Review: DC’s Shazam! Fury of the Gods

(This review might occasionally venture into spoiler territory. Consider yourself warned.)

I enjoyed SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS more than I expected to.

I recently watched the first movie, and it’s still one of my favorite superhero films in recent history (along with the first Wonder Woman movie, the James Gunn Suicide Squad, “Chronicle,” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”). Director David Sandberg kept things simple: it was all about the joys of wish fulfillment, and for all the superheroics of its final act it still felt small in scale (in a good way) and therefore not overwhelming its audience with any world-ending potential Mark Strong’s Sivana could have.

Shazam 2 I still enjoyed. Laughed loudly in parts (spoiler alert: one involves a dream with Wonder Woman and the Wizard, and the other involves a magical letter written stream-of-consciousness-style). But the intimate character-driven stories of growing up and facing the actualities of being adults in a normal world have been supplanted by not just an end-of-the-world-level threat that normally the Justice League would be asked to intervene in, but a franchise-ending narrative decision threatening to overwhelm the viewers like a fire-breathing dragon in a football stadium.

“Wait a minute,” you’d ask. “You have six Supermen with the god-like powers of Wonder Woman, what do you need the Justice League for?”

Unlike the League, the Shazamily are a bunch of kids. The movie establishes this by showing us that they never handled disasters well, aggravating situations. In fact the screenplay attempts to make situations as Honest Trailer-proof as possible. Freddie Freeman (Jack Grazer) still bullied after the finale of Shazam 1? They’re still dicks. The kids look and sound older? It’s been many years! The new costumes? They’ve always had them (a lame retcon, and not exactly HT-proof but maybe blame Barry Allen?). But did the writers succeed in what ultimately matters: making us care for the characters the way we did in the first one?

Not exactly. The character moments are breathers as we move from one part of the plot to the next, which is the same problem with Black Adam, and even in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Avengers: Endgame showed us world-ending stakes while being rich in character-driven moments, but then again it had the advantage of having Infinity War to lay the groundwork. But that’s the thing: Shazam already laid the groundwork for Shazam 2. Sure, the character beats were important ones, but maybe we did not need overextended CG sequences?

In fairness to Sandberg, the filmmaker avoided the Black Adam problem of drowning in its own plot by always stopping by for its characters. But something had to give. In the desire to show how the Shazamily has grown up (but not matured), the movie careened on like an adolescent who couldn’t wait to grow up. Speaking of adolescents, the spotlight on Freddie Freeman over Billy Batson (Asher Angel) reminds me of the Cars 2 focus on Nater over Lightning McQueen: it’s a character decision that feels more diversionary than necessary.

Speaking of Batson and Freeman, has anyone noticed the personality disconnect between Zachary Levi’s Shazam and Angel’s Batson? It was already evident in the first movie, the second movie moreso. Batson is sullen and leader-like, Shazam more childlike than his human self. If anything Levi has more in common with Grazer in the quippy acting department; maybe Grazer should have been Batson instead, and the producers could have gotten a supporting actor that didn’t steal every scene he was in.

Angel would kill it as Dick Grayson, though.

The cameos

The prerequisite Sandberg cameo is still there (look for the guy taken up into the air by the monster), Michael Gray of the Shazam TV show in his original outfit…and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, who acts as the literal deus ex machina of the film. My first reaction was to groan, but then again knowing how Sandberg is deliberate about every decision on the film it did make sense to place an ancient Greek literary device in a movie about ancient Greek gods anyway. Also noteworthy was how Fury of the Gods concocted a scenario wherein none of the other supers would be able to physically enter Philadelphia, so having Wondy at the end felt like a payoff for not just for not being able to be part of the slugfest earlier, but also for not having Cavill in the previous movie (although Shazam 2 pokes fun at this in the aforementioned dream, which was both gross and hilarious).

With the new James Gunn/Peter Safran-led DC Cinematic Universe about to begin, there has been a lot of talk regarding Shazam’s future in the movies. The appearance of ARGUS agents John Economos (Steve Agee) and Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) seem to indicate that it’s possible for the franchise not to have more movies but feature the Big Red Cheese in another franchise film eventually. Sure a reboot is coming, but with Holland being married to Gunn and Safran having produced the Shazam movies everything is still possible.

But when will we see Shazam square off with Black Adam though? Maybe when The Rock finally agrees. But with Black Adam being a box office bust (and Shazam 2 looking to be one as well) maybe there needs to be a lot of rethinking there. Or maybe it’s best for Black Adam to stay away from Shazam for the time being, as it arguably set the market’s mood for the reception to Shazam 2.

Too bad, because I really enjoyed the movie.