Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review - from adorkable to dismissible

1.5

Summary

The original was adorkable, and the follow-up is dismissible. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a soul-crushing disappointment. Sandberg’s follow-up is the ultimate antonym to the original—a dull, dark, and unfunny follow-up with no magic left in the tank.

We review the 2023 DC film Shazam! The Fury of the Gods, which does not contain spoilers.

Ever since The Empire Strikes Back, big Hollywood blockbusters have chosen to go dark, even more than they should. I said the same thing about last year’s Marvel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The filmmakers forget what makes comic book movies unique. (Well, except for product placement, but more on that later). After the “adorkable” 2019 Shazam! that combined a fun comic book premise with an actor who brought the sensibility of the film Big to the role, a franchise was born.

Except, they forgot one key ingredient in Shazam! Fury of the Gods that it’s sorely missing — fun.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review and Plot Summary

Zachary Levi returns to reprise his role as Billy and “the champion” (or Shazam; it’s hard to tell now), a superhero comprised of the best parts of such gods as Hercules, Zeus, Atlas, Achilles, and Mercury.

Without his powers, Billy Batson is a teenager about to age out of the foster care system. His best friend, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), is going out on his own as much as possible and turning into his superhero (played by The Kid Detective’s Adam Brody). While at school, he runs into a beautiful new student, Anthea (West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler), who takes a shine to him.

The crux of the story is Billy is worried about being on his own, and everything is changing around him. As friends often do when moving on from high school, they grow apart and move on.

Billy wants everyone to fight crime together as a team. Luckily, the Daughters of Atlas, Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu) return to Earth to retrieve the staff that Billy destroyed but never promptly discarded appropriately.

This conflict keeps Billy’s support system together, and he feels this can only lead to strengthening their bond.

David F. Sandberg returns to work behind the camera, along with writer Henry Gayden. Chris Morgan was added to help write the script. If you know anything about his work on the Fast and Furious franchise, you’ll know exactly what went wrong with this sequel.

The film has turned into an action picture that does not mix well with the comic relief that comes off as forced and unnatural. The sense of childlike wonder is gone, and endless scenes are strung together that feel awkward.

What doesn’t help matters is going back and forth consistently between scenes from Greek mythology and teen angst that doesn’t mesh. How could it be done with countless films starring Thor but not this one?

Many adult superhero versions, like Meagan Good and Adam Brody, have little chemistry when interacting as a unit. Zegler’s superpower seems to be stolen from the mind of Christopher Nolan while watching the movie Inception.

Then, Shazam! Fury of the Gods has the most egregious piece of product placement you have ever seen since Mcdonald’s graced a piping hot McCafe coffee in The Day the Earth Stood Still. This mixes into a nonsensical, dark mess with dull action and a barrage of jokes that don’t stick.

In many ways, the sequel to Shazam! reminds me of a scene in Groundhog Day. The one where Bill Murray tries to recreate a magical moment you cannot possibly repeat with Andie McDowell.

The same jokes are carbon copied, but this time unnaturally forced, where the movie attempts to recapture that storyline of the movie Big meets adored comic book cliches that worked so well 4 years ago but are stagnant now.