Shazam!

David F. Sandberg’s horror background is stamped directly onto this picture. He arrived from Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation, and by his own account the studio told him to make the sins frightening and lean on that history. The ceiling he set himself was equally plain: never scarier than Jurassic Park. What results is a boardroom scene staged as a creature attack rather than a superhero brawl. The second decisive choice came in casting. Dwayne Johnson was attached for years as the villain Black Adam; in January 2017 the character was split off into his own feature, which is why Doctor Sivana ends up as the opponent instead. Zachary Levi won his part from an audition taped on a phone. A story set in Philadelphia was shot almost entirely in Toronto: Danforth Collegiate became the school, Greenwood station the metro line, Lower Bay the railway terminus. What genuinely came from the city is the art museum steps and a few establishing plates. That budget discipline sets the tone. The finale is a fairground rather than a levelled downtown. Fits a viewer who does not mind the middle stretch turning into a foster-family drama once the powers are explained. Does not fit someone here purely for capes, or a parent who wants nothing skin-crawling in the mix.