In 2019’s “Shazam!,” teenager Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) life took a metaphysical turn when an ancient wizard Djimon Hounsou), protector of the realms from the Seven Deadly Sins and keeper of the Rock of Eternity, plucked him from obscurity to transform into superhero Shazam, the adult champion of the world.
In the new film, “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods,” set two years after the events of the first movie, Billy still grapples with his superhero alter ego (Zachary Levi). “I’m an idiot,” he says. “I don’t deserve these powers, if I’m being honest. Like, what am I even contributing? There’s already a superhero with a red suit with a lightening bolt on it. Aquaman is literally huge, and he’s so manly. And Batman, he’s so cool. I feel like a fraud.”
This new adventure sees Batson, and his foster siblings, who also transform into superheroes by saying the magic word “Shazam!,” pitted against their most ferocious foe yet, the Daughters of Atlas.
“We are at war,” says Hespera (Helen Mirren). “We will annihilate everything. The champions of this realm can do nothing to stop us.”
The Daughters of Atlas want to strip the Shazam gang of their powers but as they do that the fate of the world hangs in the balance. “You are very menacing,” Shazam says to Hespera. “I just want you to know that.”
At its heart “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods” is a coming-of-age story. Billy begins the movie insecure, a victim of imposter syndrome. Unfortunately, as his confidence grows, so does the movie’s tendency to clutter up the screen with busy CGI, heaping helpings of mythology and not-so-subtle product placement. (They even manage to find a way to work in the Skittles “taste the rainbow” slogan.)
The best elements of the first film are present. The focus on family—finding your logical, if not biological family—the humour and Levy’s manchild performance as the title character, provide the film’s heart but the effort to make the sequel bigger-and-better overshadow the more organic, pleasing parts of the story.
It is a blast to see Helen Mirren channel her inner Shakespearean villain as Hespera, and some of the Ray Harryhausen-inspired creatures have a cool, “Famous Monsters of Filmland” retro appeal but, in general, when it comes to “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods,” bigger is not better.
Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show to talk about the history of the Ernest Hemingway Daiquiri, how Rotten Tomatoes works and whether “Luca” on Disney+ is worth your time.
Set on the Italian Riviera, “Luca,” the new film from animation giants Pixar and now streaming on Disney+, is a fantasy story about sea monsters with a beating, human heart.
Jacob Tremblay is 13-year-old Luca Paguro, a shy sea monster with a typical teenager’s curiosity. When he discovers items that have floated down from the surface he wonders what the world outside the sea has to offer. Despite the stories his parents, Daniela (Maya Rudolph) and Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan), have told him of fisherman and the horrors of dry land, his free-spirited best friend Alberto Scorfano (Jack Dylan Grazer) has been above the water line and convinces the shy Luca to check out the terra firma,
On land, Luca and Alberto, who look like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Sigmund Ooze of 1970s Saturday morning television fame, transform from underwater creatures to human form. Blending in, they explore the seaside town of Portorosso, discovering the pleasures of pasta, gelato and most of all, the Vespa. The town bully Ercole Visconti (Saverio Raimondo) sets his sights on them but a young girl, Giulia Marcovaldo (Emma Berman) befriends them and has an idea that may help them get their very own Vespa.
“Luca” is a fanciful coming of age story. The very specific story of sea monsters who aspire for more in their lives, has universal messages about find commonalities not differences, anti-bullying and never giving up. The morals are a bit on the nose—”Some people will never accept him, and never will, but he seems to be able to find the good ones.”—but they are kept afloat with imaginative animation and a simple story that zips along.
At its cold-blooded little heart though, “Luca” is about friendship. The kind of bond that happens between kids who are just figuring out the world and its possibilities. Director Enrico Casarosa, who directed Pixar’s 2011 Oscar nominated short “La Luna,” aided by fun voice work from Tremblay and Grazer, captures the youthful exuberance needed to make the story work.
“Luca” doesn’t have the emotional resonance of classic era Pixar—think “Up,” “WALL-E” and “Ratatouille”—but what it lacks in gut punch sentiment, it makes up for in imagination, action and the good-natured look at finding a place to belong, above and below sea level.
The first instalment of “It,” Stephen King’s scary clown epic, was about overcoming fears. Specifically, the shape-shifting Pennywise the Dancing Clown a.k.a. It (Bill Skarsgård), the manifestation of all the character’s fears. The new film, inventively titled “It: Chapter Two,” is about resilience, about sticking your neck out for your friends.
The new one is set in 2016, twenty-seven years after the preteen Loser’s Club battled Pennywise in his sewers lair and kept the town of Derry, Maine safe from the child gobbling monster. Now, the childhood friends have gone their separate ways. Loser’s leader Bill (James McAvoy) is now a successful mystery novelist. Sexual abuse survivor Beverly (Jessica Chastain) went on to become a fashion designer, while Ben (Jay Ryan), the overweight, bullied kid is now an architect living in Nebraska and loud-mouth Richie (Bill Hader) is a DJ in Los Angeles. Other members fled town as well. Hypochondriac Eddie (James Ransone) runs a NYC limousine company and Stanley (Andy Bean) is now an Atlanta-based accountant.
Only Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) stayed in Derry. Traumatized by the events of his youth he battles a substance abuse problem but stays on top of Pennyworth’s existence by sleeping next to a police scanner. “Something happens when you leave this town,” says Mike. “The farther away, the hazier it all gets. But me, I never left. I remember all of it.” When trouble in the form of a clown comes back to town Mike summons the others Losers to come back home to conquer their fears, bond together and do battle with their old foe. “Did you miss me?” taunts Pennywise. “No one wants to play with me anymore.”
At almost three hours “It: Chapter Two” is an overindulgent mish mash, part horror, a splash of comedy and heaping helping of pop psychology. Oh, and a clown. To say the movie takes it’s time is an understatement along the lines of suggesting Pennnywise floss more often. It almost feels like you’re binging several episodes of a serialized version of the story without the benefit of being able to switch channels when the going gets repetitive.
And it gets repetitive. We are endlessly reminded of the character’s childhood traumas, told of Pennywise’s evil and if someone said to me, “We’ve got to stick together,” as many times Bill says it here, I would make a run for it and never look back. The movie says it best when Ritchie exasperatedly says, “We’re caught up, OK!” over an hour in, and yet the exposition and repetition continues.
There are several striking nightmarish images and Hader provides some much-needed comic relief but it feels as though director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman regarded King’s novel as some sort of sacred text and where unable to stray from the written word. One of the enjoyable things about King’s novels are there world building, his attention to detail and skill for weaving mythology into real(ish) world situations. The best adaptations of his work carefully parse these elements to boil down the essence of the story. “It: Chapter Two” does not make the effort. Instead it laboriously recreates the novel, frills and all. It may have worked in print but here it feels the running gag about Bill’s inability to properly end his stories has come to life, manifesting itself in the CGI heavy climax and the extended coda.
In this sequel Pennywise’s red balloon has finally popped.
Superhero films come in all shapes and sizes. In the recent renaissance of the do-gooder movie we’ve seen comedies, political thrillers, period pieces and all-out action films. Iron Man quips, Batman broods and Doctor Strange is simply surreal. “Shazam!,” the new Warner Bros. adaptation of a DC comic, adds new textures to the genre’s palette, sincere zaniness.
At just fourteen-years-old Billy (Asher Angel) has already been through the wringer. Passed from foster home to foster home he finally lands with Rosa and Victor Vasquez (Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews), a loving couple who open their house and heart to Billy, motor mouth Freddy (Dylan Grazer), cutie Darla (Faithe Herman), timid Pedro (Jovan Armand) and brainiac Eugene (Ian Chen). “They seem nice,” jokes Freddy, “but trust me it’s real Game of Thrones around here.”
Billy’s life takes a metaphysical twist when ancient wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), protector of the realms from the Seven Deadly Sins and keeper of the Rock of Eternity, plucks him from obscurity to be the champion of the world. “Say my name so my powers may flow through you,” he instructs Billy. The wizard needs an heir to do battle against a malevolent army lead by Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), a vengeful baddie once rejected by the ancient wizard because his heart was not pure enough, who threaten to “spread poison on everything they touch.”
It’s a big job that comes without much of a roadmap. Billy knows that when he says the word “Shazam!” he morphs into a grown man (Zachary Levi) complete with a red suit and extraordinary powers. “I applaud your choices today,” says a stranger on the subway. “Those shoes. That belt. And that cape. It shouldn’t work but it does.”
Trouble is, he doesn’t know how to harness his newfound abilities. “Superpowers? Dude, I don’t even know how to pee in this thing!” That’s where Freddy, a fan of the real-life superheroes who help keep his home city of Philadelphia safe, comes in handy. Together they navigate Billy’s life as a superhero in exactly the way most teenager boys would—in a series of ever escalating stunts à la “Jackass.”
Will that be enough to prepare the youngster do battle with Sivana and his band of Deadly Sins come-to-life bound-and-determined on destroying the planet?
“Shazam!” is a big-time superhero movie that feels more like an indie flick. The names of digital artists and special effects crews outnumber the cast by about 10,000 to 1 but the film still feels surprisingly intimate given the genre. Themes of the importance of community, of finding your logical, if not biological, family, help make this feel personal, more down to earth than some of the other recent high-flying caped do-gooder movies. Like many other superhero movies it’s a bit too in love with its CGI in the climatic action scenes but director David F. Sandberg remembers to include some humour and some heart into the carnage.
The appealing cast—including memorable turns from Angel and Herman as the sweeter-than-sweet Darla—is headed by Levy. As the grown-up superhero with the attitude of a teenager he retains the glee and awe of a young boy discovering his powers. It’s a classic comic book situation come to life and Levy pulls it off with charm.
“Shazam!” forgoes the dark tone of some of the other DC movies, opting for a kid-friendly feel. It’s more akin to the Christopher Reeves Superman movies than “Man of Steel,” filled with fun, humour and moral focus.
Clowns are creepy. Their grotesque shiny red lips, baggy suits and weirdly coloured tufts of hair really disturb some people. While most of us see Ronald McDonald as a nice corporate symbol, the eight per cent of the population that suffers from clown-ophobia — more properly called coulrophobia — views him as evil incarnate.
The mere mention of the Insane Clown Posse — a mix of gangsta rap and grease paint — is enough to inspire nightmares in the clown challenged.
Silent screen horror legend Lon Chaney Sr. tried to explain the fear.
“A clown is funny in the circus ring,” he said. “But what would be the reaction to opening a door at midnight and finding the same clown standing there?”
Among the movie standouts in the sub-sub-subgenre of “clown horror” are The Clown at Midnight, wherein a number of attractive youngsters get hacked to death by a psycho in a Bozo costume, and the escaped convicts of Clownhouse, who murder circus clowns, steal their identities and their costumes for a wild killing spree.
Then there’s the self-explanatory Killer Klowns From Outer Space. “They’re not clowns, they’re some sort of animal from another world that look just like our clowns. Maybe their ancients came to our planet centuries ago and our idea of clowns comes from them!”
This weekend a new version of the terrifying Pennywise the Dancing Clown comes to screens. In 1990 Tim Curry brought the glistening-lipped, child-eating creature to life in the TV miniseries It. His performance was so disturbingly realistic that on the DVD commentary his co-stars note they avoided him during the filming.
This weekend Pennywise returns in the big screen adaptation of It. Played by Bill Skarsgård, he is a makeup-clad manifestation of all your fears. He’s is the stuff of nightmares, a shape-shifter who adapts to the insecurities and anxieties of his victims. He taunts the kids — for instance he appears to Eddie the hypochondriac as, “a leper and walking infection” — repelling and luring them with the things that terrify them most. It’s creepy enough to make you rethink your next trip to the circus.
Bozo the Clown he ain’t.
Unlike Curry’s co-stars, the kids of the new It weren’t intimidated by Pennywise— off-screen, at least.
“They tried to keep us apart but when we met him we already knew this guy is just an actor,” said Vancouver-born Finn Wolfhard. “We’re not really freaked out by him. We are in the movie but he’s a really good dude in real life. We love him.”
In fact, most of the cast said clowns were not high on their list of terrifying things.
“I never really got the point of clowns,” said Sophia Lillis. “No offense, clowns. Maybe when I was really young I was afraid of them because they have all this makeup and baggy clothes and give candy to children. It’s a little off-putting.”
Wolfhard agrees. “It is a little off-putting. Maybe it’s because they’re always happy.”
Chosen Jacobs thinks It will trigger a new wave of coulrophobia.
“Our generation lacked a horror film that brought the fear back to clowns. I think now that It is coming out this generation and the next generation will regain that fear. At least we can say we changed the world! That’s our contribution.”
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Of course that’s the line made famous by Franklin D. Roosevelt but it is also the sentiment at the dark heart of “It.”
It’s 1988 in Derry, Maine. To a soundtrack of creepy kid’s choral music, brothers and best friends Bill and Georgie Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher and Jackson Robert Scott) have carefully folded a paper boat and shellacked it with wax so it will float. When little Georgie takes the boat into the street during a rainstorm it gets away from him, ending up in a storm sewer and in the gnarled hands of Pennywise The Dancing Clown a.k.a. It (Bill Skarsgård). Bozo the Clown he ain’t.
Suffice to say, Georgie doesn’t make it back home.
Bill, missing his brother, goes to elaborate lengths to figure out what happened. He builds a replica of the sewer system in hopes of discovering where Georgie may have ended up. He even recruits his “Loser’s Club” pals—New Kids on the Block fan Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), the fast talking Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), hypochondriac Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) and their newest member Beverly (Sophia Lillis)—to give up there summer holiday to search underground sewer pipes for clues. “It’s the summer! We’re supposed to have fun,” Stan complains. “This isn’t fun. It’s scary and disgusting.”
As other kids go missing it is revealed that weird things have always happened in Derry. People die or disappear there at six times the national average and not just the adults. The numbers are worse for kids and as Bill’s schoolmates start to go missing he feels an urgent need to find out what’s going on, not just for Georgie but for everyone.
“It” is essentially “Stranger Things” with killer clowns. (Or should that be the other way around?) It harkens back to the era of kid lead action horror films like “Goonies” and “Monster Squad,” where preteens swear like sailors as they lose their innocence on screen. It’s a tried and true formula, one ripe with danger, humour, wrapped up with a nostalgic red ribbon. “It” gets it right, balancing an appealing cast of kids with a hint of old-school vulgarity to give the movie a scary edge.
It’s a story about overcoming fears, the power of loyalty and how, even in the most dire of circumstances, love can conquer all—even nasty clowns with glistening lips and rows of sharp teeth. Wedged in between those sentiments are at least one evil clogged drain scene that will make you wish Roto-Rooter got there first, some jump scares and a psychopathic town bully.
Most of all there is the clown, a manifestation of all your fears. Pennywise is the stuff of nightmares, a shape-shifter who adapts to the insecurities and anxieties of his victims. He taunts the kids—for instance he appears to Eddie, the hypochondriac as, “a leper and walking infection”—repelling and luring them with the things that terrify them most. It’s creepy enough to make you rethink your next trip to the circus.
“It” is a tad too long but makes up for its indulgent length with handsome production design and solid performances from the kids, especially Lieberher and Lillis.
