Avengers: Endgame

I have to say, this is probably going to be a very difficult review because I think this movie would be hard to fully spoil even if I wanted to because there is so much in this film. So much happens, there are so many characters that's its really amazing that they were able to fit all of it, even into a 3 hour long movie, but good lord they did. And the important part of this is, no matter what downsides I find in this movie it must be notes that this movie is, part the pun, an incredible marvel.

I was thinking about it on the right home that this movie not only was completing an arc set up by its predecessor Infinity War (a phenomenal movie in its own right), but it was putting a cap on a 22 movie franchise. This movie not only had a really cohesive story, it was a celebration of all the movies that had come before it. And I'm amazed that I'm saying this, but this is the Marvel-esty Marvel movie within the MCU, and usually that wouldn't be a good thing, but when you take the sum of all the wholes this movie brings together, this was quite possibly the closest thing to the greatest ending of the MCU we could hope for.

A spoiler review is absolutely necessary because this is a 3 hour long movie with so many things to talk about that I cannot at all talk about in this post. Just know, that is coming. However, because that's the case, this review I imagine might be short, and kind of vague because I'm avoiding spoiling this movie for you. Believe me, it's worth it for this movie not to be spoiled.

I am going to talk some spoilers for Infinity War, but it is the sequel, if you haven't seen that movie, why are you looking into this movie? Go on Netflix, it's streaming there. Watch Infinity War and come back, its the sequel, duh.

The movie picks up essentially right after Infinity War. Thanos completed his goal of gathering all the infinity stones, snapping his fingers, and erasing half of the universe's population of living things.

This movie is the follow up to that. The Avengers who weren't dusted away must come together, lick their wounds after their defeat, and find a way to defeat Thanos and save everyone who was lost.

And... that's about all I can divulge about the plot. There's more to this movie. It's 3 hours long, of course there's more to this movie's plot. But nothing I can say wouldn't be considered spoilers. I can say I loved the way they handled this movie and how they utilized the 3 hours. I can only name two moments in the film that felt slow to me, only one of those two I honestly didn't like. And that's what I'm talking about when I say they utilize their 3 hours wisely. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a scene that wasn't necessary to the plot and for the most part, the movie clips along.

Even the slower moments are building character and telling an interesting story. Are there a few missteps? Yes, and I will talk about those in the spoilers. But overall, it's a blast.

So I don't totally buy the argument that Infinity War was strictly Thano's movie. I think he's a great villain because he doesn't see himself as a villain and you can see his point, though twisted, but I disagree that it was "Thano's" movie.

Despite that argument, this is an Avengers movie plain and simple. Thanos is still really good in it and he really does cement himself as the best villain the franchise, but you're not going to get the same in depth look into Thanos you got last time.

Everyone does a great job overall despite the screen being shared with A LOT of people. Because the movie focuses more on the Avengers, you get the opportunity for Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Ant-Man, and other characters who didn't get a lot of screen time in Infinity War to shine a little more and they do it really well.

I do have to say, if there is a weak link in this movie, it's Thor.

I can't say why, I will talk in depth about it in the spoilers review, but I'm kind of convinced that nobody really knows how to properly use Thor except Taika Waititi. I almost feel like the comic relief Thor came a little full circle and became unfunny again. I wasn't a huge fan.

Like I said, this movie focuses a lot more on the Avengers and while Tony was a big part of Infinity War, they take him and a lot of the characters, original 6 and beyond, to a new and fun place in this movie and I loved it. It reminds you of how much you like the original players.

This movie also gave more spot light to Captain America and it made way too happy. I think he was great but underplayed in Infinity War and it was great to see him with a bigger role again. However, the closest thing to a spoiler is that he does not have his amazing beard in this film and honestly, I could argue that was the greatest casualty of the infinity war.

I think Black Widow and Hawkeye are two characters that its easy to forget how rad they are until they're doing awesome things on screen. You remember how great of characters they are and how underrated the talents of Scarlet Johansson and Jeremy Renner are.

Mark Ruffalo returns as Bruce Banner and he's well done in this movie as well. I can't say why in particular until spoilers but I really liked Bruce Banner as well

I do want to make a quick note on Captain Marvel. I will for sure talk about her more in the spoilers review but I do want to address some things.

I wrote in my Captain Marvel review that I wanted to wait until the Russos got their hands on the character to really make a judgement call on Captain Marvel. I hoped she would get an opportunity to shape a character and gain some favor among fans.

I don't think she was utilized very well in this movie. For a character that was built up as the solution to fighting Thanos, I can't say she was 100% necessary to the plot. She's also not developed any more than she was in Captain Marvel and I don't think anybody is going to change their mind on her based on this movie.You're either going to think she's great, or your going to hate her and feel vindicated because Brie Larson attacked your manhood. Either way, I don't think anybody really wins except for the fact that she is in this movie and it's great that they celebrate every aspect of the MCU.

At the end of the day, Avengers Endgame is a movie for the fans. I think there are a lot of elements of this film that can and will be enjoyed by loose viewers of the MCU, but the real pay off is for people like me who have watched every single MCU film and become engrossed in every individual story line.

I went with some friends who probably hadn't seen as many MCU films and weren't as familiar as I am. They mentioned to me that they were a little lost at certain points. Not due to the overarching story of the movie, but this movie does do some deep cuts and if you haven't watched all the movies or absorbed all of the content from the older movies, you might be a little lost. I was walking out of the theater and there were some women who clearly were not hardcore MCU fans and one of them said, "I liked it, I can't say I knew everyone or why things were such a big deal at certain parts in that movie".

When people say this is a culmination of 11 years of the MCU, they really mean, this is it. Marvel puts everything they have on the table and just goes, here you are! This i all for you, the fans! Yes, the movie is very Marvel-y. Humor in odd places, call backs that only make sense if you've seen previous films, and some slight references to future films, it's almost everything in the past I would hate about Marvel movies. But I think the Russo's (who I'm convinced can do no wrong) utilize nostalgia and humor better than anybody else in their place in the past. While there are moments that don't really help the story but rather are moments for the audience, that's part of why this movie is so entertaining. It's also why this movie is more of an event than it is a movie and again, I am amazed that we got here, and probably will never get to this point again, at least not for another decade or two.

I am so excited to talk spoilers for this movie so get out there and see Avengers Endgame! I highly recommend it if you've seen Infinity War.

But those are my thoughts, what did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

The Umbrella Academy

So I'm actually surprised on how popular this show got in a very short time. When I first saw the trailers for it, I kind of shrugged and guessed that I might check it out if I don't have a whole lot else to focus on. However, the buzz on this show really went off and I got to the point where I thought it was necessary for me to check it out and figure out what everyone was talking about. And oh boy do I have thoughts on this one.

The Umbrella Academy follows the story of 6 individuals who were born on the same day at the same time to women who previously were not pregnant. They are gathered together by an eccentric billionaire by the name of Reginald Hargreeves (played by Colm Feore) who recognizes that most of them have super human abilities and wishes to utilize them to create a twisted Charles Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters called The Umbrella Academy.

The show mainly takes place after all the students have grown up and grown estranged from both their harsh father and each other. However, they all come together when they hear of their father's death. That sets off a series of events that require these individuals to work together to prevent the apocalypse and a shadowy force trying to take them out.

So right off the bat, the show doesn't sound too out of the ordinary. X-Men did the superhero school before, Heroes did the preventing the apocalypse before. None of this on paper seems too ground breaking... and then you watch the show.

Tom Hopper plays an abnormally large giant with super strength who previously lived on the moon. Robert Sheehan plays a gay drug addict with the ability to communicate with the dead. Aiden Gallagher plays a student who teleports his way through time, lives away from the academy for decades then comes back but the same age as the day he teleported his way to the future.

That's only a couple of the main cast and doesn't cover the wacky side characters like the cartoon mask wearing assassins or the Chimpanzee Manservant who can talk and in my opinion was criminally underutilized (voiced by Adam Godley).

As many moments as you could say that it's ripping off other properties, there are just as many moments where you think to yourself, "that's new" or, "that's freaking weird", in a good way.

For example, throughout the show it utilizes a familiar and upbeat pop culture heavy soundtrack, very similar to Guardians of the Galaxy. At the same time, you've got time traveling assassins with weird masks complaining about the bureaucracy and how funding has been cut on their assassin trips.

I have to give the show credit in that there were a lot of WTF moments within the show. I didn't really know where the show was heading next and when they have those wacky moments, I was entertained.

I think I also enjoyed how dark the show could get. It's definitely the epitome of a dark comedy in that there is a lot of serious themes and dark moments in the show that pulls it away from the generic superhero tropes you may expect.

That being said, both those elements of wacky or dark and edgy moments seem to backfire in a lot of places, maybe just as much as they really land in other places.

The show seemed to be trying to throw everything it could at the wall. Some of it lands really well and it's wildly entertaining like the idea of a CGI chimpanzee manservant, a superhero turned actress (played by Emmy Raver-Lampman) who uses her powers of suggestion on her daughter that pushes her into a custody battle, or a previous member of the academy who had the ability to have large tentacles protrude out of his chest and devour enemies. A lot of that is really fun and zany.

On the other hand, the show had a lot of moments that kind of jumped the shark for me or were either too wacky or too dark for my liking. Sending a character back in time for 10 months, have him fight in Vietnam, fall in love with another Soldier, come back with PTSD in a matter of an episode, then get in a fight with Veterans in a VFW to me didn't ride that line of serious dark and edgy story telling with the zany themes very well. Maybe it worked better in the comics, but again, it comes down to a lot of WTF moments. Some of them were so crazy it worked, sometimes it really didn't work. I appreciate the show's commitment to creating something just out of the ordinary in general, but I think they also need to accept the fact that it's not always going to work.

Essentially I feel like this was me the whole show...

I think a lot of the issues could be fixed if I liked any of the characters, but the reality was that these characters are majorly flawed throughout the entire show. Now to be fair, that's not a bad thing. Flawed characters often make for really interesting story telling. And it fits with the theme of this show where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I think with me, the characters worked sometimes, but I was never really interested in the fate of the characters enough to make me blast through this show like I feel I have with other shows.

Again, I appreciate the wide variety of characters displayed. Ellen Paige plays a shy, uncertain of herself violin player with no powers. David Castaneda essentially plays a not so crazy Bullseye from Daredevil who takes the traditional vigilante path in his adulthood. And overall, I liked the cast. I think I enjoyed Ellen Page more as the show went on and the kid who played Number 5 was actually a lot of fun.

 But the show just kind of meanders for 10 episodes and makes their eventual coming together at the end a long awaited but cumbersome finality.

And that's another issue, I feel like this show would have been served better if it was limited to 8 episodes. The story really drags so much to the point where I barely remember the first 3 episodes. Things finally start to pick up in episode 4 and 5 and you get a semblance of a continued plot as opposed to just random gun fights, but even at that point, the show is just tiresome for me.

Oh and it might not be fair to bring this up again since this is a Netflix TV show that I'm sure they didn't have a huge budget for, but I will say again, the Chimpanzee in this show is criminally underutilized.

I'm not even saying he's an interesting character. It just felt weird that you had this wacky zany show that had the great idea to include a British talking Chimpanzee and he's barely in the show. Again, criminally underutilized. The CGI isn't bad though.

If I'm being honest, another reason I became interested in this show was due to the fact that it came out around the same time that I started seeing a buttload of ads for DC's Titan Spinoff show, Doom Patrol.

Since Doom Patrol was doing episodes week by week as opposed to Umbrella Academy dropping all the episodes at once, and both shows seem to have a similar zany wacky take on superheroes, I thought it would be an interesting conversation to watch both shows and kind of compare and contrast.

I haven't started watching Doom Patrol and I don't know if I'm actually going to get through it, but that's just a potential review that could come out in the future... so get ready for that... maybe...

Overall, I have mixed feelings about The Umbrella Academy. I applaud it for breaking some rules, doing something out of the norm, and definitely taking risks. I do think that by the end I was at least a little bit invested in the characters and plot that the last few episodes became more entertaining to watch, but overall, it's a mixed bag for me of good and bad opinions. I don't know if I can whole heartedly recommend it seeing as though I doubt I'm going to be waiting in pure anticipatory delight for the second season to come out. However, I do think I'll watch it eventually. I think there was enough that I liked to delve back into this alternative punk rock super anti-hero show. So overall, a mixed bag.

But those are my thoughts on The Umbrella Academy. What did you think? If you liked it, what did you like about it in particular? If you didn't like it, do you agree or did you strongly dislike it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for shows or movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Christopher Robin

I've always had a low key soft spot for Winnie the Pooh.

I'm not gonna say that it was my favorite Disney movie or story as a kid, but more that it was one of the Disney classics that reminds me of younger childhood and I hold a lot of nostalgia for it. So when this trailer came out, I'm pretty sure I was in tears due to the overwhelming nostalgia and reminder of my childhood. On top of that, I'm a huge Ewan McGregor fan and I actually think a creative idea like this is more the direction Disney should go with its live action adaptations rather than shot for shot remakes like I'm pretty sure the new Lion King is going to be.

I didn't get to the theaters to see it, but when it showed up on Netflix, I knew it was only a matter of time before I checked out this continuation of a beloved children's tale from my childhood.

Christopher Robin follows up on the story of the titular character (played by Ewan McGregor). Christopher Robin has come a long way from the boy who would play with the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Woods. He has fought in World War 2, he has a job that takes him away from his wife and child (played by Hayley Atwell and Bronte Carmichael respectively), and he is just stressed.

And right when he needs it, a familiar silly old bear shows up at his doorstep.

The rest of the movie is Christopher interacting with Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) and finding his way back to the hundred acre woods to realize the importance of the imagination, being a child, and taking a break from work and being with those you love.

The familiar cast of characters from Piglet (voiced by Nick Muhammed), Eeyore (voiced by Brad Garrett) Tigger (voiced by Jim Cummings), Rabbit (voiced by Peter Capaldi), Owl (voiced by Toby Jones) and Kanga and Roo (voiced by Sophie Okonedo and Sara Sheen respectively), all return to help Christopher Robin on this adventure and it is pure nostalgia sap.

I guess one criticism of the movie you could have is that there isn't a whole lot of substance. It's filled with a lot of moments that'll make you go Awwww, and you may tear up if you're the sentimental type, but the truth is, this movie is a lot of cotton candy and not a whole lot of filling to it.

Is it meant to be a ground breaking epic tale? No. It's Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh was always about simple themes and messages and I kind of appreciated that the movie wasn't trying to be anything more than it needed to be. The movie barely runs 90 minutes so it clips along pretty well. Just don't expect this to be a Disney magnum opus. It's cute, it's to the point, and honestly I liked the ability to throw some modern whimsy into these classic tales years later.

I think the thing I appreciated about this movie was how simple it was a yet how invested everyone seemed to be in it. Everyone from Ewan McGregor, Hayley Attwell, to all the great classic and new voice actors for the inhabitants of the hundred acre woods do a perfectly serviceable job.

I think Christopher Robin is just a fun feel good movie that is available on Netflix. If I had to go back I'm still not sure if I would go see this one in theaters, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to see it on Netflix. If you have Netflix, check it out. It'll make you feel good. It's simple, it's not that long, and it'll probably put a smile on your face, especially if you've got a soft spot for Winnie the Pooh like I do.

But those are my thoughts on Christopher Robin. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Barry (Season 1)

I am really bummed its taken me this long to talk about Barry. This show fascinated me but I never had an HBO subscription. Well thanks to Game of Thrones coming out this weekend, I got the chance to watch all of Barry and I'm almost a little disappointed that I blasted through this show as fast as I did because it is hilarious. I actually watched the first four episodes on a plane last year and I've been itching to watch the rest of it so I finished it in two days.

Barry is a dark comedy series directed and starring Bill Hader as the titular character, Barry, a former Marine turned Hitman. He works with an old family friend by the name of Fuches (played by Stephen Root) to kill "bad people". But from the beginning, Barry seems dissatisfied with his life.

But when he goes to Los Angeles to carry out another hit, he follows his target to an acting class led by the most stereotypical acting coach, Gene Cousineau (played by Henry Winkler). There Barry realizes that he finds a lot of joy in acting and wants to quit the world of professional killing and become an actor in Los Angeles. Obviously Fuches isn't happy about this but this also builds tension with the Chechan mob who hires him to kill people in Los Angeles and start a gang war. A lot of stuff happens in a very short amount of time including a LAPD detective by the name of Janice Moss (played by Paula Newsome) investigating the death of Barry's first hit, as well as Barry developing feelings for a prima donna in the class by the name of Sally (played by Sarah Goldberg).

Good lord there is so much to like about this show. First off, it's hilarious!

Let me disclaim that statement by saying that this is a show about a hitman and it's on HBO. There's going to be dark moments and when they're there, they're really there. But I think that only shows the range of someone like Bill Hader. There are a lot of moments in this show that are just down right funny and made me laugh really hard. It juxtaposes those dark moments with funny moments to make this perfect blend of funny, dark, serious, and tear jerking. And like most good shows, it's all about the characters.

Bill Hader is not the person you'd immediately think of when you think drama but he really flexes his acting chops in this show to the point where I really want him to delve into more serious roles more often after this. And yet, he's still super funny.

Barry is a good example of a lot of the characters in this show because he fits the stereotypical archetype that a lot of HBO characters follow. He's both a character that you get to know and really like and yet he does some terrible things in this show. I mean he's a hitman! And I think there's a pretty good reason he won an Emmy for this role, because in the 4 hours of television this show provides, you feel an incredible range of comedy, sadness, badassery, pity, joy, and a touch of evil from this character that makes him incredibly complicated.

The character of Sally is another good, maybe not as extreme, example. She's not a hitman, but she is kind of an asshole. She's self centered, she treats a lot of people around her like shit in pursuit of her own selfish goals. But at the same time you like her because of some of the shit she goes through. You like her because you do see some good in her and you want her to succeed in spite of those bad qualities I listed above I've dated women like her so maybe it's a little too real for me, but she also brings a wide range of character development and different emotions to the character that I loved every minute of her on screen.

And the two of them together, forget about it! These two work really well together because they are so different and yet it just works. I don't know if I ever thought I'd be watching a show about a hitman who wants to become an actor but for some reason it works really, really well.

The show is divided into two worlds. The acting class and Barry's mob connections and while both of them are funny for their own reasons, it's when they bleed over where it gets funny as hell and that's supported by the characters around the main characters.

Henry Winkler of course is really funny. He brings a heart and oblivious soul to the show that works really well. He heads the acting class full of the most oblivious but hilarious set of characters who you would see as the most stereotypical kids who leave their comfortable worlds to become actors when they have not business doing such things.

Stephen Root I think is an actor who I think it wildly underrated because he just shows up in a lot of things and while he's not very memorable a lot of the time, he's never bad. He plays the sort of devil on Barry's shoulder and I thought the relationship between those two were fantastic.

If there was a "weak link", it might be the Chechans. I say weak link because there's so many great parts about this story and all the characters work really well together, I just don't know if I liked these guys nearly as much as the other characters. Anthony Carrigan plays the completely bald one and he's the funnier of the two, but even him I go in and out on whether or not I was entertained by his oddball character, just like his accent.

I think one thing that I found interesting that with most plots it feels like stories are built on the idea of how many things can go wrong and end up right in the end. With Barry, without getting too much into it, it's almost about how many things can go right and then end up going wrong in the end. I think that was one of the underrated parts that worked for Barry was the cat and mouse game you'd expect when you have a criminal trying to evade being caught which Barry does for a lot of the show.

As I'm publishing this, the second season of Barry has already begun on HBO and I'm not totally sure how I want to approach it.

The episodes are only 30 minutes long but at the same time it feels like there is so much packed into one episode that it finds that perfect balance. So my dilemma is whether or not I watch these episodes as they come out week by week, or if I wait until all the episodes come out and watch it like a 4-5 hour long movie, one episode after another.

I'll give an update on that when I do my review of season 2, but the overall thing you should know about Barry is that it is hilarious, it's incredibly well acted, and it's an exciting mixture of stories that on paper you wouldn't think would work well together, but in fact are perfect for one another. If you have the chance to check out Barry, do yourself a favor. It won't take that long to get through the first season and you'll be like me wishing there was more right now.

But those are my thoughts on Barry Season 1. What did you think? Are you more of a binge watcher or a week by week episode watcher? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Shazam!

Up until pretty recently, Shazam was very low on the list of superhero movies I was interested in for a couple of reasons. The first was, I'm not a huge fan of Shazam as a character. Granted I haven't looked into the character that much but he was the least interesting in the Injustice Games. I also wasn't really interested because Shazam never felt like it made sense in my mind. Compared with the trouble track that DC has been on, I both had low expectations due to the fact that DC hasn't had the greatest track record and I didn't believe that this movie was gonna tie in very well.

Then I saw the trailers, and Aquaman came out, and I just felt a vibe of excitement around this movie that I hadn't seen for a DC movie in a while that I thought was really interesting. So by the end of this (honestly pretty shitty) week, I just needed a good comedy that was gonna get my psyched and Shazam! was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Shazam! follows the story of Billy Batson (played by Asher Angel), an orphan who is prone to getting in mischievous trouble and is on the look out for his mom. He's a good person but you can tell he's mischievous and looking out for himself. He gets placed in a foster home with a really nice couple running the home and a band of lovable misfits who populate the house with him. I really wanna talk about them in a little bit.

He also meets another foster kid by the name of Freddy (played by Jack Dylan Grazer who you might recognize as Eddy Kasbrack from IT). Freddy is obsessed with superheroes and the two become a mismatched duo. Billy is looking to run off again while Freddy tries to make friends and make Billy apart of the family.

Then one day, Billy finds himself transported to another dimension and offered the power of an old wizard (played by Djimon Hounsou). The way he obtains his powers is to say the name of the wizard, Shazam, and Billy is transformed into an adult super hero (played by Zachary Levi), but still maintains the mind of the 14 year old Billy.

One really interesting about this dynamic of the character being split between a child and Zachary Levi is that it never felt like Zachary Levi or this kid were playing a different character. Even though Asher Angel turns into Zachary Levi, it never feels like it's a different character. Billy becomes an adult and has that ability to help people but he still sees it like a 14 year old would. And Billy is a flawed character which makes him a good character and the fact that he doesn't jump straight into being a super hero makes this character interesting and fun.

The other thing that I really liked about his character was the magical elements behind his superpowers. There's the typical YouTube montage of him discovering his powers that you see in the trailer, but they're able to set up a really cool mythology and backstory that just feels epic no matter how comedic this movie is. Also, every time Billy yells Shazam! it just put a smile on my face.

Of course every hero needs a villain and the villain in this film is the evil Thaddeus Sivana (played by Mark Strong). There's a backstory to his character and I actually kind of dug him as a villain. Mark Strong just has the ability to play a villain in his sleep so if he had just shown up, looked the way he does and said, I'm the villain, it would have been fine. But you understand the villain and where he's coming from. Almost to the point where you can relate to him.

Now is he the strongest villain in a superhero movie ever? No. Will he go down as one of the most memorable of villains? No. But he definitely doesn't need to. This is a good example of taking hints from Marvel and developing a really good story and a really interesting, likable main character. And they do that with Billy Batson.

On top of that they're able to do that with his foster family.

This was the part of the film that I wasn't really expecting and what I really enjoyed. In the beginning when this foster family is being introduced I was like, "Oh crap, I'm gonna really like these people aren't I?". And it's a really good element of the story. They set up these characters very quickly and there's still things that would be nice to know about them, but they do it so concisely and quickly that you feel like you know them already and you really enjoy them every time they're on screen interacting with Billy, in both versions of himself.

But of course, the main relationship worth talking about is the relationship between Billy and Freddy.

I just loved these two, both when Billy is an adult and when he's a kid. Jack Dylan Grazer is a really good actor with a great future ahead of him and the way that Billy is written and the consistent character between Asher Angel and Zachary Levi works really well to create some great chemistry between the two characters.

These two's relationship as well as the family really create the heart of the movie. There is a fantasy element that was really well done and something I would absolutely love future films to delve into more. The overall fact is, I want to see this character come back. I actually felt like the movie was the strongest when it was it's own thing. There aren't a whole lot of references to the DCEU and the mentions that are in there felt a little forced, but I love how this movie doesn't feel like it ties into Aquaman or give an indication that Shazam is going to appear in a future Batman movie. He could and I think that'd be fun, but I'm fine with this just being its own thing.

There are a couple of issues with the film. There are a couple of plot points that don't really go anywhere and the character development that gets characters from feeling one way about something to feeling another way is a little clunky. The story is also a little bit predictable at times, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If you're building off of something that has proven to work and are able to make it feel new, it doesn't bother me too much.

Overall, I really, really enjoyed Shazam! This is a movie that I feel like I'm going to want to own instead of wait for it to come to a streaming service. This movie was fun and gave more credence to the idea that DC is turning things around. I'm still a little bit skeptical that Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam are just a lucky streak, but that's becoming harder to argue. I really hope that this new direction works for DC and I can actually come into these movies with higher expectations and be satisfied.

But did you see Shazam? What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of the blog.

Thanks for reading!