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shortmantall
Reviews
Shazam! (2019)
Can I say another word? Any other word?
So here we have the first DC movie in a long while that is better than they have been and yet still there are still bugs in the screenplay that nobody has addressed.
This film is funny and really funny and human and the character largely are charming which has this going for it.
Shazam also has the right colour palette for a DC movie and yet despite all this I wasn't involved in the story and I wasn't entertained as much as I should have been.
Starting with the villain always pleases me but in this film the villain's story is only reduced to a handful of ineffectual scenes.
I was happy to see John Glover in the opening and (only one) other scene. It was nice to see him because of his history portraying DC villains but only having him in two scenes was poor because it meant Mark Strong's character wasn't as effective as he could have been.
Not to mention that Mark Strong and Zachary Levi don't meet for well over an hour which is a problem because it means the film doesn't have the necessary conflict that it should - funny, yes but not dramatically pleasing.
This is because Zachary Levi doesn't appear for nearly 50 minutes.
Some movies are only 80 minutes and to do this is rubbish because it doesn't leave much room to play with the hero and the villain.
The film has to then do the superhero villain stuff in under and hour which is rubbish and means that everything is shoehorned in badly because there hasn't been the space to do this properly.
There are some dramatic tools that are vital for any story - these are 'power of three' and 'power or status play'.
These tools as far as I can see are not present and this also made the film for me bland and boring.
I will add these tools were used in Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad.
So for me this film wasn't dramatic enough, despite many great gags.
Having seen the cave for a couple of times undermined the surprise for when Billy Batson ventures into the cave and took that power away for me.
The last things I want to say about the film which annoyed me greatly.
The first thing is how predictable the film was.
I knew that the climax would feature the cave somehow and it did.
I knew that when Shazam is helping with the convenience store robbery that they would go for the face.
I literally said in my mind - what about the face?
I knew that the mother left because raising a child was too much and like John Glover only having one other scene did not do the drama any favours.
There was a scene where Billy and Freddy are arguing and Freddy has just got his lunch and then for no reason, unexplained, explored or made a note of it - just bins his lunch.
Surely he would have paid for it or is hungry?
I understand that he wants to talk to Billy but what a rubbish, annoying piece of storytelling.
Also as great as the other foster kids were - there just wasn't enough of them and here is my problem with the film - it tries to do too much too late and then too quickly.
There are so many bugs in this script that needed to be edged out.
I will say that people like it and it's doing well - so what do I know? But I really do want to say any other name... Shazam was disappointing, worse, it was boring.
Flakes (2007)
I want to work at Flakes
The best compliment you can give to flakes is that you'll want to work there and believe me I did. The place looked fun and full of life. This film has a similar premise to Empire Records and in some ways I prefer this one as I found it quirkier and more indie. I love Indie films because they function in a way that is all their own. I don't mean that every single indie film functions in the same way, what I mean is one indie film is different from another. Much like Empire Records the subject (the shop in question) just looks like a fun place to work.
As for the film, it was really clever, fun, warm, idiosyncratic and very much enjoyable from start to finish. Aaron Sanford shows he can act and of course Zooey Deschanel, picture perfect as always. The most impressive thing you can say about these two in both the writing and performance is they went beyond the chemistry of these two characters and took it to another place by having them have a dynamic. It was there in the writing and in the performances. Simply having the couple not let the work dynamic get in the way of their personal life and in a way does in simple subtle ways is a joy to watch and what I mean. The rest of the cast do fantastically well as well. It's nice to see Christopher Lloyd too.
The other aspect of the film I loved was the set design and soundtrack which brought it to life. On the whole this was a superb film with heart and soul and brains to match.