(4 / 5)

What world am I living in? If you wound the clock back to 2012 and say that there’s a new DC cinematic universe coming and Batman and Superman will be the disasters but Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and now Shazam! will be the winners of the bunch, I’d have looked at you like you were bonkers. Yet here we are, a movie about a beloved character from the comics that I’d thought would never get his own movie and if he did it would be forced through that dark or complex filter that DC movies seem to put most of their characters through. I am so happy this is not the case and we’ve got what we got.

Side note, this character was referred to as “Captain Marvel” for a long time, but due to legal reasons, it has been changed to Shazam which adds a whole lot of complications to it. I guess obviously if this movie was out and Captain Marvel that would lead to a very confused audience, both in the movie theaters and in the comic stores.

The setting is not of the dark gritty crime-ridden streets of Batman, the high tech science fiction of Superman, the mythological scale of Wonder Woman but a realm of magic, as in true fantasy magic, wizards, words, robes, and staffs. This gives the character and now the movie it’s own unique tone and personality to distinguish itself amongst its competition.

Our tale begins on a dark snowy night where a little boy is in the back of a car and his father is driving and elder brother is in the front.  The elder brother and father clearly get along and care very little for him. But suddenly the little boy is transported to a deep cave with statues and an old man with a long beard, covered in long robes and holding a staff. This old man is a wizard (Djimon Housou) that offers this little boy great power, but the statues (that represent the seven deadly sins) tempt the boy to take an evil eye, this was a test and he has failed so he is cast out. Back to his old, loveless relatives.

We are then taken to years later and a little boy is at a carnival with his mother, trying to win him a toy tiger. She can’t win the tiger but does get him a compass. While walking through the crowd the two get separated, the boy is taken in by the police and his mother never comes for him, he is alone. Skipping again to years later, now present day and the boy has grown up a few years into an early teenager and his name is Bill Batson (Ashner Angel), he’s been in and out of foster homes for years always looking for his mother. Now he is in Philadelphia and put into another home. This one of the Vazquez, who have adopted many foster children. One of which is Freddy (Zack Dylan Grazer) who requires a crutch to walk but certainly never lets that get his spirits down. 

Now in the present, the little boy in the car has grown up to become Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong). he has been searching for years for a way to get back into that mysterious realm of the wizard, fortunately for him he has now found it and takes the dark power for himself, unleashing the seven deadly sins from captivity and upon the world. So now we have our villain!

So, in his desperation, Billy Batson is taken to the cave and offered the power f the wizard known as Shazam! The powers are mean to be bestowed on a person with a pure heart but Billy is simply a good enough person. So when he speaks the wizards name a bolt of lightning hits him and he is transformed into a full grown man in his very own super suit, light up logo, cape and everything.

It is the casting of Zachary Levi as Shazam that is the cornerstone for the movie’s success. He is so unashamedly a big kid, from his energy to his broad expressions you believe that there is a child working this adult body. 

This movie takes place in the winter and within the gray streets of a city, but it is the characters clothing that makes them pop. Each character has their main color, Billy is red, Freddy is blue, another is purple, another is green and the villain wears black. This is a color move and a stylized superhero one so naturally, people are color-coordinated.

So now that he has been granted the body of an adult and has superpowers what to do now? Test them out! In a montage set to Queens Don’t Stop Me Now where Billy along with Freddy test out his new body and see what its capable of. This sequence is for the audience to learn what powers Shazam has too as well as a simple serving of fun. These are children that have been handed these amazing abilities, of course, this is how they’d go about it.

This movie knows what it wants to be. It knows that it wants to tell a superhero story from the perspective of a child that isn’t taking this all too seriously so neither are the filmmakers. It knows to insert it’s tongue firmly in its cheek. However, this is probably the movie the be the most emotionally heavy, some filmmakers believe that dark equals emotional, it does not, something does not have to be dark it just needs to mean something of great importance to the characters and for you to be able to connect to it. If it’s all dark then it’s just unpleasant, but with the right amount of balancing between colorful and heavy emotional moments, then you have a truly whole experience.

As a fan of Superman and Batman, I am saddened by them getting poor treatment movies, but they have already had their good treatments and left their cinematic mark. It is time for new characters to get their time in the sun and for people to learn about their unique mythos and characters. I wholeheartedly embrace the renaissance of the underdog superheroes getting the treatment they deserve. This movie is fun, dark, emotional and well crafted, like an Ablin movie at their peak.
R

Grief is a powerful emotion. It can cause the most crippling loneliness and make us seek out all possible alternatives to fill the gap that is left when a loved one is gone. But what would it take to bring something back and if they do come back, will they ever be the same? This is the main theme running through Pet Sematary, one of Stephen Kings most acclaimed and celebrated works.

Like
nearly all horror movies this opens with a family, in a car, moving to a
new home. There is the father Louis (Jason Clarke), his wife Rachel
(Amy Seimetz), daughter Ellie (Jete Laurence), son Gage (Hugo and Lucas
Lavourie) and cat Church, these are the Creeds. They are moving away
from the city to Maine where life is less busy and simpler. They arrive
at their new home and take it in along with the forest behind it, that
is cut short when a speeding truck rushes pasts them.

One day while walking through the forest they hear a bang of some kind, then they see children walking inline, one has a little drum, they all have masks of animals on and one is pushing a wheelbarrow with a dead dog in it. They follow the children and see that a few trees have a spiral carved into them and they come to a place called “Pet Sematary” where the local children bury their departed pets. This is when we also meet Jud (John Lithgow). An old man that lives in the house next to them, he’s lived around here all his life and knows about some of the ancient traditions and lore of the land. He quickly becomes a friend to the family.

One day Jud needs to have a private word
with Louis, Church has been killed in a road accident. They decided to
keep it from Ellie deciding to tell her that he ran away. They go to
bury him amongst the other pets but Jud says he knows a better place to
bury him. So they climb a wall of trees behind the cemetery, walks
through a swamp and climb up to a hilltop where he tells Louis to bury
Church and mark it with stones. The next day Louis and Rachel tell Ellie
about Church but she says he hasn’t run away, he came back yesterday,
he’s in her closet right now, which indeed he is.

We
learn that, for whatever reason, when you bury something in that hilltop
they come back. There are ancient folklores about a creature called the
Windego and other stories and theories but it doesn’t matter, the cat
has returned, but not the same, more violent. And so begins the whole
macabre affair and the ultimate sentence of the movie “Sometimes dead,
is better.”

This is a world of old, dark trees, where
mist rolls in and things can emerge and disappear within it, where much
is primitive so crosses and signs are held together with knots. it
invokes an ancient, ritualistic atmosphere to the whole movie. But keeps
it’s shaping simple so they are easily recognizable and can become
symbols for the movie.

King wouldn’t be so celebrated
if his work didn’t have some kind of merit. He has produced his share of
goofy or even not very good products but he is still undeniably a man
of talent. He works best when he creates characters with deep emotional
problems and a situation that highlights human insecurities and layers
it with something supernatural. This is such a material.

As an adaptation, I cannot speak for because at the time of writing this I have yet to read the book. However, I don’t believe this is a detriment to my ability to review the movie. A product should be able to stand on its own, a novelisation of a play should be perfectly enjoyable as it is and not have to depend on its source material. This is a complete story as it is, there may be more details in the book and it may, in fact, be the more well crafted and better version of this tale or maybe the movie improves upon it, I don’t know but either way, it doesn’t matter.

Ironically I recently reviewed Us and wrote
about how horror at its best is not like a hatchet but like a scalpel.
Well, I would say that there are moments of shock within this movie and
they did indeed make me jump with fright. This isn’t the worst thing but
it won’t age the movie well, shocks work once and maybe two more times
after initial watching but after that, you know what’s coming and can
prepare yourself for them. What lingers with you in horror movie, or
really just movies in general, is the buildup and the unseen and the
feeling of dread and anticipation before anything happens. This has
those and they rely upon what the characters have said, the sound and
the unseen before something comes out of the dark and goes bang.

This is a horror movie with a chilling concept at its center, some creepy visuals and terrifying moments, other times when it just goes all out and yells at you with something gross on-screen. King fans will either like it or nitpick the way the material was handled. But from the acting to the production, to the sound and even the ideas that fester within you afterward, I say this is a solid piece of work.

(3 / 5)

Myths and fables are the cornerstones of great narratives. For, if no other reason, they are the oldest stories to survive the test of time. They are journeys and battles of good and evil and are basic but deep so you can throw almost any coat of paint on them you want and they still ring the same emotional core. Not all though have to be set in ancient times. An essence of a story can be picked up and put in almost any aesthetic or time period. Take Star Wars, for example, dark lords, a princess in peril, it takes place a long time ago in a place far, far away, its a fairytale with a science-fiction setting. The Kid Who Would Be King knows this and takes one of the oldest (as well as British) myths and puts it into our modern era with a few new twists and turns.

The
tale begins by telling the tale. Literally, the movie opens with a
storybook opening and seeing illustrations and narration telling the
tale of King Arthur, how it was a time of chaos and dark forces were on
the rise and the people needed leadership, so came a young boy named
Arthur that pulled the sword from the stone and became king of the land.
But his stepsister Morgana was warped by greed and jealousy and sought
to take the throne for herself, so Arthur, along with his wizard Merlin
battled her and then banished her deep within the earth, but she vowed
to return when the land is sick and the people are divided. Then we pull
out of the book and are now in modern times. 

We see a
young boy named Alex Elliot (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) who is late for
school (as it seems all leading children must be when they are the
protagonist in movies). When he gets there his friend Bedders (Dean
Chaumoo) is being bullied by Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna
Doris), he refuses to let his friend be the victim and bushes back,
resulting in all of them getting detention. 

You will
notice that each character is given their own color and has a unique
silhouette. Such detail is important to notice and give credit to
because it helps make the character instantly visually recognizable.
Which, in a movie where the characters are simple and there’s a lot of
running about, is very important. 

While running away
from the bullies after detention Alex runs through a construction site.
While there he sees a sword sticking out of the pillar of a building, he
pulls it out and takes it home. While there he and his friend translate
(through the aid of Google) the engravings on it. It read that it will
be pulled out by the king of the land, they say that this must be the
sword in the stone, which they laugh at the thought of. But when a
strange boy suddenly enrolls in their school and one night a flaming
skeleton soldier enters Alex’s room, almost killing him, he starts to
think that there is merit to some of this. 

This strange
boy is in-fact Merlin (Angus Imrie), the great wizard himself. In the
actual lore, Merlin would age backward so this decision has some logic
and credibility by staying true to the original mythology. Though at
times he does revert into his adult form and is then played by Sir
Patrick Stewart, who both seems to naturally take to playing a mighty,
booming wizard and is clearly having quite a bit of fun with the role.
While he is in this state he brings great gravity and seriousness to the
moments, as well as comedy, though what would you expect from Stewart. So
begins the quest to train, assemble knights of the round table (that is
foldable in one of their dining rooms) and defend the land against
evil. It’s a classic tale that has been told again and again and holds
up. What matters is if it brings something new to the table and how well
it executes its concepts. As has already been made clear taking the
myth and setting it in modern day is something but there are other
examples of this, adding all the modern pop culture references is
something though I feel these are more of a deterrent to the movie. They
are just there for kids to hear and think “Hey they said that thing I
like, yay!” It is something that adds no real substance to the material
and will most likely date it terribly, though this is a movie for
children and it never forgets that so maybe I’m being too hard on it.

Writer-Director Joe Cornish seems to have found his niche in modernizing fables. His first movie Attack the Block,
which I greatly enjoyed, was essentially a fable, just told in modern
London with Aliens thrown into the mix. He writes fast-talking,
personality-infused characters, with plenty of humor sprinkled about and
always stays true to the emotional core of the whole project. If you
enjoy the work of Edgar Wright (who Cornish has been writing partner to
for many projects), particularly his Cornetto Trilogy, then this is the
type of humor, style, and a journey that will appeal to you.

If
there’s a definite weak element to the movie it is the acting. These
are not great child actors, they are the overreacting type you often get
from child actors. When they are shocked or surprised their mouths hang
open and eyebrows raise, when they are upset the eyebrows go down and
they pout their lips. Though I must give credit to Serkis, who is able
to convey pain just through an expression
and without dialog. The best actor within the movie is Sir Patrick
Stewart but that seems unfair to compare these children to this
well-experienced master of his craft. 

I
appreciate the incorporation of real problems with these characters.
Some are insecure, or have to face truths about the world is harder than
they’d like it to be. This grounds it and adds weight to the story, it
makes the characters real in a way that goes beyond simply having them
say what their favorite drink or color is.

This is one of the oldest stories ever told. About a land in need of a hero and a sword chooses the said hero, about dark forces and a group that unites to slay it. it stays true to that core and wraps it in modern day with the lingo and names so that the youth will find it easy to connect with. It does it’s job well and distinguishes itself while doing it.