YMMV / SHAZAM! (2019)

• Accidental Aesop: Billy and Freddy spitting out their beer in disgust (after the robbery scene) is an effective tool against underage drinking.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Billy's reaction to realizing his mother intentionally abandoned him. Is he truly accepting of the reality of the situation, or is he being passive-aggressive in leaving her with what is heavily implied to be another unhappy relationship as a way of getting back at her? In leaving, he does say he has to get back to his "real family." Or is he trying to give her closure, while covering his own pain, assuring her that he's well adjusted and she doesn't need to feel guilty about leaving him?
  • Did Billy's mother truly believe foster care was the best option for him and her distant attitude towards Billy became a Kick the Dog moment? Or did she realize that she was still a wreck, had no time for any meaningful reconciliation and thus all she could do to is crush his hopes so he would move on, knowing that no matter how bad his life was, being with her would be worse?
• Americans Hate Tingle: This movie failed spectacularly in catching on in the normally superhero-loving Chinese market. It made roughly a quarter of what its closest competitor on the schedule, Captain Marvel (2019), made and an eighth of its predecessor in the franchise, Aquaman (2018). According to reviews on their IMDB equivalent Douban, the story didn’t translate well culturally. Billy came off as a brat for disrespecting the Vasquezes and Sivana’s motivations weren’t sympathetic for likewise disrespecting his own father. The very American sense of humor and relative lack of action also failed to translate suitably.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Because this movie was sandwiched between the MCU juggernauts Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, coupled with its smaller scale, many thought it would not find an audience. However, it earned more than its total budget by its opening weekend (relatively modest production costs of less than $100 million and about $40 million for marketing) and performed solidly over projected numbers in the US and other countries in general, with WB reportedly "proud and thrilled" at the results. A sequel was green lit almost immediately and although it got delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, production began in the spring of 2021.
• Angst? What Angst?: Given how long he's been searching, Billy is able put on a brave face when he learns that his mother deliberately abandoned him at the fair, and that his attempts to find her all these years were All for Nothing because she does not want to be part of his life. He leaves the meeting on neutral terms, but it's clear as he walks away that he's on the verge of tears but he's then immediately pulled into battle with Sivana and the Seven Deadly Sins. While the fight appears to provide Billy with some cathartic release and does teach him the lesson that you can make your own family, by the end of the movie, it seems that Billy has come to accept rather quickly his foster family as his own and never brings up the meeting with his mother again.
• Award Snub: While Zachary Levi received a Best Hero MTV Movie & TV Awards nomination for the movie, Asher Angel wasn’t co-nominated alongside him ala the Best Villain ballot for Face/Off years earlier.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The Breyer brothers getting their comeuppance for attacking a handicapped kid is nothing short of satisfying.
  • While the boardroom scene is brutal and nightmarish, seeing Sivana sicing the sins to kill his abusive father and throwing his older brother to his death while throwing their taunts back at them is downright satisfying.
• Complete Monster: In The (Deluxe) Junior Novel, by Calliope Glass, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana is portrayed worse in the novel than in the film. Bullied and disrespected as a child by his family, Sivana was offered a chance at heroic power by the Wizard, but instead tried to embrace the Seven Deadly Sins for their darker, more ambitious power. Rejected by the Wizard for this evil in his heart, Sivana grew up scouring for ways to return to the Sins, and upon finding a way, he immediately embraces the Sins into himself to become a god. Sivana proceeds to slaughter the dozens of people at a Christmas party held by his family, and then tears his way through a mall, endangering many civilians while trying to kill Shazam. Taking Billy Batson's, aka Shazam's, foster siblings hostage and threatening them with torture and death, Sivana hopes to drain Shazam of his powers and then run rampant on Earth as an all-powerful being. Sivana is fully onboard with the Sins's plans to wipe out mankind, and even when Billy tries to empathize with Sivana's past, Sivana just cruelly taunts the boy and reiterates that he was never a "good" person, just one who wanted power.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Freddy skateboards over the line in his very first scene. It's funny when he trolls Billy by telling him that he was thrown out the window and that his siblings fight a lot, only to admit he made it up to see Billy's reaction, but quickly turns extremely dark when he tells Billy that he has terminal cancer. Then he admits that he made that up as well, and it's back to funny again.
• Crossover Ship: Despite the Fandom Rivalry, or maybe because of the rivalry, shipping the two Captain Marvels has been discussed. Oddly, they resort to shipping adult Shazam with Captain Marvel, even though it's still 14-year-old Billy inside. The ones who acknowledge the latter fact took a big boost in popularity once Avengers: Endgame came out and one of the most popular Carol-related memes was joking that she likes younger men.
• Cry for the Devil: Although he's a murderous psychopath who's willing to kill a child, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for Dr. Sivana. As a child he was mistreated by his father and older brother, both of whom called him a "loser", and the wizard Shazam refused to give him his power due to being tempted by the Seven Deadly Sins, even though he was just a kid at the time and didn't know any better. As an adult, his life isn't much better as he still receives scorn from his family and has spent his whole life trying to find the power he could have had. And after he's defeated, he suffers a complete mental breakdown.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The two store robbers who end up being unwittingly used to test Billy's bulletproof powers and are confused and concerned throughout the whole thing. There's quite a few videos of that scene on YouTube.
• Evil Is Cool: Doctor Sivana is incredibly popular among fans despite his relative obscurity in the comics. His cunningness and magic-enhanced superpowers make him a worthy adversary, Mark Strong's performance adds a certain gravitas, and his extremely sympathetic backstory makes him surprisingly easy to root for, even when he's slaughtering innocent people.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "The Real Captain Marvel" or "The Original Captain Marvel", for the people who aren't fond of the name change. "The Big Red Cheese" gets a lot of out-of-universe play and "Captain Sparklefingers" has stuck quickly as well.
  • The term "Shazamily" has been used for Billy and his foster family, especially considering they all get the powers of Shazam in the climax.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Most of the scenes which got deleted for pacing are pretty well-liked, but one that almost everyone agrees should have stayed is the scene where Mary and Billy have a conversation about their respective places in the family after she catches him sneaking out. Keeping it could have probably kept Mary's underutilized character arc out of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot territory.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • In a carryover from the comics side of fandom, many fans are bitter that Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel is using what they consider to be the Big Red Cheese's rightful name, and often bitter towards DC Comics as well for officially renaming him (along with the Wizard Shazam) with the 2011 New 52 universe reboot, which this film is drawing upon. DC/WB are even legally barred from calling this movie "Captain Marvel" because the name is trademarked by Marvel Comics. There is a lot of petty sniping from both the camps, with DCEU fans feeling put-upon due to the MCU's better popularity, with some even fearing that Carol will be cemented as "the" Captain Marvel in the popular mind regardless of Billy's much longer history with the name,^note Billy was created about three decades before Carol and it took four more decades for her to use the Captain Marvel name, just as it also took over seven decades for him to be renamed Shazam; in short, both movies are using recent 2011/2012 revamps and MCU fans being smug about their past and presumably assured future successes, and/or accusing DCEU fans of misogyny.
  • Naturally, this has spilled over to the people involved in the films. David Sandberg was blasted by some Marvel fans after he joked about Apple's unrelated Shazam app being called "Captain Marvel" in-universe, and Zachary Levi said there is no need for MCU and DCEU fans to fight over their movies and people are free to like both, either, or neither as they see fit.
  • There's a significant rivalry with fans of the DCEU incarnation of Superman. Not only has this movie received superior critical reviews than the movies starring Superman, but many fans and critics consider Captain Marvel/Shazam to be a better version of Superman since he comes across much more convincingly as an all-loving idealistic hero even with Billy Batson's increased angst and selfishness or his superhero form's goofiness. The other side often finds the movie too childish and lacking in stakes, gravitas and epicness compared to the first two Superman movies. Hilariously, Superman ends up making a cameo at the end of the film.
• Friendly Fandoms: Fortunately there were fans of both the DC and Marvel version of Captain Marvel who were tired of the antagonism on display and eagerly looked forward to both films. The cast and crew of the DC movie themselves openly supported the MCU movie, assuring fans that there is no need for fans to fight each other. The Captain Marvel cast and crew also supported Shazam!, and Brie Larson and Zachary Levi have been especially supportive and poking fun at each other via Twitter and Snapchat.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Wizard’s tale about Teth-Adam being the first champion turned to evil by the Seven Deadly Sins becomes much harder to watch when Black Adam (2022) reveals that Teth-Adam’s son was the original Champion, and him giving up the power to his dad ends up killing him and sending Teth-Adam into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • Right before the Final Battle, after Billy has shared the power of Shazam with his siblings, he snaps the staff in two to make sure that Sivana will not be able to steal his or the other kids' superpowers as he's been attempting to, which is depicted as an Awesome Moment. Then we find out in the sequel that doing so broke the seal on the gods' realm where the Daughters of Atlas were imprisoned and allows them to escape, causing the entire plot. What's more, Billy gets a lot of flak for this from the Wizard and even his siblings, despite the fact that the poor guy had no idea this was a problem thanks to the Wizard giving him almost no info before gifting him with his magic.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Fans have gotten a kick out of how, despite the torrent of insider reports and anonymous claims treated as absolute fact for most other DCEU films, the news about Djimon Hounsou taking over for Ron Cephas Jones went completely unnoticed until months after shooting had wrapped. This also meant that there are two different "Captain Marvel" superhero movies coming out within barely a month of one another and both feature Djimon Hounsou in the supporting cast.
  • After the Fandom Rivalry about the Captain Marvel name, the film just sidesteps the issue, calling Billy a number of names or titles but neither Captain Marvel nor Shazam (who is, in keeping with tradition, the Wizard), and he is only called Shazam in outside material like promos and merchandise. When he shares the Power of Shazam with the extended Marvel/Shazam Family, the issue of their names is similarly glossed over.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Even though Dr. Sivana does a lot of horrible things and causes several deaths, his sympathetic backstory means the audience can still feel somewhat sorry for the guy while still rooting for him to be taken down. The Breyer brothers, meanwhile, beat up a handicapped kid, so the audience can enjoy their comeuppance with zero guilt. The most hated character however, turned out to be Marilyn Batson for selfishly abandoning Billy as a little kid. Unlike the Breyer brothers however, she gets no real comeuppance apart from being in an unstable relationship that's barely elaborated on.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • A few fans were interested in the film due to Mark Strong playing Doctor Sivana knowing that, whatever the film might be like, his performance would be worth watching it for.
  • There are fans of Chuck and Tangled going to see Zachary Levi in a starring role.
• Love to Hate:
  • Sivana is a sociopathic murderer willing menace children to get his way. Nevertheless, his Cold Ham performance and charisma courtesy of Mark Strong makes him exceptionally outstanding. His relatable backstory also helps.
  • Despite being ruthless bullies who repeatedly assault a disabled kid, the Breyer brothers are very amusing to watch, especially when they meet their downfalls.
• Mandela Effect: Many viewers of the movie have recalled seeing a scene where the Shazamily sits on their thrones, with an ominous glance towards the empty chair that is to be occupied by Black Adam. However, while this scene exists, it was deleted from the final cut and was never shown in theatres. Presumably, this memory derives from the scene where the Wizard first explains Black Adam combined with the scene where the Shazamily gets their powers.
• Memetic Mutation: Now has its own page.
• Memetic Troll: Levi as Shazam with a smug expression has become a very popular image to attach to posts mocking various fandoms and real-world groups, especially on 4chan where using pictures of him in troll posts is known as "Shazamposting." Most often, a picture of him chewing gum or sipping a drink will be attached to a post detailing all the ways an upcoming game, show, movie, or event will inevitably disappoint its fans, and how said fans will backpedal to try to justify their initial hype (e.g. "It doesn't NEED to have split-screen co-op", "It doesn't NEED as much content as the last game at launch", "It doesn't NEED to have a functional netcode...").
• Misaimed Fandom: Detractors of Man of Steel were quick to point out that SHAZAM! is Superman done right. While the tone neatly fits with Richard Donner's and even Tim Burton's take on superheroes, there's a few details that need to be acknowledged. SHAZAM! goes out of its way to be a self-parody of superhero stories, which isn't the most appropriate foundation for an entire cinematic universe ^note  Even the first few movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe played the humour modestly by comparison to their later works . While Billy Batson is played with more levity than Superman, he was still established as less scrupulous until character development set in, while Superman was shown to always be inclined towards doing the right thing and helping his fellow man but conflicted between choosing what was morally correct for others and what was pragmatically convenient for himself. Even when Freddy acquires the powers of SHAZAM, he is quick to get revenge on some school bullies.
• Moe: Darla Dudley and Eugene Choi are absolutely adorable, especially with their glasses. Darla is introduced hugging her new big brother and welcoming him.
• Moral Event Horizon: While Sivana's obsession caused him to skirt the edge with his callous disregard for the death of his head researcher, he definitely crosses the line when he enters the Sivana boardroom and murders his father and brother along with the twelve other people in the room who had nothing to do with Sivana's Dysfunctional Family issues.
• Narm Charm:
  • The movie has been called "corny," "silly," and "goofy" in plenty of reviews. However, it should be noted that in the vast majority of reviews, these are actually noted positives and plenty have gone as far as to compare it favorably to the equally narmtastic but charming Spider-Man Trilogy.
  • Special credit goes to the appearance of Mr. Mind in the post-credits scene. You would never have thought a caterpillar could sound so sinister and unnerving.
• One-Scene Wonder: Mr. Mind's brief appearance in The Stinger.
• Rooting for the Empire: Even when he's doing terrible things, Dr. Sivana has the full force of Mark Strong's charisma behind him, and a backstory that's even more tragic than Billy's, which makes him incredibly easy to, if not root for, at least feel sorry for. Small wonder he's been called one of the best villains in the entire DCEU.
• Signature Scene:
  • A truly momentous scene is when Billy, learning that his foster family is in trouble, immediately heads to the roof and runs off the ledge, jumping into the air while shouting "SHAZAM", invoking the transformation in mid-air then zooming away.
  • The final scene before the credits, Billy basically making Freddy the big man on campus by not only showing up to eat with him as Shazam, but also bringing Superman to dine with them as well, is one of the best remembered scenes in the film.
• Spiritual Successor: The scenes where they test Billy's Flying Brick powers in his new adult body are similar to Mark Millar's Superior.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The Seven Deadly Sins are nothing but generic monsters, who beyond their basic appearance and with few exceptions do very little to embody the sins they supposedly represent. Even Billy expects at least Lust to look different from the rest.
  • Some fans expressed disappointment that Superman's appearance was a mere cameo at the very end of the film, and one done with a Fake Shemp at that.
  • Mary while in her superhero form at the end, has the least to do out of all the siblings, while Eugene, Pedro, and Darla all get at least a moment to shine, despite her being more prominent in the comics. It was revealed that she did have a scene to show off but it was trimmed down for time.
  • Pedro and Eugene are little more than their quirks (quiet, academically-struggling weightlifter and intelligent, trash-talking gamer) and they both barely interact with Billy.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Mary's dilemma over leaving her family in order to attend the college she's worked so hard to attend is presented in her intro and the scene where she is accepted into the college. This resonated with Billy's character arc and could have been used as a complementary theme, however that story element was dropped completely and Mary's problem was never resolved.^note The fact that the Rock of Eternity can be accessed from any door in the universe actually provides a perfect resolution to Mary's dilemma, as it would allow her to go away to college, but still see her family as easily as opening a door. But none of the characters bothered to point this out.
• Uncertain Audience: The movie, or at least the parts focusing on Billy's arc, is probably the most light-hearted DCEU movie ever made and rivals even some of the most light-hearted MCU fare, likely as a response to complaints at the time that the DCEU was getting too dark. Billy's arc is, for the most part, a coming-of-age teen comedy with some action elements, aside from an emotional moment when he reunites with his mother and learns why she abandoned him. However, there are some jarring tonal shifts as David F. Sandberg shows off his horror writing chops, with scenes showing horrific deaths befalling innocent people as Dr. Sivana's powers manifest (something that even most of the darker MCU content hardly touches on), and yet following this the movie immediately switches back to Billy's lighthearted arc. The end result is a film that's way too goofy for people used to darker superhero fare or Sandberg's own movies, but far too frightening for a younger audience that may be attracted to the movie's kid protagonists and lighter tone.
• Unexpected Character: Has its own page.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The audience is meant to sympathize with Freddy's desire to be more than the overlooked, crippled foster kid by living vicariously through Billy as Shazam. However there are times he goes overboard in treating Billy as his own personal superhero "toy" and while they are figuring out the limits of Shazam's abilities, some of the tests he subjects Billy to (without any forewarning) would have been disastrous if Shazam was not completely invulnerable. Plus while he calls out Billy’s abusing his powers and acting like a celebrity, before this he had done nothing but encourage this. Plus Freddy is acting out a humiliation of being shown up by Billy who pointed out that he never agreed to appear. His calling out at a horrible time leads Sivana to the family and it’s lucky that they got out alive.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Some would have preferred that Mary's superpowered form should have been played by Grace Caroline Currey, the actress for her teenage form, instead of Michelle Borth. Fulton already looks like a grown woman despite the Dawson Casting and, in the classic comics, Mary did not transform into an adult superhero form. This was changed for the sequel, where Fulton now plays both forms.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: This movie is considerably more lighthearted than Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but it is still PG-13 and it has that rating for a reason. Many were the parents who didn't get that, took their little kids to see the film, and had to take the screaming, traumatized kids home after the high-octane Nightmare Fuel that is the boardroom scene which ends with Sivana's father being savagely killed by the deadly sin Greed.
• Woolseyism: The "your phone is charged" scene is even funnier with the Cantonese captions, because in Cantonese to fully charge a phone can be expressed as, literally, charging till it explodes, making it look like Billy is carelessly Tempting Fate until it blows up in his face.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: While the general design of the Captain Marvel/Shazam's costume has been well received, there are fans who believe that the outfit proper looks cheap, much like a Halloween costume. When the first trailer dropped, the biggest criticism is that the lightning bolt looked too much like an LED light on some shots and didn't give off the mystical vibe that the character is known for. It is also shaped more like a big triangle than a lightning bolt, with the jagged edges barely noticeable without close inspection.

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