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I immensely enjoyed the 2019 Shazam! It was a clever, heartfelt, small-scale break from the explosion of huge Marvel movies at the time. It was about family, acceptance, and finding a home. The superheroes in the film weren’t wealthy billionaires but foster kids. The point was also made that power comes not from the individual but from their friends and family. It was nice, a pleasant time for your kids as well. I’m not sure it screamed for a spin-off and sequel. Also complicating things for this franchise is the incoming reboot of the DCEU by James Gunn. Black Adam (2022) and Fury of the Gods were disappointments at the box office. In many ways, Fury of the Gods was dead on arrival. Like many movies released in 2023, it’s not terrible, but it feels like an afterthought.
This film was in trouble the moment the ad campaign came together. The trailer for the film did not generate much of a reaction. It was a bit jarring to see so much of the focus on mega CGI battles and not the small-scale nature of the first film. Fury of the Gods follows the continuing adventures of the “Shazamily” of foster sibling superheroes. Kid actors play them, and when they turn into superheroes, adult actors. There’s still the fantastic comic mileage of adult actors acting like kids, and few do it more convincingly than Zachary Levi. He and Asher Angel return to play Billy Batson/Shazam. Also suitable are Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody as Frederick “Freddy” Freeman. Rachel Zelger, fresh off of Spielberg’s West Side Story, is Anthea, Freddy’s love interest we come to find is the third sister of the Three Daughters of Atlas (no point explaining it). She’s wasted, thanks to an underwritten character. I had a considerable eye-roll when it was revealed she was the third sister. Djimon Hounsou continues to be underutilized in Hollywood and is effective as always.
The other members of the Shazamily all do their part, and it’s nice to revisit some of these characters, but the humor in the 2019 movie that was fresh is not the same this time. I laughed out loud once, which involved the recurring gag of the Wizard, played by Hounsou, continuing to get Freddy’s name wrong. The main crux of the movie follows Freddy and his cliche and forced relationship with Anthea. The rest of the humor follows the Marvel formula of undercutting every moment of seriousness and drama with a quippy one-liner or commentary. It all wears thin. The audience I saw it with did not seem amused. Then again, I saw this at 12:30 on a Tuesday, so perhaps they were still asleep. Fury of the Gods did nothing to wake them up.
Not that the original Shazam! was original, but at least it executed its simple concepts well. Fury of the Gods doesn’t have the same energy to it. Even with the addition of Lucy Liu and Dame Helen Mirren, there’s not much joy there. Liu looks like she’s having some fun, but Helen Mirren has about enough of these franchise films. It doesn’t help that the film seems like it was utterly green-screened. It’s supposed to take place in Philly, where I went to school, yet it was filmed in Atlanta, and it looks like it is because there’s not one authentic Philly moment in the film. I know cities often double for others due to the cost of production, but everything feels fake in this film. DC reportedly delayed the release to work on the special effects further. Perhaps they should have just abandoned the idea altogether.
So overall, Fury of the Gods is passable for fans, I guess, and there are certain moments of fun, but the biggest problem is that the runtime is dragged out further than the story it tells. The first Shazam was far more enjoyable and felt like an independent film compared to this. The problem is none of the action scenes are inventive or well-paced. DC and Warner could have easily trimmed the length of this film by 15 minutes. It’s a shame because I genuinely like Levi as Shazam, but I think his future in the new DC Universe is doubtful. Either way, this film is a textbook example that throwing more money and action at a movie will improve things.
** out of ****
