Shazam!: It's evident that Shazam! was designed to be the most lighthearted DC film to-date. Nothing says "we're moved from our days as the bleak superhero movie universe" like the dude from Chuck (aka Zachary Levi) doing The Floss and walking around crowded malls charging people's phones with the lightning bolts that come out of his fingers. For a while, Shazam! successfully commits to DC's mission statement. The humor is generally well-conceived and Levi does a good job of selling the goofiness and immaturity that just about every teenager would display if they were suddenly gifted with the ability to turn into an adult superhero on command. Things starts to unravel around the halfway mark when the rapid tone-shifting messiness that has plagued most of the recent DCU titles comes in like a god damn freight train. A surprisingly strong dose of corny family melodrama and some horrific overacting from Mark Strong as primary antagonist Dr. Thaddeus Sivana completely undermines its attempts to be a self-aware piece of superhero satire. Not to mention, director David F. Sandberg (Anabelle: Creation, Lights Out) handles the limited action setpieces with the grace of a non-trained dancer attempting to perform Swan Lake after sucking down a gallon of jungle juice. After the cohesion and confidence of Aquaman, Shazam! represents a disjointed and disappointing step backwards for the up-and-down DCU.
Grade: B-
Hellboy: Reimagining Hellboy as an over-the-top R-rated splatterfest was a great idea... on paper. The beauty of this unfiltered reboot goes to hell (no pun intended) when the onslaught of gore is rendered almost completely indecipherable through choppy editing and only one actor (Mila Jovovich, who portrays a recently-resurrected ancient British sorceress looking to infect the world with a lethal plague) from the ensemble decides to fully embrace the monumental absurdity present in the story. Is it a completely joyless exercise? No. The comical plot twists and a couple of respectable hack-and-slash fight scenes makes things entertaining in spurts, but the choice to play material that is so profoundly stupid and corny (mostly) straight makes the proceedings a lot less fun than they should be.
Grade: C+
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