Maybe Warner Bros. Pictures, keeper of the DC Comics movie legacy, is finally figuring out that comic-book movies are supposed to be fun, and the delightfully loopy, happily exuberant “Shazam!” is the beneficiary.
The story takes the wish-fulfillment story every adolescent comic-book reader asks — wouldn’t it be cool to be a superhero? — and takes it to its most absurd conclusion. After all, how complicated would life get for a 14-year-old who suddenly became a superhero?
Life is already complicated for Billy Batson (played by “Andi Mack” co-star Asher Angel), a street-smart orphan in Philadelphia. Billy lives by his wits, boosting police cars so he can track down addresses to find the mother who he lost touch with at age 3.