The creators of Shazam! Fury of the Gods confronted a conceptual dilemma they by no means fairly solved. The purpose and pleasure of the primary Shazam! was watching a dumb teenager determine learn how to be a superhero: Testing the bounds of his powers, tentatively attempting (and infrequently failing) to do good. However by the tip of film, the child had gotten the cling of the superhero recreation. He defeated a super-villain, saved Philadelphia, discovered the delivery mom who’d deserted him as a baby, and gave a bit of his powers to his 5 foster siblings. So what’s left to do within the sequel?
Not a lot, it appears. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is simply type of there, coasting on the residual good vibes and proficient solid of its much-superior predecessor. It makes just a few half-hearted makes an attempt to present Billy Batson (Asher Angel) a brand new private dilemma to beat, specifically his unconscious worry that he shall be deserted by his household a second time. However Billy seems onscreen in Fury of the Gods so occasionally — he has perhaps 5 essential scenes — that it’s simple to neglect his story, and even more durable to care if you do bear in mind.
As a substitute, Zachary Levi’s Shazam — Billy’s alter ego when he says a magic phrase and transforms into an indestructible superhero — is the one in virtually each single minute on this sequel. When the Billy/Shazam dynamic works, because it did within the first film, it may be the idea for a really charming coming-of-age comedy. When it doesn’t, as in Fury of the Gods, it feels such as you’re simply watching an immature dope in a cape. (Shazam so severely lacks the knowledge of Solomon — one of many six super-powers that make up the acronym “SHAZAM” — that the movie truly treats it as a working joke.) However conceding your hero (and, by inference, his film) is sort of dumb isn’t any substitute for truly making the character (and the movie) a bit extra intelligent.
As a substitute of awkward teenage fumbling, Fury of the Gods’ focus is an labyrinthian superhero plot — full with an precise mythological labyrinth — concerning the Daughters of Atlas, Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu). These historic goddesses have been supposedly banished from Earth eons in the past by the Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) who gave Billy Batson his energy. Simply in time for this sequel, they’ve very conveniently been allowed to return to the trendy DC Comics Universe, the place they’re out for revenge. They steal the Wizard’s workers, which supposedly restores their magic talents (though they appear to have loads of energy earlier than they get their fingers on the workers) after which they set their sights on the Wizard’s present champion, Shazam, and his super-powered household.
The prospect of watching Helen Mirren beat the snot out of Zachary Levi should have regarded irresistible on paper; it actually sounds enjoyable to me. So why is the tip end result so lifeless? Perhaps as a result of Shazam and Hespera’s occasional skirmishes are so slathered in weightless CGI that it might be any two individuals punching one another. Or perhaps Fury of the Gods’ script invests so little thought or vitality into the human characters, and spends so little time in a recognizable actual world that there’s principally nothing on the road right here for anybody, together with the viewers. If the story throws out a subplot for one of many supporting characters — say Billy’s older sister Mary’s (Grace Fulton) need to go to varsity — you possibly can relaxation assured the movie will fully neglect it earlier than the large climax. (Not less than Mirren appears to be having just a little enjoyable in her scenes; Lucy Liu appears to be like hopelessly bored. ).
Nearly the one one that comes off properly on this movie is Jack Dylan Grazer, who stole the primary Shazam as Billy Batson’s brainy, wisecracking foster brother Freddy. In Fury of the Gods, Freddy is the one human character onscreen with important display screen time, and he will get just a few heat scenes with West Aspect Story’s Rachel Zegler as the brand new lady in class, after which a bunch of amusing moments with Hounsou’s Wizard (who fairly definitively died within the first Shazam, however it’s comics, so no matter). In case you can enhance a film as crummy as Shazam! Fury of the Gods for a couple of minutes the best way Grazer does, it’s best to have a shiny future in Hollywood.
Whether or not Shazam himself has a lot of some within the new DC Universe that’s being constructed by the corporate’s new CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran (who’s a producer on the Shazam sequence) stays unresolved. Earlier than Fury of the Gods, I’d have hoped so; I preferred the primary film fairly a bit. However this actually is among the extra disappointing sequels Hollywood has produced within the final decade. At one level, when the Daughters of Atlas have the Shazam household on the run, Billy tries to get the Wizard to take again his powers; he desperately desires out of their deal. That very same vitality permeates lots of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which frequently performs prefer it solely exists due to contractual obligations that its creators usually are not terribly excited to meet.
Extra Ideas:
–Shazam! Fury of the Gods arrives in theaters only a few weeks after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and the movies share a wierd quantity in frequent. Each are sequels to pretty grounded and lighthearted comedies that jettison a lot of the relatable components that made their predecessors profitable in favor of lots of generic particular results and fights. As an avowed fan of comics and superheroes, I watch these items and I ponder “Is this what individuals actually need out of those films? To look at a bunch of CGI results with zero human feelings or stakes?” I actually don’t.
RATING: 4/10
DC Comics That Can’t Develop into DC Motion pictures
These in style DC Comics titles can by no means get their very own DC films. (Sorry.)
