The first Shazam film remains one of the best entries in the DC:EU and I have to say, I think this at least matches it, if not slightly improving on the original. Don't get me wrong, the core character plot here isn't as good (it's hard to beat an origin story), but they did well to both create a new villain that felt a lot more interesting and allowed them to explore the wider lore a lot more, and to still create a central character concern around his whole orphan, found-family status, which worked really well. Love that they brought the parents into the fold as well this time.

As a result, they deftly both kept the strong family dynamic that made the first film work so well, whilst also evolving it (and several of the characters) in meaningful and interesting new ways. And they didn't even resort to manufactured conflict between the siblings, which could have been a really easy option. Though I do think the whole "gay character reveal" was a little, um, oddly shoehorned in. Happy that they did it, just think it felt like they needed to catch up with Marvel, and so just retconned it in without much thought or empathy 🤷‍♀️

Still, I loved the further exploration of the wider mythical side of the DC universe; a solid cameo for Wonder Woman; thought they had some solid (if a bit middle-of-the-road) creature designs; and I'm always a fan of twisted, dark unicorns. Not entirely sure about the product placements though. I guess a film targeted at teenagers isn't the worst place to heavily advertise Gatorade and Skittles, but when they're both central to the plot I do have to question: how big was the funding gap for this movie? 😂 Still, I did laugh out loud (on a plane 😬) at the "taste the rainbow, mother fu‒ unicorn screams" moment 😅