, IMO, Zachary Levi and Asher Angel do not feel like they're playing the same character.  Billy feels like a kid kind of wise and sad beyond his years, but Levi plays Shazam like he's 9 years old. 

 

Both actors give good performances in isolation, just not in terms of matching each other. 

Yeah, hope they work on this going forward. Nice movie overall though.

[Eric Lasagna]

https://www.phillyvoice.com/what-you-will-see-philadelphia-shazam/

 

@Nova A fun article that mentions all of the actual Philly shots (or at least scenes that hide it very well). Also, we need to email Jim Kenney so he can actually create Chilladelphia Winter Carnival.

 

[Mulder]

I kind of wish they just used Fawcett City seeing how it didn't really feel like Philadelphia. 

[Nova]

31 minutes ago, CoolEric258 said:

https://www.phillyvoice.com/what-you-will-see-philadelphia-shazam/

 

@Nova A fun article that mentions all of the actual Philly shots (or at least scenes that hide it very well). Also, we need to email Jim Kenney so he can actually create Chilladelphia Winter Carnival.

 

Nice! Gonna take a look at that. And yea I was wondering why Chilladelphia Winter Carnival wasn’t already a thing  Change.org let’s go! 

[BadAtGender]

Oh, man. The Marvel Family reveal was so great. It's the sort of thing that many films would just do as a post credits tease. I loved how this was all, nope, that's our third act. 

 

Also the supervillain speech bit had me almost fall out of my chair. Except it was a recliner, so I was saved from that. 

 

Just, really amazingly good. 

[langer]

On 3/24/2019 at 7:12 PM, MyMovieCanBeatUpYourMovie said:

I thought  this was overall a ton of fun.  Great family dynamic which I think really serves as the heart of the film.  

 

Really, the one main issue I have is that, IMO, Zachary Levi and Asher Angel do not feel like they're playing the same character.  Billy feels like a kid kind of wise and sad beyond his years, but Levi plays Shazam like he's 9 years old. 

 

Both actors give good performances in isolation, just not in terms of matching each other. 

This is the only issue I have with this movie, spot on.  Otherwise, had a blast.  

[Macleod]

Was much less impressed by this than the rest of you.

 

But what I almost found more amusing on a meta-production level was that the movie is full of casting in-jokes to previous unmade or ill-received DC Comics film adaptations.

 

Adam Brody was attached as The Flash in George Miller's unmade Justice League film, costumes were made, and they were down in Australia around 12 years ago, just weeks away from filming, before the plug was pulled.

 

D.J. Cotrona was attached as Superman in Miller's film. 

 

Mark Strong was Sinestro in the ill-fated Green Lantern, but gets to go full-super-villain here. 

 

And John Glover was of course Lionel Luthor on Smallville for many years. 

 

I'm sure this was conscious of Sandberg/the studio, nicely played.

 

But I thought the animated drawings at the end were almost more amusing than the entire movie. 

 

The toy store scene is funny, but the more meta-scene is when a young buy is play-fighting Batman and Superman toys in his apartment, when outside Shazam and Sinest-oops-Sivana show up, and the boy drops the toys with a thud.  Thought that was amusing, considering the current state of things. 

 

And then...the headless Supes cameo with someone else in Cavill's costume...groan.  😂

[BK007]

I found it really fun, but the ending with the caterpillar thing just reminded me how I have no more patience for these long drawn out, never-ending arcs. 

 

It's been a long decade from Iron Man to Avengers, and I think for me, it ends there. That's a decade just gone by like that, and it just doesn't sit well with me that you watch a film to see its finale 10 years from now. I hope the last Avengers is a blast because emotionally, I'm checked out after that. 

[Essem]

The first part of the movie with Sivana, is brilliant. From the car until he enters the cave with the wizard and the Deadly Sins starts talking, GREAT sound effects. I was like wow if this is what were in for this is going to be something special. It didnt quite live up to that for the rest but it was good. Definitely enjoyable. 

The budget limitations does show itself in the 3rd act in my opinion, Levi vs Mark Strong fight is fine. Although i wish they went a little further. It felt like they held back a little too much, a little reserved BRING OUT THE POWER AND UNLEASH like your life depends on it.
Also think the rest of the family fighting the sins was a little "low budget feel" in the way they moved and fought although we didnt see too much of it.  They had the same color pallet as Doomsday but didnt have the budget behind them as Doomsday did and it showed.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Essem

[lorddemaxus]

I thought this was great and the only recent superhero movie other than Ant-Man and the Wasp to make me smile the whole way through. Just a lot of fun, heart, and wholesomeness. I especially like movies with good child performances (and hate ones with terrible child performances like A Wrinkle in Time) and the kids were great here. They went all out with the Shazam family stuff and I think that is significantly better than setting it up for the next film or something. I also loved how the film dealt with real and gritty subjects without being overbearing like the Snyder films. The scene with the mother was pretty heartbreaking too. Hopefully, this relationship is explored more in the sequel too. I feel like there could be an interesting relationship built there. But I would get it if she never appears again. Also would like the foster parents to have more development in the sequel since they were such wholesome characters. 

 

Honestly, the best thing about the movie for me was its themes on family and the whole foster family aspect of it. This film and Instant Family are two films that explore the foster family subject in a realistic way and I think that is great.

 

Only superhero movies above for me are Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Superman, GOTG 2, Into the Spider verse, Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Batman Begins, TDK. 

[OncomingStorm93]

Caught the early Fandango screening. Eh.

 

The script is the film's best element, followed by the performances of Levi and Grazer (the foster brother). The second act was the film's best (funniest) section.

 

Everything involving Mark Strong and the Sins was awful. Strong did his best, but the material was lacking. No wonder they kept all that content out of the marketing.

 

From a direction standpoint, Sandberg was competent. I like the dozen or so times he flexed his horror muscles with jump scares, or impact moments (bolstered by surprisingly good sound design), but otherwise the film lacked any sense of style. Unmemorable cinematography & music composition. Can't remember a single unique action beat. Those decisions make the film more palatable for wide audiences, but left me wanting more.

 

This film was fun, but it felt shallow. Billy's quest to find his mother was meant to add depth, but it felt tacked on and inconsequential. Doesn't affect Billy's character arc at all. The scene is just an excuse to get Billy out of his house (after just returning) so Mark Strong can arrive in the interim.

 

6.5/10. When it was funny, particularly in the second act, the film was rolling full throttle. When it dived into Billy's past and Mark Strong being possessed by 7 horrible CGI monsters, I was bored. Don't think I'll be revisiting this film at all.

 

 

 

[Essem]

I know they wanted to save the boardroom scene for the full movie but having at least parts of it in a big trailer would add SO much more hype and anticipation. It would get more people talking about it and getting butts in seats. Because it was great.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Essem

[Jonwo]

I wonder if they’ll keep Sandberg as Mister Mind or recast with a more well known actor. 

[DeeCee]

On 3/24/2019 at 4:23 PM, grim22 said:

Department store Santa was great.

 

Biggest applause was the Shazam family reveal. When they showed Superman, the guy next to me went “Are you freaking kidding me?”. The way it was filmed made not showing his face pretty natural.

Probably would have doubled the budget if they had to remove that moustache again. 

[SLAM!]

Just got back.

 

What a pleasant surprise! The film had a lot of tricks up its sleeve that I didn't expect! The main foster-home narrative thread was brilliant, and I loved that they all became superheroes in the end! Only slight problem was that the climatic action feels a little elongated, but it was probably the most 'fun' superhero film I've seen since Spider-Man: Homecoming.

[catlover]

On 3/25/2019 at 7:12 AM, MyMovieCanBeatUpYourMovie said:

Really, the one main issue I have is that, IMO, Zachary Levi and Asher Angel do not feel like they're playing the same character.  Billy feels like a kid kind of wise and sad beyond his years, but Levi plays Shazam like he's 9 years old. 

 

Both actors give good performances in isolation, just not in terms of matching each other. 

This. It really bothered me. Levi's supposed to be Billy but I couldn't imagine Billy being that childish. He's so smart that he could find addresses of the people who might be his mom on his own. But other than that, I enjoyed the movie a lot. It's moving from scary, emotional and funny so seamlessly. And I loved the family reveal. Didn't see that one coming.

[jf8350143]

The way I see it, before Billy gets the power, he is forced into a family he doesn't want, and just give up about the whole find his mother thing. So he acts kind depressing but that's not his true nature.

 

After he gets the power, he suddenly has everything, he has superpowers and he "can take care of himself", which is a thing he wants very badly. He even has a friend, which he never have one before. So his inner child which was buried before was unleashed.  The important thing is, after he gets his power, the way he act when he was Shazam was actually pretty much the same comparing to him being Billy, so imo there isn't really much problem here.

Edited April 8, 2019 by jf8350143

[Darth Lehnsherr]

I'm struggling to come up with a better supporting cast in a DC Film than Shazam. Overall a wonderful film but I totally get why this isn't resonating as much Overseas. It's nice to see though how much variety DC has the potential to have with their films. 

 

Sadness kinda took over me when I saw Superman but didn't show his face. Reminded me of whenever they showed Lex in Smallville even though Michael Rosenbaum had already left the show. Speaking of Smallville what a nice surprise to see John Glover and playing a similar character to how he played Lionel Luthor.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Darth Lehnsherr

[John Marston]

 I give this a solid B

 

 

two problems I had

 

 

- The Seven Deadly Sins: Started off pretty menacingly but by the end of the film they were pretty much generic CGI monsters. I am also not sure how they even connected to the seven deadly sins.

 

- The fight between Billy and Freddy when Freddy accuses Billy of being a "bully". Huh, when did this happen? And wasn't Freddy encouraging his behavior just a little bit ago and enjoying the perks of it  and now because he won't show up at the school to show off for him Billy is now a bad person? This whole part felt like there was something missing. 

[expensiveho]

This was nice enough. I really liked the 2 leads, and the kids. The villain was meh but the intro scene was great. 

 

The 3rd act CGI battle felt too long, but this is something the "genre" seems to keep coming back to. The Shazam family was a nice surprise, looking forward to see them a bit more (also hope they explore the wizard stuff, sounds interesting)

 

The mom scene was heartbreaking.

Overall the cast was pretty nice and the movie was fun.