Saturday, March 9, 2019

Shazam! (2019) Trailer - Review/Reaction

shazam dc movie poster wallpaper screensaver image picture

Warner Bros. has released the (supposedly) final trailer for the next superhero movie: Shazam!

To readers who are unfamiliar with the titular character, here is a quick intro: Billy Batson is a kid who assumes the adult alter ego of Captain Marvel/Shazam by saying the word - “Shazam”.

Check out the trailer:



Shazam was created in 1939 (a year after Superman) and gave the Man of Steel a run for his money in terms of popularity and sales figures. Powers wise too, he rivals Superman in terms of super strengh, speed and flight. Plus, he can manipulate electricity.

The casting seems to be perfect here. Kind of like Aquaman. Zachary Levi looks to be a great choice for the role. The same goes for Asher Angel as Billy Batson and Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman.

All three of them show excellent comedic timing in their respective scenes. Looks like David F. Sandberg has repeated the James Wan magic of casting actors who may or may not be great thespians, but can bring these comic book characters to life in the best way possible. And the movie looks to be having a stronger sense of humor than Wan's excellent take on the King of the Seven Seas. 



Speaking of Aquaman, a common link between these two movies is Djimon Hounsou who plays The Wizard who grants the superhuman powers to Billy and played King Ricou in James Wan's picture. More trivia: Djimon also portrayed Korath in Captain Marvel (yes the other one).

David seems to be a huge fan of DC Comics. In addition to the obvious Batman reference in the store, there were a couple of shout outs to Superman.


superman action comics vintage poster wallpaper screensaver image picture


  • Shazam catching the bus and placing it back on land safely is a reference to the famous Supes poster.
  • The final scene in the trailer has the line - Leap tall buildings in a single bound”, which is a famous Supes catch phrase. David smartly utilizes this to provide arguably the funniest scene in the trailer.

Of further interest is the fact that the movie includes two cast members from the cancelled Justice League Mortal movie (that would have been directed by George Miller): D.J. Cotrona and Adam Brody. These two actors were supposed to play Supes/Clark Kent and The Flash/Barry Allen respectively. I am curious to see what roles they play in this movie.



Shazam has an extended family known as Marvel Family” and they are making their live action debut as well. Mary Marvel is being played by Grace Fulton.

Finally, we come to Dr Thaddeus Sivana, the antagonist. This is the second time Mark Strong has played a DC comics baddie. He also portrayed Sinistro in the ill fated Green Lantern. To the best of my knowledge, Dr Sivana is pure brains. I suspect that he is playing (temporary) host to Black Adam and is hence able to go toe to toe with the powerhouse known as Shazam. We will see if my theory holds true when the movie hits the screens in April 2019. But come what may, Mark looks better cast here and I believe he will deliver a fantastic performance and leave a much stronger impression compared to his previous DC outing.

After the billion dollar success of Aquaman, DC Films seems all set to continue the winning streak.

Click here to read all my posts about DC Comics.

Image Sources: Warner Bros., DC Entertainment, DC Comics, New Line Cinema

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