“Shazam!” features the DC character Captain Marvel. However, Marvel also have a character called Captain Marvel, who had a film come out the same year as “Shazam!”. Despite the fact the DC character came before the Marvel one, DC decided to change their character to ‘Shazam’ (the character’s catchphrase). Confused yet? Anyway, this is a good superhero movie with exciting action and some funny moments.

Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is a troublesome kid that moves into a new foster home. He soon meets a wizard (Djimon Hounsou “Blood Diamond”) and is granted magical powers. Billy can now transform into the superhero Shazam (Zachary Levi “Tangled”). With his new foster brother, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer “It”), he must learn to master his new powers to defeat the evil Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong “Green Lantern”).

The young Billy is okay, I preferred his foster brother Freddy as he’s a big superhero enthusiast. I’m not crazy about Zachary Levi as Shazam. He never looks believable in the suit, which has enormous muscles. However, he did put a smile on my face a few times. I really liked the villain and Mark Strong does a great job. I wish we got more scenes with the bad guy. The demon characters that come out of Sivana look great. John Glover (“Gremlins 2: The New Batch”) has a small role. Again, I wish he had more to do. The little cameo with Superman is amusing as it’s clear they couldn’t get Henry Cavill (“Man Of Steel”).

“Shazam!” is ironically a better “Superman” film than most of the “Superman” movies as it has a caped hero flying around the city, saving people and fighting a supervillain. This movie has some terrific special effects, some of the humour is genuinely quite good and the action scenes are impressive. It’s got some more dramatic moments so the tone can feel a little confused at times but I enjoyed this movie overall. It’s not as good as “Aquaman” or “Wonder Woman” but I think I liked “Shazam!” more than “Justice League” (and it’s obviously way better than “Batman v Superman”).