SHAZAM! (2019)

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy.

1974, Upstate New York – Young Thaddeus Sivana (Eugene Pugiotto) is playing with a Magic 8 Ball while riding with his father (John Glover) and older brother Sid. The two mock Thad for complaining when Sid takes his toy away. After Thad gets it back, strange symbols start to appear on the ball. Sid and Mr. Sivana are gone, and Thad suddenly finds himself in the Rock of Eternity. He is met by a being known as The Wizard (Djimon Hounsou), who had summoned Thad there. The Wizard tells Thad of an old group of wizards he belonged to that found a champion to inherit great powers, but he must first pass a test. Next to Thad on the wall are large monstrous statues that contain the Seven Deadly Sins, evil creatures that wish to wreak havoc upon mankind. They speak to Thad and tempt him to grab an orb called The Eye so that Thad may possess an even greater power. The Wizard then stops Thad and declares him unworthy of receiving these powers before sending him back to the car. Thad starts to yell about what he saw, and in the confusion, Mr. Sivana swerves and nearly collides with a truck. As he berates his son, another car plows into the Sivanas, causing Mr. Sivana to be ejected from the car. He survives but is crippled, and Sid blames Thad for what happened.

Present Day – 15-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) tricks a pair of police officers to respond to a shop robbery, only to lock them in the store so he can get in their car and look up information on a woman named Rachel Batson, whom he believes to be his long lost mother. Billy arrives at the address with a small compass, which leads to a flashback to his childhood when he last saw his mother. They were at a carnival and Billy got separated from his mother, but she never went to claim him when the police found him. Billy walks up to the door and is greeted by a woman who is clearly not his mother. The police then show up and take Billy with them.

Billy meets with a social worker, Ms. Glover (Andi Osho), who brings up his history of getting into trouble and running away from multiple foster homes, none of which would take him back. She is sympathetic to his quest to find his mother, but reminds him that he only has one more chance before he ends up somewhere worse. Ms. Glover sets Billy up with Victor and Rosa Vasquez (Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans), a couple who already care for five other foster kids. They bring Billy home and introduce him to the kids – Eugene Choi (Ian Chen), a video game nerd; Darla Dudley (Faithe Herman), a sweet little girl who immediately (and literally) embraces Billy as her new brother; Pedro Pena (Jovan Armand), a quiet kid that doesn’t really talk to anyone; Mary Bromfield (Grace Fulton), an aspiring college student; and Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), a superhero nerd who uses a cane to walk. He chats with Billy and shows him some memorabilia he owns, such as an authentified bullet that hit Superman, as well as a Batarang.

Billy joins the other kids for school that day. As he heads to class, Darla hugs him, but he tells her that they are not actually brother and sister, which makes her sad, and he regrets it.

Dr. Sivana (now played by Mark Strong) sits in on an interview with his scientist Dr. Lynn Crosby (Lotta Lotsen) and another woman who claims to have also been taken to the Rock of Eternity. Dozens of other individuals have sent videos detailing their account of meeting The Wizard and what they saw. Sivana has been trying for years to find a way back to the Rock of Eternity, but only recently has he discovered a pattern. He shows Crosby that the same symbols appear and always repeat in the same order. After he draws them on a door, Crosby dismisses it and taps the door, which opens a portal and causes Crosby to disintegrate. Sivana enters through the door and finds himself back in the Rock of Eternity. He faces The Wizard and expresses disdain for his rejection as a child, and has come seeking a different power. He goes for The Eye and takes it, which then lodges itself in Sivana’s right eye. This releases the Seven Deadly Sins, who claim Sivana as their champion and take shelter in The Eye. Sivana overpowers The Wizard and leaves to go get his revenge.

After school, Freddy is knocked over by a truck driven by the bullying Bryer brothers, Burke (Evan Marsh) and Brett (Carson MacCormac). They continue to pick on Freddy and kick him around, which Billy walks away from until the bullies taunt Freddy over not having parents. Billy grabs Freddy’s cane and whacks the Bryers over the head before the other foster kids come to intervene. Billy runs away and is chased by the Bryers until he gets away in a subway. Suddenly, everyone in the subway vanishes and the strange symbols appear again. Billy is now in the Rock of Eternity, and he too meets The Wizard. He has run out of options and feels that Billy is the only one worthy of receiving his powers. He explains to Billy that he and the other wizards passed their powers onto their champion, but he used his powers for evil and created the Seven Deadly Sins, who killed many innocent people. If Sivana lets them loose again, they will most likely destroy mankind. The Wizard commands Billy to hold onto his staff and say his name…SHAZAM! After Billy does so, he is struck by lightning and turned into an adult superhero named Shazam (Zachary Levi). He possesses the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. The Wizard then turns to dust after telling Billy that he needs to be the champion.

The Vasquezes become worried after Billy doesn’t show up. As Shazam, he sneaks around and gets Freddy to come outside and prove who he is. Freddy is amazed and excited, and they go around the city to test out the powers of Shazam. They go by the park and see a mugging about to occur. Shazam speeds over to the mugger, but he already got taken down by the woman he tried to rob because she had mace. They return home and fail to sneak past Victor and Rosa, so they hide in Darla’s room where she sees Shazam. After saying his own name, he turns back into Billy. The boys then tell Darla to keep this a secret.

Sivana goes to his father’s corporation where he is in a meeting with board members, including Sid. After receiving yet another cold dismissal from the two of them, Sivana reveals his newfound powers by grabbing Sid and throwing him out the window to his death. He then sets the Sins loose, and they proceed to kill all the other board members, leaving Mr. Sivana for last. He pleads to his son for mercy, but Sivana accuses him of being greedy and now being the one crying for help. Fittingly, Sivana allows Greed to finish off his father.

Billy turns into Shazam again and goes around the city with Freddy to test out his powers. He cannot seem to get the hang of flying, but he is super strong, fast, and has lightning powers. Freddy records everything, and Shazam becomes a viral sensation. The two stop in a convenience store so Shazam can buy beer (which the boys discover they don’t like), but then a robbery starts to happen. Shazam goes to stop it and gets shot, but the bullet bounces off of him, meaning he is bulletproof. He then ties up the robbers and throws them out of the store. He even later has fun with his powers at school and uses his strength to wreck the Bryers’ truck.

After being taunted by the Bryers again, Freddy tells them and the other students that Shazam will show up during lunch. Billy instead goes off to continue doing superhero stuff, leaving Freddy to be humiliated when he fails to show up. Freddy later finds Shazam in the streets showing off his lightning powers, and Freddy confronts him for being a lousy friend and for using his powers to be a jerk. Shazam then accidentally zaps the tires off a bus, which veers over the edge of a bridge. Still not knowing how to fly, Shazam waits for the bus to fall so he can catch it and then set it down. He’s still viewed as a hero for saving them despite causing the incident. Freddy then ditches Shazam, and not long after, the hero is found by Sivana. He shows that his power can affect Shazam, and the villain tosses him around the city before pulling him up to the sky and dropping him. Before he hits the ground, Shazam discovers that he can indeed fly. Sivana takes their fight into a mall, but Shazam escapes by saying his name and disappearing as Billy. Freddy runs into the mall calling for Billy, but Sivana sees and then notices a TV screen with an earlier news report featuring Freddy talking to Shazam. Sivana then follows the boy.

Out on the street, Billy sees a young woman walking into the street about to get hit by a car. He Shazams himself and swoops in to save the woman, who turns out to be Mary. She is distressed as she just got a college acceptance letter but is hesitant because she is not sure that she wants to leave her home. Shazam tries to reassure her but accidentally slips up and calls her Mary and mentions her being from a foster home. He leaves, and Mary starts to suspect.

Billy returns home and gets chewed out by Victor for running off and getting Freddy involved in his troubles. After being left alone, the kids go into Billy’s room. Pedro found Billy’s notebook detailing all the women he searched that he thought would be his mother, but Eugene managed to track Billy’s parents and learn that his father is in prison and his mother, Marilyn (Caroline Palmer), is only two subway stops away. Billy heads off to go find her. The kids then watch the news report showing Freddy with Shazam. After piecing it together, Mary and Eugene deduce that Billy is Shazam, which Darla confirms. Freddy then returns home, but he is accompanied by Sivana.

Billy arrives at Marilyn’s apartment to greet her. She doesn’t recognize him and is stunned but not relieved to see Billy when he tells her he is her son. Marilyn then confesses that she did look for Billy when he got lost, but when she saw him with the cops, she thought that he was better off with them since she was just 17 and got kicked out by her parents while Billy’s father wasn’t in the picture. Realizing she never cared for him, Billy gives her the compass toy that she won him and he leaves brokenhearted. He then gets a phone call from Freddy, but Sivana answers him, and Billy realizes his siblings are in trouble.

Shazam finds the foster kids being held captive by Sivana and the Sins at a carnival. Sivana orders Shazam to give up his powers, or the Sins will kill the kids starting with Darla. Shazam is ready to do so and goes for Sivana’s staff, but he then remembers the words of The Wizard and is inspired to achieve his heroic potential. He takes the staff from Sivana and gets the other kids to place their hands on it and yell “SHAZAM!” The kids then turn into adult superheroes themselves (Freddy played by Adam Brody, Darla played by Meagan Good, Mary played by Michelle Borth, Eugene played by Ross Butler, and Pedro played by DJ Cutrona). Realizing they need to separate the Sins from Sivana’s eye to rid him of his power, they get Sivana to attack them while they fight the Sins as they cause chaos upon the carnival. The heroes save the patrons while Shazam fights Sivana, who has Envy remaining in his eye. Shazam taunts Envy in order to get him to come out, and the Sin angrily jumps out to attack Shazam, which causes the floating Sivana to fall over the edge of a building, hanging on for dear life. Shazam reverts to Billy to get Envy off of him, but then goes back to his hero form to catch Sivana before he falls to his death. He brings the villain with him and gets the others to join him in the Rock of Eternity. There, Shazam pulls the Eye out of Sivana, which causes the Sins to revert to their statue forms.

After returning home, the siblings are praised as mysterious superheroes. Billy later joins the family for dinner and even says grace, now having accepted them as his new family.

Back at school, Freddy sits alone at lunch, now being shunned by his peers, until Mary, Darla, Eugene, and Pedro join him. Shazam then enters the cafeteria and amazes all the other kids, even the Bryers. He sits next to Freddy and calls him his best friend, as well as showing off his special guest…SUPERMAN.

Mid-Credits: Sivana is in his prison cell drawing symbols all over the walls in a desperate attempt to go back to the Rock of Eternity. He then hears a voice in the shadows calling to him. It is a small caterpillar creature (Mr. Mind). He offers Sivana a chance to work with him to get what he wants.

Post-Credits: Shazam and Freddy are still trying to see what other powers Shazam has, and talking to fish is not one of them. Freddy wishes Shazam had powers like Aquaman, but Shazam doesn’t think he’s that cool.

Teenager Billy Batson jumps from one foster home to another as he is determined to find his long lost mother after being separated from her as a child. He gets one last chance with Victor and Rosa Vasquez, along with their other adopted kids - Freddy, Mary, Darla, Eugene, and Pedro.

After defending Freddy from some bullies, Billy is summoned to the Rock of Eternity to meet The Wizard, who grants him ancient powers to become the champion Shazam, which turns Billy into an adult superhero. Freddy finds out, and the two decide to have fun being a hero. But The Wizard granted him the powers to stop Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, a man who was almost chosen as a child to inherit the powers before he became corrupted and obsessed with unleashing the Seven Deadly Sins, monstrous creatures that seek to destroy mankind.

The foster kids help Billy locate his mom, Marilyn, but she reveals to him that she essentially abandoned him because she didn't feel ready to care for a child and thought he was better off without her. Meanwhile, Sivana learns Shazam's true identity and holds the kids hostage until Billy decides to give up his powers. However, Billy instead shares the power with the other kids, who all turn into superheroes and fight off the Seven Deadly Sins. They overpower Sivana and remove his powerful eye that gives the Sins freedom, and they are once again imprisoned in the Rock of Eternity.

Billy stays with his new foster family for good, while Sivana meets an alien caterpillar called Mr. Mind in prison, who offers to help him obtain the power he seeks.