Monsters eating someone's head. Throwing people to their deaths.

In the opening in the wizard's chamber with the monster statues, I saw a mother take her child out of the theater, I did notice children in the front row earlier.

Also, the villain's assistant, when she touches the magic door and burns away, was quite intense.

Have to agree here, it didn't really know what tone it wanted to strike.

The concept clearly is more geared toward a younger audience, and certainly the advertising suggests so, butt some of the scenes in it really didn't play along with that at all.

I think once word of mouth gets out that some of the scenes are a bit strong for the younger audience, I think Dumbo might get a bounce from it.

sure that wasnt the Godzilla footage?

It reminded me of some of the adventure flicks from the 80’s like the Indiana Jones movies or Gremlins which had a blend of funny and scary parts.

Sadly those things were the only surprises in this. Everything else was a trope. Bullies at school. Convenience store gets robbed when the hero is there. Less popular friend resents more popular friend. Hero figures something out of the blue last minute that defeats the villain. Every kid is a stereotype: the crippled kid, the gamer kid, the fat kid, the happy kid, the moody teenager.

Aside from the stereotypes the kids were decent actors. But the most nuanced character of Billy needed a better actor since he resembled nothing of Shazam's personality.

Overall it was Levi's and Strong's movie and they did their part. I'm not crazy about the seven deadly sins as a literal villain but the movie was smart enough to allow Strong's character to step up to the edge with his villainy.

It is a battle between good and evil, so there are stakes. Most every CBM has moments like it.

Spider-man had Green Goblin frying people into skeletons, throwing girls off of bridges and getting impaled.
Man of Steel had Supes snapping General Zod's neck.
Iron Man has Tony killing Afghan terrorists by the truckload.

I'm pretty sure lots of kids (ages 7-13) have seen all the movies I listed above, plus other CBM and enjoyed them.

Even in the comicbooks themselves, people get killed. A heroic characters faces deadly odds. That's one of the reasons that superheros are admired by young kids and even adults that used to read comicbooks.

*** Mild spoiler ***
At first, I thought it was a middle school kid's adventure but then a few of the scenes were too intense for younger kids. They'll probably have nightmares and the parents will get called in by their teacher. Not really. Actually, there wasn't any blood and gore so it was more the make believe violence. He got shot in the face and the bullets bounced off. Not your regular super hero movie 7/10.

Adam Sandberg the director said this film was inspired by films he grew up with as a kid. He mentioned "the Gremlins" and "Indiana Jones and the temple of doom" These two film were the reason why the PG rating was created. I saw both these films when I was a toddler lol Although they spooked me the first time I saw them, they are great childhood memories of mine. "Shazam!" was a real throwback to these family film with an edge they used to make in the 80's. Family films that wanted kids to enjoy themselves but who did not forget it's mature audience either. I liked that about Shazam!. The fact that parents took their kids out of theater or that some are really bothered by it show how much more fragile and offended this generation are compared to the 80's and 90's.