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.

Captain (Almost) Marvelous

Let's do a little math. Confident hero + diverse cast + political relevance + lighthearted banter + story about displaced peoples + strong women = success...right? Considering that all those elements put together form the heart of the MCU's best outing so far, Thor: Ragnarok, yes. The movie blended them together in a seamless, nuanced manner. Thanks, no doubt, to Taiki Waititi's assured direction.

Can this formula repeat itself? I don't know. The first test has not been conclusive.

Captain Marvel opts to repeat the quirky balance between someone in pain struggling to find themselves and maintaining a light and breezy atmosphere. Hell, if we can laugh at someone faceplanting out of a plane when an entire planet is being destroyed, we can certainly laugh at a digitally de-aged Samuel L. Jackson (good luck young actors on breaking through when we can make him and Kurt Russell looking 20-30 years younger without being too noticeable) cooing at a cat in the middle of an important mission.

Well...

I hate to say it, but I think Ragnarok is a bad influence. Opting for humor over tension can be rewarding sometimes. It can also be, meh. Waititi's a great comic. Laughs are his bread and butter. Not so much with the five credited writers on this film. At moments, it's like watching a sitcom without the laugh track. Oof.

What we get, then, is a weird shallowness that is 100% at odds with Carol Danvers's emotional journey. The tone never quite matches the moment. That's unfortunate because Brie Larson knows how to act. She sells the role to the best of her ability. She can't do it alone, though.

The scattered tone feeds into the film's other aspects.

I believe the directors were told to go all in on telling a positive, heartwarming tale about a free-spirited woman who shakes off the shackles of her male oppressor. She has a mind of her own, and she's not about to take crap from anyone. That's awesome. It's an attitude we need to see more often.

Yet, because of the film's aversion to emotional nuance, her struggle does not feel tense or hard or much like a conflict at all. Storytelling needs pain like an Olympic sprinter needs fast-twitch muscles. Without pain, how are we going to care about someone who is essentially an all-powerful being? We know she can beat her enemies in a flash.

All it would've taken was a slight shift away from playful banter towards tension. Just a handful of changes keeps an uneven yet enjoyable flick from nesting in alongside the franchise's best installments.

That said, maybe the world needs a movie where the end is never in doubt, where a woman can buck the system, where unjustly criminalized people can have a hero that leads them to the promised land. Maybe that's where we are right now.

Into the Spiderverse: Six Times the Spiders, Six Times the Fun

A sticky situation. 

My main thought heading into the theater was "Here's another Spider-Man movie." How many have we had in this century? Six mainstream flicks, not counting appearances in other MCU mash-ups like Infinity War. I was hoping for solid animation and some neat, little self-referential wisecracks to tide me through the overblown action sequences. Into the Spiderverse gave me that...and then some.

Sure, we have what appears to be a baseline origin story with Miles Morales stumbling into his powers and a crisis that threatens to destroy the world as he knows it. While the focus remains on Miles, he's joined by five other spider pals -- an older, downtrodden Spider-Man, Spiderwoman, Spider-Man Noir, Anime Spidergirl (?), and Spider-Pig (doing whatever a Spider-Pig does). The multiverse has been thrown out of whack, forcing them to work together to get themselves all back to where they belong.

Each character comes with their own animation style and color palette. Rather than create an odd mishmash that throws the entire scheme off-kilter, the styles complement one another. The anime style amplifies the CGI and vice-versa. I really have to complement the director and the animators on making that work.

When you bring in five characters who are all important, fitting them all in without bloating the storyline can be a problem. Progression and development can sometimes be at odds. This film does what Suicide Squad tried to do and failed: use the comic book concept to introduce the characters. It succeeds because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Yes, there are heavier, thought-provoking moments and they are made all the more effective by the pacing and the constant forward momentum. They are often related through simple moments of observation, not through overwrought dialogue.

Into the Spiderverse reinforced something I've become increasingly aware of: animation remains the superior medium for superhero stories. Both this film and the first Incredibles blow the MCU and the DCEU out of the water. The only live action superhero movie that exists in this rarefied air is The Dark Knight.

Into the Spiderverse is that good.

Whether or not I believe it should get the Oscar for Animated Feature is another matter. I'm torn between this and Mirai, which may not be as fun, but is much more real and heartistic. If either is chosen, I won't complain. If neither is chosen, the Academy will have hell unleashed upon them from this quiet expanse of the internet's wilderness.

P.S. This is the best movie Nicolas Cage has been a part of in forever.