Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * *

Cast: Zachary Levi, Michelle Borth, Djimon Hounsou, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Asher Angel, Marta Milans, Meagan Good, Grace Fulton, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, Stephannie Hawkins, Cooper Andrews, Lovina Yavari, D.J. Cotrona, Natalia Safran, John Glover, Caroline Palmer, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Ava Preston, Jovan Armand, Evan Marsh, Andi Osho, Carson MacCormac, Lotta Losten.

A comic book hero to whom there is no pressure upon, after all the energy, continuing story-lines and precise sense of attempting the immaculate, it is a distinct joy to sit through a film which offers the Uncle Ben wisdom of ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ ethos so beloved by the two dominant houses of Marvel and D.C., but with the wonder of how such accountability can be held in the hands of a teenager in the body of a man, the silliness, the humour and the unrestraint all being explored in equal measure to the pathos of rejection and obligation.

D.C. has not had the best of times in its efforts to keep up with Marvel’s dominance in the last decade, a superiority which is bound to be increased when the upcoming finale of Stan Lee’s child reaches its Phase Three conclusion in Avengers: End Game. A set of films in which Wonder Woman has been greeted with universal appeal, in which Aquaman was lauded for its passion, and yet which saw arguably the worst portrayal of its most iconic hero, Batman, since the truly terrible version starring George Clooney in the role.

Sometimes you can try too hard, and D.C. has arguably stretched itself to do just that, and yet all it really took was for them to take the character of Shazam and bring it once more to the wider public attention, without hindrance of the now lost Captain Marvel name in which became defunct and to which rivals Marvel capitalised upon with greater effect.

Shazam! shoulders the responsibility and humour of the character with tremendous ease, the film benefitting accordingly with Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Mark Strong and Zachary Levi’s involvement in their respective parts; so much so that the join between the noir feel of the latter days films in which D.C. have mixed responses to is blurred, it has the pace and guile of Wonder Woman but also the true comic book appeal that went hand in hand with Tim Burton’s and Michael Keaton’s time on the 1989 and 1992’s Batman films.

Sometimes you can try too hard to thrill your audience, as arguably D.C. have found to their cost, but in Henry Gayden’s screenplay for Shazam! they fight back with meaningful intention but also with a playful upbeat exterior and the passion of responsibility fizzing around as if connected to a Catherine wheel stuck in perpetual motion; a film that refuses to be bound by current convention, Shazam! is compulsive viewing.

Ian D. Hall