Shazam! Fury of the Gods – Review
130 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Henry Gayden, Chris Morgan, and Bill Parker
Directed by David F Sandberg
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, read Ryan’s review HERE, and listen to their more in-depth discussion using the player below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
Bestowed with the powers of the gods, Billy Batson and his fellow foster kids are still learning how to juggle teenage life with having adult Super Hero alter-egos. But when the Daughters of Atlas, a vengeful trio of ancient gods, arrive on Earth in search of the magic stolen from them long ago, Billy—aka Shazam—and his family are thrust into a battle for their superpowers, their lives, and the fate of their world.
The first Shazam! film seemed to come out of nowhere, providing the perfect vehicle for Zachary Levi’s earnest goofiness while also giving audiences a counterpoint to the heaviness of the rest of the DC universe.
Shazam! felt like a comicbook movie, and audiences rewarded its simple premise and solid execution to the tune of $366 MILLION at the box office. Not too shabby for a character that hadn’t been seriously thought about for decades or more and lead by an actor best known for playing the reluctant TV spy in Chuck…
Although playing a reluctant superhero probably wasn’t that big a stretch now that I think about it…
Anyway, after the success of the first film, a sequel was all but guaranteed, but now, Shazam! Fury of the Gods finds itself in a weird position.
Management of DC’s movies at Warner Brothers has changed hands and most of the universe Shazam was born into has been confirmed to be over. Even the most recent DC film, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam, a character canonically (and in terms of origin) linked to Shazam, is seemingly no longer welcome in James Gunn’s cinematic sandbox.
However, as Shazam has interacted with exactly zero of those pre-existing/now-erased heroes (the headless Superman cameo in the first film notwithstanding), it is possible that the Shazam-verse might live on in some form.
For now, though, I kind of think of it as being in the same boat The New Mutants was when Fox was being bought by Disney: finished, released, “part-of-but-not-really” a larger franchise, with a future clouded in uncertainty.
A cinematic cul-de-sac, if you will.
I hope Shazam’s fate is better than The New Mutant’s/X-Men‘s was.
Now, let’s talk about Shazam! Fury of the Gods, shall we?
Two years after the events of Shazam!, Billy Batson and his family have been dubbed the “Philadelphia Fiascos” as most of their efforts usually save lives but somehow manage to add to the destruction otherwise occuring. Deserved or not, this moniker sticks in Billy’s craw, and he finds himself desperately trying to keep the team working as a unit: “All or None,” when it comes to superheroing.
This chaffes against Mary’s desire to have a normal life since she cancelled going to college. It also impedes Freddie’s desire to be popular and go out on his own from time to time as a lone hero.
The rest of the family reluctantly tries to follow Billy’s rules.
When the Daughters of Atlas (Hespera and Kalypso) obtain the broken wizard’s staff which had been used to steal the gods’ powers currently being used by Billy and the family, they attempt to steal those powers back and restore the now-dead realm of the gods.
Vengeance is too strong a motivator, however, and Kalypso brings destruction to our realm instead of restoring her own.
The film ends… well, it ends. It’s got an ending, an epilogue, and then… something else.
Yes: Cameos and two credit scenes.
The cast here is great, although how no one can realize Mary is both normal Mary and superhero Mary is beyond me. I don’t even think she’s wearing a ponytail and glasses when in “normal” form.
Rachel Zegler is good as Anthea, third Daughter of Atlas, playing a 6000-year-old teenager, and Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu put on convincing villain performances.
The humor is still here, though somewhat subjugated by the more mature tones of growing up, leaving home, letting go, as well as the whole “your world is in danger” thing. Still worthy of its PG-13 rating, gauge your child’s ability to accept some harsh language (including a near MF-er drop by DARLA of all people), as well as some pretty convincing monsters, especially the not-My-Little-Pony unicorns.
Speaking of Monsters, the CGI is pretty good in this film, for all we’ve had lately with some questionable FX work. The crew here did a good job, though the action never devolves into a mass of CGI in the first place like some other films; here the FX crews are simply adding in the monsters, which have some great designs, to boot.
For all of its theoretical importance to the future of the DCU (formerly the DCEU, until Gunn showed up), Shazam! Fury of the Gods remains firmly entrenched in a netherworld of influence. It remains (mostly) removed from the old DCEU characters (even Black Adam) but give just enough indication it could belong to either the old (Snyder) or the new (Gunn) Universe as to remain, like those young Mutants, adrift in a sea of uncertainty.
Will this Summer’s Flash provide any clarity on Shazam’s future or the future of the Gunn-verse? (That just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as Snyderverse, does it?)
Fans of the first film should be happy with this one. It’s a worthy sequel to an unexpected success story.
Check it out.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods flies into theaters nationwide on March 17 and stars Zachary Levi, Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, Rachel Zegler, Grace Caroline Currey, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Ross Butler, DJ Cotrona, Meagan Good, Adam Brody, Marta Milans, Cooper Andrews, and Jovan Armand.
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