Many have loved The Shazam character since his debut seventy years ago, but could this film live up to the high standards placed upon it by the other D.C. Movies?

While they are polarizing, most can agree that the D.C. movie franchise got off to a rickety start. Batman V. Superman was not successful critically, (The Ultimate Edition is amazing though.) and neither was Suicide Squad or Justice League. But D.C. finally started picking up steam with Wonder Woman’s success, and even more with Aquaman. Many weren’t sure if D.C. could keep this stream of successful films going with “Shazam!”, including me.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d even see this movie at first. I like character and I’d seen Zachary Levi in other films and liked them, but there was something about the movie that just seemed off to me. But thankfully, I ended seeing it on April 14th, and I would never regret it.

The movie’s greatest strength are the characters. Each character has a consistent defined personality and it’s enjoyable seeing these characters bounce off of each other.

The visual effects were top-notch, especially with the villains who are all 100% CGI and yet all look completely real.

The film’s aesthetic confused me at first, with some scenes looking like a Hallmark movie, some looking like The Social Network, and the rest looking like Dark Souls. But the look of the movie, instead of distracting me, just showed how good they were at blending all the scenes together in a believable way. Despite many of them not looking alike at all, it never once felt jarring.

One of the only problems with the movie is the tone. It starts off extremely dark and depressing, then goes into Home Alone style humor, and the rest of the tone continues to change rapidly. There’s one scene in the middle that genuinely horrified me,Which makes sense in hindsight considering this director also made one of the Annabelle movies and I really didn’t expect that from a movie that felt so lighthearted and child-friendly from the trailers.

The only other problem with the movie is that the twist after the credits only really makes sense if you pay close attention to this little detail at the beginning of the movie and if you know a good amount about the comics.

On the whole Shazam! was extremely enjoyable. It’s the first movie in a long time where the first thing I thought after I saw it was, “When’s the next one coming out.”