Author: Brandon Maj

Shazam! Movie Review…

This is the first DC movie that I have been genuinely excited about for about a decade now, and I have to say it wasn’t what i was expecting. The reviews for this film were through the rough 90%+ on Rotten Tomatoes, and that was really surprising me because the lead up to the movie was low expectations because of the very cheesy trailers that we received. This movie really surpassed a lot of expectations for many, and for myself it was much more focused on the character development of Shazam and the theme of family much more than action and CGI pieces.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

I did enjoy Shazam for the most part. We sill start with the bad before the good because there was not much to dislike with the film. My main issue with Shazam was the CGI of the seven deadly sins. The main villain of the film Doctor Sivana had demons that he could summon on command to help him in battle, and I must say… the CGI for those characters was hideous. It felt like a 2005 Nickelodeon movie CGI job. The monsters from Scooby-Doo Skull Island looked better. That being said Doctor Sivana as a villain had some good development that started the movie off with him as a young child given the chance to become the all powerful Shazam, and he showed he had too much darkness in his heart to take the mantle. This drives him mad with revenge to take the power of Shazam which gives a very solid plot point for the villain. Then the only other negative I had with the movie was some of the jokes were very lame and didn’t land at all. Which was a little cringy, but not terrible by any means.

This movie really replicated what Marvel did with Ant Man. A much more light hearted film that revolved more around the theme of family and the development of the main character rather then big budget action scenes. Shazam does an amazing show with the coming of age story of Billy Batson to mature over such a short period of time so he can become the hero the world needs at this given time. Growing up Billy had no interest in family running from foster home after foster home, but after meeting Freddie and becoming Shazam he starts to realize how important family can be. Which was a really nice change of pace of a lot of current superhero films being love interest/power development. The movie also did a very good job in the marketing by not spoiling a very huge plot twist at the end with the whole Shazam family getting abilities. This is something I knew we would see eventually in the movie arch, but I did not expect it in the first film of Shazam which was a very pleasant surprise to say the least.

All in all Shazam was a very enjoyable superhero film that did a very good job at breaking the current mold of introduction superhero films. It definitely is getting the DCEU in the right direction after Wonder Woman and Aquaman’s success. Hopefully DC will continue on this track. I will give Shazam an 84%. It is very fun, family oriented superhero movie, with some very rough CGI at moments, but after that it is a great coming of age story for Billy Batson.

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-Brandon Maj

Captain Marvel Full Spoiler Review…

There have been many concerns revoling around this film for the last couple months now with different statements that have been floating around the internet on what this movie’s real goal was. Some people felt this movie was for political propaganda, and other felt it was purely for a the love of film. As someone who was worried about this bringing in too much politics into a genere of film that we use to escape the tropes of real life I felt the movie did a very good job veering away from politics and kept this to a very modest enjoyable super hero film.

To jump into the problems with the film so we can focus on what was enjoyable with Captain Marvel there werent many issues I had just a couple minor ones. The pacing felt very odd. Not that it was poorly paced, but being very used to slow starts to marvel films with a large lead up and a great pay off. This movie kept a very moderate pace all film that made the pay off not feel as big which was good and bad because I never felt bored, but again the payoff didnt feel as rewarding as other Marvel films. The only other real problem I had with the movie was the action scenes all used a lot of shaky cam, and that didnt allow you to appreciate how beautiful the CGI was for Captain Marvel’s powers. It would have been nice to see a little bit of slow mo ot just clean no cut sction scenes like from Civil War.

This movie did a very good job at suprising me with many different aspects of the film. First off as I mentioned before the pacing of the film was very fresh and different and I never got bored with the slow introduction story of most other super hero movies. I also really enjoyed what they did with piecing together her back story throughout the movie with snippets of her memories since she had amnesia.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

It was a very interesting way they melded her back story into the films plot without making it seem like a big deal untill the end. The entire movie we are told that the Skrulls are an evil race who just want to wipe out all life on earth and are pretty much a terrorist organization of space, and Vers(Captain Marvel) and the Kree are here to keep peace in the galaxy by taking out the Skrulls There is a part in the movie where Captain Marvel is taken in by the Skrulls after a mission went side ways and they were attempting the extract information from her memories, and this gave us a look into who Carol Danvers was before becoming Vers. She thought this was the Skrulls putting false memories into her mind, but we find out later in the film that the Kree wiped her memory when they found her on Earth 6 years ago. Marvel did a fantastic job throwing us for a loopz something I feel we havent really seen throughout the decade of the Marvel Universe. This really though the audience for a drastic change when we find out that the Skrulls are the good guys trying to just find a place to find a home planet. While the Kree are just looking to wipe out the Skrulls. The pay off od the film as I mentioned before didnt feel as rewarding because of the constant steady pace of the film, however it was still exciting. Captain Marvel unlocked her full potential, and we got to see the absolute bad assery that her and her side kick Goose (the cat) did a great job to wrap up the film. The last thing I want to touch on that was really an over arching plot point was the good cop/bad cop theme we had with Captain Marvel and Nick Fury worked extremely well, and it’s something we might see more of kn upcoming Marvel movies since we had it in Thor Ragnarok (Thor/Hulk) Ant Man and Wasp (AntMan/Wasp), and not Captain Marvel (Captain Marvel/Nick Fury).

If you stated for the end credit scenes you might have some questions as well. The first end credit scene brings up to present day with Captain America, Black Widow, Bruce Banner, and War Machine in a lab talking about the pager they found on Nick Fury’s ashes and how the pager just went off. Then the last frame we see Captain Marvel appear and say “Where is Fury?”. I’m sure this will be right where Avengers End Game begins, and now we will see Captain Marvel join what is left of the Avengers to team up to beat Thanos. Then there is one last end credit scene where we see Goose puke up the Teseract, so it was great to have Marvel Studios give us both sides of the story where it all began with the Tesseract, and where we will pick up from with Captain Marvel and the Avengers.

All in all it was an enjoyable movie with not many issues, so I would give Captain Marvel an 7.8 out of 10. Enjoyable film all together. Other then the twist at the end there isnt anything else that I’ll be really thinking about weeks from now. The buddy cop theme really kept me going throughout the movie. It is definatly worth a match. Average introduction movie to the franchise for a character, and I’m sure there will be much more to come of Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel.

Let us know what you thought of our review, or your own thoughts on Captain Marvel in the comments. Make sure go leave a like, and feel free to give us ideas on what our next article should be!

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-Brandon Maj