(Non-spoiler Review) So, I saw Shazam opening night, but have been so swamped, it hasn't been until now that I've been able to draw up my usual review I do on everything. To preface this thing, I think it is first worth mentioning that "Big" is on my top 10 favorite movies of all time list, so the fact that this movie is set up as being "Big" with superheroes made me predisposed to love this thing. With that said, overall, I really liked the movie, but due to a few things I hoped would knock it out of the park falling a bit flat, it did end up a bit short of me loving the movie. Here is a bunch of bullet-points of the things I liked as well as a few of things I didn't.
Pros
-How Director David Sanberg balanced the tones of his horror (his background), Shazam's comic history, a fun comedic tone, while all still fitting believably into the DCEU was pretty amazingly impressive. This was a hard task.
-All the acting was amazing which included all the kids, Billy's foster parents, Zachary Levi as Shazam, and even the villain Mark Strong as Dr. Savana
-The movie was hilarious with the comedic tone bouncing off the horror in a perfect contrasting way
-The villain was not only menacing, but also well-written. Mark Strong put on a great performance
-Everything surrounding Billy's Foster family was a lot of the best stuff in the entire movie
-The family themes of the movie were heart-warming and touching to the point where I don't know how someone can't walk away from Shazam without feeling good and uplifted about what you just saw
-They did this movie with a smaller budget, but it didn't feel that way at all
-They balanced the practical effects with the CGI amazingly well
Cons
-Some of the early-on motivations and why Billy for the wizard passing the powers on to Shazam just fell a bit flat to me and didn't have the gravitas I would have liked
-While well-acted by both actors for what they did, I never felt like the young Billy and the old Billy ever synced to the point where they almost felt like two different characters. I could never mesh-up the more serious young Billy with the goofy Zachary Levi Shazam.
-There were a few big-stage hero moments the movie set up which I was waiting to just knock it out of the park with me whether through the writing, the score, the dialogue or a combination of all of them. However, they just didn't in any of those categories. They weren't bad, but just not great. This was probably the biggest thing that kept me from loving the movie.
Anyway, those are most the big pros and cons of the movie for me. Again, I still really enjoyed this movie and had a ton of fun. Its just interesting because the amazing directing job that made this movie tons of fun by balancing all the tones so well was also the same directing job that couldn't drive the runners home when all the bases were loaded. Actor Martin Cove of Karate Kid fame once said, every amazing movie really needs 4 of 5 of those big moments to make a good movie great. You either hit on them or you don't. This movie was so so close to having 4 or 5, but ended up with 2 or 3. Still, very good directing job overall. Regardless, I encourage everyone to check this movie out as I promise you won't regret it. Like it did for me, it should leave you at a minimum with a positive outlook for DC movies moving forward, especially with Shazam himself. Keep an eye out for my updated DCEU (yeah I know that isn't technically the name now, but I don't care) to include Shazam soon.