Shazam! (which accounts for the initials of the following characters with their corresponding powers: Solomon (Wisdom), Hercules (Strength), Atlas (Stamina), Zeus (Power), Achilles (Courage), and Mercury (Speed), follows the story of Billy Batson, a foster kid elected by the wizard Shazam to carry on the mantle of Captain Marvel (yes same name, long story.) With the help of his foster brother who's very much into the superhero business, they try to figure out what powers he possess the same way a kid would if he got a new toy. The movie was inspired by Tom Hanks' movie Big (a must-see) and apparently by the tv show Stranger Things (which I did not notice but it would've been really cool if they were able to pull it off), but in my opinion focused a little too much on being a kid's movie as opposed to balancing it with a mature audience. Nonetheless I agree it's a vast improvement from the dark and serious tone set by the earlier movies in the DCEU franchise and hopefully we see continuous upgrades in the sequel like more screen time for the rest of the Marvel family. If I can't get Armie Hammer anymore for the title role, I'd happily settle for expanded storylines for Adam Brody (who at one time was in the running for The Flash, pun intended), Dj Catrano and Ross Butler.

Shazam! is the DCEU's 7th movie in the franchise and as I was trying to recall the last six, I could only get five (I forgot Suicide Squad, or maybe I was trying to forget about it on purpose.) Conversely, I can name all the 22 movies in the MCU including plot points (I can barely recall what happened in the Man Of Steel) and I think this is a testament as to why DCEU is stil struggling to make any significant headway into the superhero franchise box office. They work on titles separately, instead of as a whole that's why we're unable to connect each movie on a single thread. For example, they are replacing Ben Affleck with Robert Pattinson. It may be confusing to see Robert and Gal Gadot (I don't even know what's going on with Henry Cavill at this point) in a future installment of Justice League. Same goes for Zachary Levi. Shazam's slapstick tone is sort of the same as Ezra Miller's the Flash. Even then, there were a lot of missed opportunities in terms of humor. I mean how can you not use Destiny's Child's 'Say My Name' anywhere in the movie at all?

Overall, Shazam! is a decent output and hopefully it's promising potential realized in future installments. What they need now is a Kevin Feige to connect all of these movies together while we're only a few movies in and then they can start giving MCU a run for their money.