Shazam! Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs...

3. Mark Strong's Forgettable Villain

Mark Strong is always a reliable choice to play a suitably imposing villain, so it's a bit of a disappointment that his efforts feel pretty wasted on an antagonist this generic and unmemorable.

To be fair, Thaddeus Sivana's origin story is actually admirably straight-forward and tragic, but Strong is given desperately little to do as a present-day Sivana.

He plays the movie's straight-man about as well as expected, but tethering him to seven dodgy CGI monsters for most of the movie wasn't a particularly inspired or interesting choice.

Sivana also spends massive chunks of the film off-screen, and neither the character nor the actor playing him really get to put much personality across.

Granted, just about any straight-playing performance would seem a bit flat opposite the effervescence of Zachary Levi, but even so, Sivana is probably the DCEU's least-memorable main villain to date.