I’m thrilled to be launching movie and television reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which was released in cinemas this weekend.
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Comics, david f. sandberg, dceu, escapist, review, shazam!, shazam! fury of the gods, superheroes, the escapist | Leave a comment »
I published a new piece at The Escapist last weekend. Since James Gunn and Peter Safran have taken over the running of the DCEU, they have made a number of dramatic cuts and decisions, including the reporting scrapping of the company’s Wonder Woman and Aquaman franchises. There is some suggestion that the entire primary cast of the shared universe is gone, and that the team is starting over to rebuild a new shared universe from scratch.
It is a bold decision, and one that sidesteps a fairly obvious question: why are DC so excited for a shared universe? After all, it was the company’s over-enthusiastic pursuit of that ideal that left their continuity feeling like a mess in the first place. For all the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shared universes are not easy to build, and DC has enjoyed a surprising amount of success with standalone projects like The Batman and Joker. Why is the company throwing everything away to try a strategy that already failed for them, and is showing signs of wearing off for their main competitor?
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: comic books, continuity, dceu, James Gunn, share duniverse, shared universe, the escapist | Leave a comment »
I published a new column at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League this week, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to take a look at the strange and enduring influence of Superman II on the DCEU, from Man of Steel forward.
Superman II is one of the cornerstones of the superhero genre. It was the first big superhero blockbuster sequel, setting the stage for the franchises that would follow. It was the first depiction of the urban devastation that has become a fixture of the modern superhero spectacle. However, what makes movies like Man of Steel and Zack Snyder’s Justice League so interesting is the extent to which they interrogate and explore the fantasy presented in Superman II.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 9/11, dceu, deconstruction, devastation, exploration, general zod, justice league, man of steel, richard donner, superheroes, superman, superman 2, superman ii, superman returns, violence, zack snyder, zack snyder's justice league | Leave a comment »
There’s a lot to like about Shazam!
Most obviously, there’s the sheer joy that the film takes in live-action superheroics. It is, of course, something of a cliché to suggest that a certain film or television show “makes superheroes fun again.” Even just among the recent crop of superhero cinema, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Incredibles 2, Ant Man and the Wasp, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming can all claim to have injected fun back into the genre. (Indeed, for their myriad flaws, the problem with Justice League and Aquaman was not that they weren’t trying to have fun. Quite the opposite in fact.) So it is disingenuous to state that Shazam! reintroduces the concept of fun into the genre.
Dab-bling in superheroics.
However, Shazam! still takes an incredible amount of joy in playing with the tropes and conventions of the genre. Part of this comes built into the premise. While the character of Captain Marvel could be seen as an example of the “flying brick” archetype most effectively embodied by Superman, the most appealing part of the concept has always been his secret identity. Unlike other superheroes who simply change costume to fight crime, the character physically transforms into a superhero through the use of the magic word. Captain Marvel’s secret identity is Billy Batson, usually portrayed as a child or a teenager. There’s something endearing about the wish fulfillment that anchors that concept. Shazam! invites its audience to look at superheroics through the eyes of a child.
The first two acts of Shazam! are (mostly) a joy, an engaging riff on a playful concept that understands a large part of the appeal of superheroes to their target audience. Unfortunately, the film fumbles the ball in its third act. While the relative innocence and simplicity of Shazam! are a large part of its appeal, the climax of the film gets a little bit too boggled down in cynical worldbuilding, indulging in a bloated and over-extended computer-generated fight sequence that feels lifted from a much less playful and exciting film. To borrow an old cliché, Shazam! almost convinces its audience that a man can fly, but it just can’t stick the landing.
Zap to it.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: captain marvel, Comics, dc, dceu, fandom, film, Movie, non-review review, review, sivana, superheroes | Leave a comment »
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