Will the real Captain Marvel please stand up.

Finally, the real Captain Marvel makes an appearance on the big screen as part of the DC Universe. Captain Marvel made his debut in Whiz Comics in 1939, a year after Superman. The similarities between the two characters were striking but, to be fair, this was not uncommon in 1940s comicdom.

However when he started outselling Superman the lawyers got involved. DC sued Fawcett, the publishers of Captain Marvel, and eventually won a copyright infringement case putting Fawcett out of business. Then in the early Seventies DC licensed the character from Fawcett to revive the comic book. By this time Marvel Comics had been publishing their own Captain Marvel since 1967, so DC could no longer use the name.

Instead they took the title from the magic word which orphan Billy Batson uses to turn into the World’s Mightiest Mortal – Shazam! – hence the title of the movie.

There can’t be many of us in our teenage years who wondered what we might do if we had superpowers? It’s a popular teenage fantasy and one which Shazam! taps into with a nostalgic affection. It’s also the source of much of the joy of this film in that we have an omnipowered superhero who is at heart just a 15-year-old boy. This is Big with a cape and to avoid any doubt there is an affectionate nod to Steven Spielberg’s 1988 movie in one of the fight scenes.

Up till now the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has been largely the domain of Zack Snyder and was generally a dark and miserable place with films that largely failed to click with the audience. In publishing terms DC Comics ditched this darkness with their Rebirth exercise in 2016 which harked back to the legacy of iconic characters and a celebration of their more noble virtues. It was and continues to be a huge success with readers.

The appointment of former DC Editor in Chief Geoff Johns to effectively ride shotgun on the movie franchises has paid big dividends by reflecting what is going on in print. His input can clearly be felt in Wonder Woman (2017), Aquaman (2018) and now Shazam!, which looks like being a box office threepeat hit for their new policy of stand-alone hero stories.

Shazam! has an unalloyed exuberance, a quality seldom seen in the DCEU, and there are many moments of sheer joy in Zachary Levi’s title performance which call back to Richard Donner’s Superman (1978), the foundation myth of the modern superhero movie. It’s surely no coincidence that Geoff Johns was Donner’s assistant and still considers the director to be his mentor.

It’s not all sweetness and light however. Apart from trading on familiar fictional tropes such as childhood abandonment in our teen hero Billy Batson (Asher Angel), there is a very dark edge to the first act. However it is there to be countered by the light and helps establish the stakes. Nonetheless the film deserves its 12A classification.

We begin with Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) as a young boy who is suddenly spirited away to the lair of a mysterious wizard. The wizard, Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), is looking for someone to inherit his power but Sivana is not pure of heart. He cannot resist the temptation of the Seven Deadly Sins and ends up being the human avatar of all evil.

Meanwhile streetwise orphan Billy has been looking unsuccessfully for his mother. After running away from another foster home he too finds himself magicked into appearing in front of the wizard. For all his mischief Billy is pure of heart and when he says the magician’s name he transforms into the World’s Mightiest Mortal.

Billy goes from being a 15-year-old kid to a strapping six foot plus superhero. And he has no idea what to do. The scenes where Billy, with the aid of his superhero crazy foster brother Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), try to work out the extent of his abilities are some of the best in the film.

Even when Sivana turns up to threaten Billy and steal his powers the film has a goofy exuberance. The fight scenes are like a live-action Road Runner movie and Levi does a great job of capturing the panicky, unsure 15-year-old who is trapped inside this incredibly powerful exterior.

There’s enough going on here for an academic journal paper with the ego and superego and the inner child and all that stuff. Happily Shazam! forsakes all of that. This is a hero who was affectionately known as The Big Red Cheese and the film makes no apology for wallowing unashamedly in its own cheesiness. The transformation scenes in particular are a lot of fun, and also answer the big, difficult question of how do you pee in spandex?

The original Captain Marvel was envisioned by creator C.C. Beck as Fred MacMurray (look him up) in a cape. The film version has Zachary Levi as a big, goofy, fun, but essentially good hearted guy   – much like the comic book. He behaves exactly as a teenager with no impulse control would; it’s all about showing off, settling scores, and trying to get stuff for free. This I’m pretty sure is how we would all behave in those circumstances.

The action scenes are very good; usually funny but dark when they need to be and director David F. Sandberg seems to revel in the time, space, and budget he has not been afforded thus far. The score by Benjamin Wallfisch is suitably epic and again brings to mind notes of John Williams’s score for Donner’s Superman.

The film is embedded in the DCEU and it is a given that this is a world where superhumans exist but Shazam! is essentially character driven and Billy’s sense of loss, along with Sivana’s for that matter, are at the heart of their characterisations.

That said there are Easter eggs aplenty – appropriate for the time of year – and anyone who knows the comics will not be surprised but should be delighted by the third act twist. Of course there are two post-credits scene; one sets up an inevitable sequel, the other is just harsh – but funny. However the end credits themselves are a source of delight and carry the upbeat mood of the film right out of the theatre.

The one issue for me is that even by the end of the film the character doesn’t really have a name. This is something that will doubtless be resolved in future films but whatever they choose he’ll always be Captain Marvel to me.