Shazam! (2019)

  Another step in the right direction for DC!

Billy Batson (Asher Angel) has run away from 23 foster homes looking for his mother (Caroline Palmer) who lost him at a carnival when he was a child.  He is placed with Victor and Rosa Vasquez (Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans) as a last-ditch effort to keep him off the street.  In the group home, Billy is latched onto by Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), a fast-talking, wisecracking superhero fanboy, who is the closest thing Billy's ever had to a friend.  A friend he needs more than ever when a mysterious wizard (Djimon Hounsou) gives Billy the last of his magical power, transforming him into the adult Shazam (Zachary Levi).  Billy and Freddy immediately put the new powers to use, turning Shazam into a viral social media star but Billy's inability to trust others threatens to break up their dynamic duo just as failed magical candidate Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) arrives to destroy the powers of Shazam for good. 

I think this film should be enshrined in the same pantheon as The Goonies, Stand by Me, and Monster Squad as teen boy movie tributes.  Male friendship is front-and-center along with explorations of different kinds of masculinity, transitioning from boy to man (literally and figuratively), and the impact of positive and negative male role models. 

It is by far the funniest DC movie to date, and unlike previous attempts, the humor feels seamlessly integrated into the film.  Levi has always been a great comic actor but Grazer is less than half his age and able to match him beat for beat.  That kid is going places.  Angel has more of the emotional burden of the character to carry and acquits himself well, even if that necessarily makes him less fun.  Strong is really just a phenomenal all-around actor, capable of humor, pathos, and menace. 

This is the first DC film that I would comfortably recommend taking older children (like 11+) to see.  Some of the Seven Deadly Sins might be a little much for younger viewers but there's really not a lot of actual shown violence and maybe only two instances of the word "shit".  They didn't even use their one allowed f-bomb.  There's a mid-credits and a post-credit scene as well, but the post-credit is kind of worthless frankly compared to the mid-.