If you had asked me last year what superhero film I was most excited about in 2019, Shazam! wouldn’t have even been on my radar. But ever since the first trailer premiered last year at San Diego Comic Con, I have been continually delighted by everything I’ve seen from the kid-friendly superhero film. With its latest TV spot, Shazam! leans heavily into the humor and the goofiness of the premise. It’s Big with superpowers, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The synopsis of the film reads,
We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Zachary Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).
The new trailer features some previously unseen battle footage between Shazam and Dr. Sivana, as well as plenty of humor with Levi’s performance as a kid trapped in an adult superhero’s body. We watch him buy beer at a 7-11, and go shopping for a suitable secret lair with his foster brother and best friend Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer). The tagline reads “he’s not so serious”, a reference to Heath Ledger’s classic Joker quote from The Dark Knight.
The film, directed by David F. Sandberg (Annabelle: Creation), is part of a new wave of superhero films that play off of the audience’s familiarity with classic superhero tropes. After a decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and countless other superhero films, the genre needs to diversify to stay relevant. By experimenting with other genres like comedy or horror (or both if you’re Venom), superhero films can stay fresh and relevant in an over-saturated market.
By leaning hard into comedy as well as the family-friendly genre, Shazam! is poised to provide a lighthearted breather from the doom and gloom that accompanies so many DCEU films. After all, given the massive success of DC’s fun-loving Aquaman, colorful upbeat superhero films seem to be the wave of the future.
Shazam! hits theaters April 5th.
What do you think of the Shazam! trailer?
(via Collider, image: Warner Bros.)
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