The best gag in "Shazam!," about a teenage boy who can alter his body to that of a muscular adult with superpowers by saying the magic word, is when the man-child runs across a giant floor keyboard in a toy store--paying homage to the iconic scene between Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia in "Big" (1988), another film about a kid coming upon some magic that transforms him into an adult body. There's a lot more to laugh at here, too, especially over the youngster exploiting his newfound adulthood to partake in such activities as buying beer in between his exploration of his multiple superpowers. In this family-friendly fare, they even manage to make light of the sexually-perverse metaphor of an old wizard making a boy hold his staff and say his name so that his powers will flow through him. Personally, I didn't care much for all of the references to other characters in the DCEU, including the needless after-credits scenes, but others in the audience I was in seemed to be into it.

Otherwise, "Shazam!" is burdened by the usual formulaic fluff of superhero movies, as well as by some corny hokum concerning home and family. Billy Batson is another in a long line of super-orphans: Superman, Supergirl, Batman, Robin, Spiderman, Iron Man, The Wolverine, et al. Plus, there's the home of adopted superhero children we've already seen in the X-Men movies and "The Umbrella Academy" Netflix series. Perhaps, the worst offense here, however, are the generic villains. I mean, really, gargoyles-come-to-life personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins. Baddies don't get more humdrum than that. This one even opens with the origin story of the supervillain, but fails to develop him beyond his being envious of power.

The bloated script spends time showing us a panhandling man-child superhero rising to fame on social media versus a supervillain who first uses his powers to lay waste to a corporate boardroom, and there's the issue of one of them having their powers handed to them while the other has to go out and earn or take his despite everyone from his father to a wizard telling him he isn't good enough (wait, which one are we supposed to be rooting for, again?), but for all the potential socio-economic issues it could raise and chances it offers to weight in on the nature-versus-nurture debate, let alone the obvious puberty parable, "Shazam!" remains oblivious to all of it. How many generic superhero origin stories are enough? I don't think the DCEU adopting the MCU self-deprecating light treatment of, say, "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014), "Ant-Man" (2015), "Spider-Man: Homecoming" (2017), and, most recently, "Captain Marvel" (2019), is especially novel. Not that I'm calling for a return to Zack Snyder's grim vision ("Man of Steel"(2013), "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016)), nor dare to dream of continuing the days of the un-ironic, noir-infused approach of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, but my true wish fulfillment for superhero movies such as this one would be that they--even if it's just a little bit--grow up.