Shazam! (2019)

Within the various comic-book universes, there seem to be a few well-known characters.  Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman have seen a great many incarnations.  I have to admit that there are those, like Shazam!, that I’m not as familiar with.  In fact, I might not have heard the name at all if not for a line of trading cards produced almost 25 years ago.  It makes me wonder if there’s some push to release superhero movies.  Given that there might be another Justice League movie, it’s possible that this is one of the movies setting up that narrative.  (It was mentioned that there were several extra seats.)

Shazam! is the origin story of the title character.  The Wizard Shazam is looking for a successor, as he’s nearing death.  The movie starts with Shazam pulling a young Thaddeus Sivana out of his reality to The Rock of Eternity so that Shazam might test the purity of Thaddeus’s heart.  Thaddeus fails and is sent back to Earth.  Cut to the present day, and Thaddeus is now a doctor.  He hasn’t stopped looking for a way back.  When he finds it, he takes the power of The Seven Deadly Sins as his own.

Meanwhile, we learn that Billy Batson is a troubled kid.  He lures a police car to a fake robbery so that he might find information on a woman who might be his long-lost mother.  He’s been through many foster homes, as he tends to run away and/or get in trouble with the police.  His latest escapade lands him in the foster home of Rosa and Victor Vasquez, where he meets Freddy Freeman, one of the Vasquezes’ other foster children.  The two become reluctant friends after Billy comes to Freddy’s defense.  After escaping to bullies, Billy finds himself on The Rock of Eternity, being asked to say Shazam and take with him the dying wizard’s powers.

Those that grew up in the 1980s may remember a TV show called The Greatest American Hero.  During the three seasons of the show, teacher Ralph Hinkley is given a superhero’s suit by aliens.  The running gag is that Ralph has difficulty landing and doesn’t know what kinds of powers the suit has.  (He lost the instruction manual.)  Shazam! initially takes a similar approach.  Billy and Freddy have do idea what the suit does.  Initially, they’re not even sure how to get rid of the suit.  They do manage to help some people, like stopping two would-be robbers.

The movie plays out very realistically for me.  It takes a while for the novelty of the superpowers to wear off.  Billy is caught up in being popular and powerful and Freddy is just a little resentful.  Billy could be using his newfound abilities to help, yet is trying to make a few dollars off of them.

It’s not until Dr. Sivana confronts Billy that it comes into focus.  You see, Sivana wants Billy’s powers.  You might ask why this is if Sivana has similar powers.  Billy is the only real threat Sivana might face.  (The only thing holding Billy back is his inexperience.)

I’d say that Shazam! is what I’d expect of an origin story.  The first part of the movie deals with the learning curve.  This is followed by the call to action, where everything comes into focus for the main character.  Because of the release of the movie, I have been learning a lot about the character.  Comparisons were also made to Superman.  Lawsuits ended that until DC bought the rights from Fawcett Comics, allowing the character to come back.  By the time that happened, Marvel Comics had already begun publishing their own Captain Marvel, leading DC to call the character Shazam!.  I find it interesting that this movie was released just four weeks after the Captain Marvel movie.  (it’s also notable that Djimon Hounsou appears in both.)

I will say that the movie is enjoyable.  As I said, it’s easy to relate with Billy Batson.  I think that’s probably close to how I would deal with being given those powers.  The comparisons to Big aren’t undeserved, especially considering that Billy finds one of those big walk-on keyboards.  I will say that there does seem to be a fair amount of product placement for other DC properties.  I mean, even Aquaman gets a nod in the post-credits scene.

IMDb page

Stargate (1994)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I was just out of high school when this movie first came out. I don’t remember hearing much about it, but I hadn’t really been to the theaters for a while. Years later, I would catch parts of it (usually the end) on Encore or The Sci-Fi Channel. It wasn’t really until the fifth season of the TV show, Stargate: SG-1, that I really got into it. I knew the basic premise of the movie, so the show wasn’t that hard to follow.

Stargate starts out in Giza, Egypt, in 1928. An archaeologist arrives on a dig site to see this amazing discovery. There’s a big ring with all of these symbols and no one has ever seen anything like it. As far as anyone knows, it’s the only one in existence. 60+ years later, Dr. Daniel Jackson is giving a lecture about ancient Egypt. He has all of these wacky ideas about alien influence. What few people there are walk out and Jackson has no idea why. As he’s leaving the building, he’s approached by a woman who wants him to work on a secret government project. He accepts, seeing as how he has little else to do. He’s being asked in to help decode the Stargate, which is now sitting under a mountain.

Then there’s Colonel Jack O’Neill, played by Kurt Russell. He’s getting over the loss of his son, who accidentally shot himself with the Colonel’s gun. He’s called in to oversee the military aspect of the Stargate program. O’Neill and Jackson don’t hit it off at first. O’Neill is a military officer having to deal with the loss of his son; Jackson is a brainy researcher who isn’t really even accepted in his own field.

Dr. Jackson finally gets the gate working and a probe is sent through. They discover a similar Stargate on the other side, along with a device for controlling it. The Stargate is a means of transporting people across space. The connection doesn’t stay open for very long, so there isn’t much information to go on insofar as the other planet is concerned. The deciding factor is Dr. Jackson’s belief that he could get a team back. He, Colonel O’Neill, and several others go through the gate to the other planet and are told to assess the situation and report back. The trouble is that Dr. Jackson can’t get the team back. He had made the assumption that there would be instructions waiting for him on the other side.

To Dr. Jackson’s amazement, they find pyramids similar to the ones on Earth, which supports Dr. Jackson’s theories. The downside is that if they can’t get back, he won’t be able to tell anyone about it. Things start to look good when they find people living on the planet. Things take a serious turn for the worse, though, when Ra shows up. (For those that don’t know much about Egyptian mythology, Ra is the Egyptian sun god.) Ra is played by Jaye Davidson, who you may remember from The Crying Game. Dr. Jackson discovers that Ra is actually ‘possessing’ a host. Ra has simply taken on the persona of a god and has everyone on the planet worshiping him. Things get much worse when Ra discovers that O’Neill brought a bomb with him; Ra decides to modify the bomb and send it back to Earth. The race is on.

Of Jackson and O’Neill, I felt that Jackson was better developed in the movie. O’Neill came across as a military zombie. He’s made a career in the military and doesn’t seem to plan on making it back. Jackson, on the other hand, tends to be more optimistic. He thinks that there’s a chance of getting home and wants to work towards that end. There is a great deal of naivete in Dr. Jackson, which he’s able to overcome to an extent.

The special effects are going to seem dated . There were times when the effects looked patchy or inconsistent. Some of the lower-budget effects came across pretty well. The movie is driven more by trying to make a coherent story than a vehicle for the special effects. The thing that the story had going for it was its overall simplicity. Get the gate working, go through it, and then get back in one piece. The technical explanations of the gate and what Ra is didn’t really appear until the series began on Showtime.

I got the Ultimate Edition, which has both the director’s cut and the theatrical cut. The difference is that the director’s cut has a few additional minutes of footage. I don’t know that you’d even notice most of it. The real benefit is the other special features. You get the theatrical trailer, audio commentary and some behind-the-scenes stuff, which I found interesting.

Those that have seen the series are going to find some discrepancies. The gate program is housed in Creek Mountain in the movie, but in Cheyenne Mountain in the series. In the movie, Abydos (the planet that the team goes to) is in another galaxy whereas the series has it in our own galaxy.

Despite the inconsistencies and special effects, I’m going to recommend this movie. If you’re looking for a great movie, this is it.


IMDb page