‘Shazam!’ Review Round-Up: DC’s Latest Electrifies Critics

Following the success of Aquaman, it seems that DC has another hit on its hands with Zachary Levi’s Shazam!.

Shazam! hits theaters in just a few weeks and now critics have finally been granted the ability to post their reviews. Aside from 2017’s critically and financially successful Wonder Woman, the films of the DC Extended Universe have received mixed reviews from critics since 2013’s Man of Steel. Luckily, it seems that Zachary Levi’s Shazam! is already winning over critics. Here are some excerpts from the first wave of Shazam! reviews:

Heroic Hollywood‘s Nick Kazden:

“There are a few nit-pick worthy things that anyone searching for too much reality in their comic book movies can fixate on, but Shazam! is delightful and charming from start to finish. The constant influx of superhero movies has left me, a lifelong comic book reader, a little jaded to the burgeoning genre, but I’m genuinely excited to see what happens next for Shazam and the rest of these characters.”

Forbes‘ Mark Hughes:

“Shazam! is somewhere between Wonder Woman and Aquaman in that regard, not as big-scale as either of those films but with the character-focused emotional heart of Wonder Woman and the humor and popcorn action fun of Aquaman, with a modest dash of the original Superman: The Movie and a little splash of Ant-Man thrown in. It’s warm, funny, sad, uplifting, heartbreaking, and all-around terrific fun for everybody.”

IGN‘s Jim Vejvoda:

“Shazam! is as liberated a comic book movie for DC as Deadpool was for Fox-Marvel, not in the latter’s profanely meta way (though Shazam! very cheekily acknowledges its place in the DC film universe established with Man of Steel) but in a similarly hilarious, lovable, and oddly sweet manner. The movie makes you understand why Shazam — while never an icon on the level of Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman — has endured for eight decades.”

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman:

“The movie, in other words, is ‘Big’ in tights. And it’s Zachary Levi who makes that work, in much the same way that Tom Hanks did. Levi doesn’t play Billy as a callow kid; quite the contrary, he’s intelligent and jackknife fast. But Billy completely lacks an adult’s sense of guile, and Levi uses that innocent quality to take the superhero stuffing out of the material — and to let Shazam discover his identity in a way that makes this the freshest origin story in some time. There’s an infectiously witty montage, set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” (a nod to the Queen-scored “Flash Gordon”?), in which Shazam tests out his powers in a series of YouTube-ready videos.”

Gamespot‘s Michael Rougeau:

“It takes a ton of inspiration from the comics, as well, and embraces its roots rather than trying to make everything grimly realistic. The wizard is a wizard, with flowing robes and tangled grey beard. It’s silly, but the movie also has a 1980s Spielbergian adventure vibe–think Goonies, Labyrinth, or Neverending Story. It owns its campiness so confidently that the significant amount of Shazam mythology it occasionally info-dumps on you goes down fairly easily.”

Screenrant‘s Molly Freeman:

“It’s a fairly typical origin story as far as superhero movies go, though Shazam! has a new twist because we get to experience it through the eyes of two kids who are more full of wonder and excitement than responsibility.”

Directed by David F. Sandberg, Shazam! stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Fulton, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Cooper Andrews, Marta Milans, and Djimon Hounsou.

We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (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 (Strong).

Shazam! will be released in theaters on April 5, 2019.