Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is burdened to not only follow up a surprise hit of the original film that took audience by surprise with its humor, earnestness, and character focused sensibilities, it’s also the first big DC film to hit theaters after James Gunn made his big announcement back in the end of January about how he will move forward with his plan for the DC Universe, which characters like Shazam may or may not be a part of. No one really knows yet outside of the folks in charge of things, but it does put this film, which still has its feet planted in Snyder world, in a bit of an awkward position.
But the question shouldn’t be “does the film offer a foundation for the character in future installments in the DC Universe?” It should simply be, is the film an enjoyable follow up? And I would say, yes, for the most part. In terms of plot, we once again follow Billy Batson (Asher Angel/Zachary Levi), who is now acting as the leader of his own superhero team with his family – Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer/Adam Brody), Eugene (Ross Butler/Ian Chen), Darla (Meagan Good/Faithe Herman), Mary (Grace Fulton), and Pedro (D. J. Cotrona/Jovan Armand). Though, the city of Philadelphia is a bit more mixed about their presence.
Things soon take a turn when the “Daughters Of Atlas” show up – Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu), and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), after having retrieved the magic staff once held by the Wizard (Djimon Hounsou). There’s some backstory about how they were wronged by humanity, trapped in a realm, and since Billy broke the staff, it allowed them to leave the realm, take the staff back, and begin their plan to create the world back to where the Gods were the ones in power and feared by humans, which now puts everyone at risk. Or at the very least everyone in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area.
While I did say the film is an enjoyable follow up, I want to dig into some of the things that don’t work first. Two reasons mainly, one, I don’t think there’s a lot that doesn’t work, but two, the stuff that doesn’t work are a bit substantial. The film is going bigger in terms of scale than the first, and while the filmmaking does a decent job at handling that, the script from Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan often proves unwieldy at times. I don’t think it does a particularly good job at balancing all the characters in the family, there are arcs that feel either rushed or incomplete. A beat between Billy and his foster-mom, Rosa (Marta Milans), feels like the payoff to a character realization that wasn’t setup at any point prior. And it does a disservice to the actors who are all putting in good work here.
What little many of these actors do end up doing is deliver a lot of exposition, of which is there is quite a bit. There is a loaded backstory for the Daughters Of Atlas, and I wouldn’t call it uninteresting, but the way information is delivered is both lackluster and taking away from the real meat of the story and the characters. And when you have someone like Anthea, who is flip-flopping between being supportive of her sisters versus not wanting humanity to be harmed, the film – much like Atlas himself – ends up carrying far more on its shoulders than its otherwise modest ambitions can really carry. Other issues are mostly nitpicks, there is some eye-roll worthy product placement, some inconsistent VFX work, and maybe a joke here and there that doesn’t fully land.
When it comes to what does work, it’s a lot of the same – the cast is aces (even if Levi seems to have not aged his performance up like Angel does), they really inhabit these characters, and they manage to be playful like you would imagine siblings to be. Maybe not so much for Mirren, Liu, and Zegler though. While returning director, David F. Sandberg, doesn’t get to indulge in his horror roots as much as he did in the first film, you can still see some of those touches, especially in the ruthlessness in some of the action. I think he managed to take a lot of the right lessons from Sam Raimi. Because along with that, one thing I found really refreshing was this sense of environment. While I wouldn’t necessarily compare this to something like Rocky, it’s still cool to see a superhero film that doesn’t take place in either New York or a fictional New York inspired city. This film takes advantage of the city, and the urban areas that typically aren’t featured in movies like this, and I think it highlights the people of that city really well too. The camera will linger on random civilians, follow them around for a bit, give them a couple lines to throw at our heroes, it’s something I really miss from so many of these modern superhero movies.
Because of those reasons, I would say the good definitely outweighs the bad in Shazam! Fury Of The Gods. The flaws are certainly frustrating when you think about them after the film, but in the moment, the film is fairly light on its feet, pretty relentless, and keeps things moving in good humor enough to keep you distracted from these drawbacks. I wish it was as tightly written as the first, but there is still a lot to like here, and there were moments I found emotionally resonating, even in all the chaos and noise that would often surround them. It speaks to the charms of this character, his love for his family, and the strength in their bond. Plus, the final after credits scene practically had me rolling on the floor laughing, it managed to play with something I was actively thinking about leading up to watching the film, and it played perfectly to me. I had quite a bit of fun with the film, I wouldn’t call it great, but I was happy seeing a lot of these characters again, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we may see more of them in the new DC Universe.
Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is now out in theaters.