Shazam!, or How Superhero Movies Should be Fun

Shazam!

Sorry, had to get that out of the way before I got started.

Shazam! is hopefully a new direction for superhero movies, or a shift back to what the genre’s main calling card was for a long time: a childish (and perhaps naïve) imagination run wild. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m tired of the brooding, moody superheroes. Just because Christopher Nolan did it so well with The Dark Knight doesn’t mean everyone running around in colorful tights needs to be reincarnated as a wet blanket.

Sometimes, when you go to the theater, you just want to feel like a kid again, not get lost in crappy, oversimplified monologues on the societal reasons villains become villains and superheroes whose lives are destroyed in the process of saving an ungrateful world. It’s supposed to be fun.

And Shazam! has enjoyability in spades.

The plot is simple. There is good magic and bad magic. The former is embodied in the bright red suit and giant lightning bolt of Shazam, while the latter is delivered in the shape of the Seven Deadly Sins, who latch onto a devilish Mark Strong (I foresee further bad guy roles for him in the future). The two square off for supremacy.

Throw in a downtrodden teenager, an orphan seeking his mother, connecting with his new foster siblings and we have all the watermarks of an origin story.

The movie’s charm comes from the answer to a question kids may ask from time to time: What would you do if you had superpowers?

Easy. Test them out and show them off.

There is no shortage of humor coming from Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) initial response to getting his powers. He and his foster brother, Freddy (Jack Dylan Glazer), conduct multiple tests to figure out just how strong he is. They even engage in a little neighborhood do-gooding. Zachary Levi’s performance could not have been better. He sells the childlike whimsy perfectly.

That question returns again and again throughout the latter half of the movie. The answers are, without fail, golden.

What also helps is a very likeable cast. They all seem a natural fit for their roles. I particularly enjoyed Ian Chen’s (Evan in Fresh Off the Boat) performance as one of the foster family. He’s an avid video gamer and not averse to making a Bruce Lee reference.

Kudos to the director, David F. Sandberg, and to the writers, Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke, for embracing the nerdy and childlike atmosphere without sacrificing the heartistic elements. A job well done.

Suicide Squad Fails to Set Itself Apart

This poster is more colorful than the characters or the film.

Ever since Marvel's Avengers broke the box office in 2012, superhero movies have become the mainstream of the mainstream in Hollywood. The studios thrown them out systematically, leaving the audiences enough time to digest one's events without allowing them to lose momentum and interest in the next. As such, formulaic structures are to be expected, but not enough to stifle good storytelling and creativity.

Even in the superhero genre, the producers are expected to do more than insert scenario A and plot points one, two, and three to come out with a stale story arc. When the movie is titled Suicide Squad and the marketing focused around a bunch of comic book bad guys thrown together against their will and being rebellious at every step, the creative personnel are certainly expected to add something out of the ordinary.

Suicide Squad, however, is anticlimactic in virtually every sense of the word. It is merely another special effects dominated light show that falls right in step with the superhero (or super-antihero) assembly line. No risks are taken, no ground broken, and yet it will do the one thing it is designed to do--make money.

Much like Avengers, a mismatched and dysfunctional group of powered individuals are forced to work together and form an uneasy alliance. Unlike Marvel's showpiece, DC's latest episode gives us the five-to-ten minute backstory behind each character and waits until about a third of the way through to really ramp up the story. Director David Ayer, who has certainly done better work (i.e Fury, Training Day), could have easily cut the exposition phase in half and used the difference to create legitimate conflict rather than the artificial uneasiness that comes through in theaters. 

Ayer deserves double blame for the convoluted film because he is the sole credited writer. The script is not only formulaic, but has numerous holes. 

As a result, the audience cannot fully invest themselves in the characters' plight. Will Smith's "Deadshot" is perhaps the closest the film gets to solid characterization, as he is at the center of the movie's brighter moments, and Margot Robbie's hyper-objectified Harley Quinn is a distant second. The rest, however, are just along for the ride (and some advance advertising for a later DC film). The actors are not given the space to really give their characters a fighting chance for respectability. Yes, we know why they are doing what they do (they have someone they love or they love themselves enough to want to continue living), but anything more is completely lost.

Another casualty is the potentially world-ending situation created by Enchantress (Cara Delevigne) and her brother Incubus (Robert Atkin Downes). No longer worshiped like gods, they want to wipe out humanity. Cliched? Yes. Standard fare for DC? Also yes. Although the situation is hard to buy into as it stands, the film completely eliminates the suspended disbelief necessary for a film of this nature to truly work. 

Ayer continues Zack Snyder's pattern of including biblical references in an odd and unhelpful manner in regards to why they are even in the film, again proving how much Suicide Squad is not rebellious but heavily conformed to the norm. 

Considering how starved for creativity and good storytelling DC's norm is, that is a very bad sign. 

Review: Batman v. Superman - Putting the Business in Show Business

Too often, of late, Hollywood has released films that show just how much business is involved in show business. The latest glitzy production off the well-worn comic book superhero movie assembly line – Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice – is another big budget spectacle designed for the express purpose of raking in the big bucks. It is supposed to be the spring season’s event film, or rather “film,” as that moniker only applies in a purely definitional sense. Zack Snyder, the man tasked with directing the DC Cinematic Universe, has accomplished exactly what he did on Man of Steel. That is: take a very promising premise and muddle it beneath a maze of overblown action and an excess of special effects.

A Promotional Poster

Unfortunately for Mr. Snyder, this places him in a class headlined by Michael Bay. The movie, which will certainly find an audience to grant them odd billion dollars they desire, is first and foremost longer than it needs to be. Like most movies with such an elongated running time (approx. 2 hours and 30 minutes), it becomes bogged down and sluggish instead of tight and powerful. The writing, perpetrated by David S. Goyer and the normally excellent Chris Terrio, goes against almost everything Hollywood writers are taught to do with the exception of being “high concept.” It is based on the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman comic books, which have been widely adapted over the years. Some complain that it diverges from the source material too much, but such a complaint would be irrelevant if the movie was actually something that Warner Bros. could take pride in as a filmmaking achievement.

These are heavy-handed attacks on one of the most highly anticipated motion pictures of the year and such blows should not be thrown about loosely. The film, in spite of itself, has a few saving graces. Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) is the main one, and is undoubtedly the driving force behind any worthwhile drama in “the greatest gladiator match of all-time.” Affleck is well-suited for the role of a caped-crusader who’s grown cynical throughout his long career of fighting criminals. He takes Master Bruce’s ambitions and runs with them as far as the story is willing to let them go.

At least they didn't botch Batman.

Mixed in, of course, is Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill), who faces his own share of struggles. He’s become a divisive figure in society. Some call him a savior, even a god, and the rest are afraid that his seemingly unlimited powers could eventually go awry. This conflict would likely be more compelling if Cavill exercised the full range of his acting chops, but he doesn’t. The man, who physically fits the bill of Krypton’s favorite son, turns in a performance not unlike Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades of Grey – all looks and no game. To be fair, Cavill has a difficult task in turning perhaps the most un-complex character in storytelling history into one facing a range of complicated concerns that are only set-aside for a messianic figure.

Another flaw in the movie highlights one of its strengths – the involvement of Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). Not nearly enough time is spent on their character development (I get it, Wonder Woman will have her movie in about a year’s time). Gadot seems to be the perfect fit for the exotic Amazon and warrior who can hold her own with anyone in the Justice League, yet she gets pushed aside in favor of the two titular characters. Then there’s Eisenberg, who presents an interesting take on the notorious super villain Luthor, who oddly enough isn’t bald. Luther creates havoc, and loves doing it. Still, there could be more invested into this conniving and complicated perpetual thorn in Superman’s side.

The next aspect of this money-maker is the big battle scene. Without giving away any of the details, the film essentially joins the Godzilla franchise for a longer amount of time than it needed to. This is not overly surprising since Snyder turned Man of Steel into Dragonball Z for about 40 minutes. Doing so, killed the opportunity to truly flesh out the characters (and probably an inordinate sum of innocent bystanders).

Wait, Godzilla? How do you get into this review?

In conclusion, Batman v. Superman had solid potential – an interesting take on Batman and Lex Luthor – but the execution required to make use of such promise was lacking in many areas. The greatest crime of all is its inability to stand on its own as a movie. For all intents and purposes, it is a transitional piece that will be defined by the movies that follow it in the DC series. That is never a compliment for any cinematic production, regardless of how much it does wonders for Warner Bros.' business end.