Shazam! Fury of the Gods
March 15th, 2023
MOVIE: SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS
STARRING: ZACHARY LEVI, HELEN MIRREN, LUCY LIU, RACHEL ZEGLER
DIRECTED BY: DAVID F. SANDBERG
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 2 STARS (Out of 4)
With each superhero movie that arrives every other week there comes a new expectation or a hope that something will surprise us. The first Shazam! was exactly the energetic dose we needed during its arrival. Since then things have certainly changed and the DC universe has crumbled around it, leaving Shazam! and the upcoming Flash movie all that remains from the Zach Snyder-version of Justice League stories. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is stuck in the mud, repeating itself from the first installment, but progressing the stakes and size of the monsters. Either way, the final product is not enough Fury to appreciate, and nothing the Gods could fix either.
The story picks up at the orphanage where Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his five other Shazam-style-super brothers and sisters live. When they’re not spending time as teenagers, they go out to save people in Philadelphia. With their collective group of powers they received from the great wizard (Djimon Hounsou), the rule for Shazam (Zachary Levi) has always been that the family works together to defeat a common enemy. The new villains are a pair of powerful sisters– Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu)- daughters of Atlas, who have forged a magical staff back together to rule on planet earth. Meanwhile, younger brother Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) has met a new girl at school– Anthea (Rachel Zegler), and he hopes to use his powers to impress. But of course he can’t escape having superhero responsibilities.
Ideally Fury of the Gods is not a movie to take too seriously and yet it falls below expectations. Direction by David F. Sandberg is adequate but allowing the color pallet to drown out characters. There are a series of moments where the lighting is so dark that I’m not sure who we are looking at. Also, the screenplay from Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan is a bit too stuck in more of the same, with Levi playing a goofy teenager inside a grown-up, delivering childish quips. It’s not that Fury of the Gods isn’t giving the efforts, it’s that the CGI is ugly and the dialogue stiff. Lines delivered from Liu and Zegler land flat no matter how serious they take it. As far as comparing it to other superhero movies this is more Batman & Robin instead of the energetic fun in the first Shazam!.
It’s not to say that things are all bad. There is a massive dragon that arrives in the final act that is too cool to forget, becoming a legit foe to Shazam, and setting up a strong final battle. One factor for the films less than impressive result could be how close it arrives after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Both heroes have a comedic blend to their style, both CGI heavy, and isolated battles. There’s not much to spoil either when I say, similar to other installments, that the threats have little impact, and the cameos leave a bigger imprint than the rest of the movie.
The final straw is that Shazam! Fury of the Gods won’t be memorable to the viewer. Nearly every actors talent is wasted, where Mirren, Hounsou, Zegler, and Liu are limited to disposable character arcs, leaving you pondering what could have been. Shazam might be the hero that delivers a spark to the DCU in the future but this movie leaves you with only a flicker instead of a flame. Still liked that dragon though.
SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS IS IN THEATERS FRIDAY MARCH 17TH, 2023.
2 STARS
Written by: Leo Brady
leo@amovieguy.com
