Shazam! Fury of the Gods

With DCs revamp on going there was a lot of evaluation going on here. I’m sure every viewer went in with a critic mindset wondering if this movie will deliver a standard in which we would want the franchise to stay alive. I can’t say it did. Was it better than the first? Hmm… lets dive in!

Everything about this presentation screamed desperate. From the story, characters, pacing, action and humour. The irony here is this franchise’s selling point is its humour and it didn’t fully deliver in that department. Movie picks up exactly where the last leaves off. The kids have become accustom to their powers and living the typical secret identity superhero life. We are then introduced to our new villains, the Hollywood royalty queens Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu… no story, no motive, no flashback, just pure villainy out of nowhere. It wasn’t a good start. It’s like I mentioned it all felt desperate like as to say no build up required lets just throw action at them. We then learn Freddy (Adam Brody) is going off and solving crimes on his solo and its disrupting the team. The plots are all a bit weird and doesn’t work well. You have Freddie who is still getting bullied at school has a random love interest with a secret, Mary wants to focus on her studies, Jovan is battling coming out of the closet, Rosa cant seem to connect with Billy, etc these are all plot points that are dull and very random, they literally come out of nowhere and feel very crammed. The Wizard returns played by Djimon Hounsou and this time he’s randomly generated a big sense of humour. I thought he was funny and actually provided the best parts of the comedy in this film.

The marketing for this film does a great job of concealing a big plot point and for that the production gets some credit. A lot of marketing these days tend to show majority of a movie’s storyline in their advertising material.

Zach is still very good. His charisma is ever present. Utilising his skillset to perform as a childish teenager trapped in an adults super hero body. He’s charming, witty and mildly funny. Adam Brody I was surprised at as I’m a fan and expected a bit more comedic value and actually more screen time. Meagan took a huge back seat despite being one of the well known cast members. Everyone else is quite lacklustre and honestly, forgettable. The highlight for me is definitely Helen. With her prowess I don’t think she’s capable of putting a foot wrong in any franchise. Helen in action and as a villain just works and I hope to see her in more roles like this.

There were some really awkward scenes that were just unnecessary and didn’t make sense. The idea of making a child character gay was weird. It did nothing, didn’t add or take away from the story, clearly shoe horned in for some inclusion points. There’s a very dark scene where some suicide antics are displayed. It’s used to showcase the level of villains powers then its all PG friendly again, we don’t see such a move again, forced in! The film then switches to a very uninteresting sitcom where the mum gives the most undeveloped and poorly written pep talk to initiate the “inner super hero spark”. We are then unblessed with the poorest cameo. In fact there was a hilarious deep fake but then the actual appearance was beyond underwhelming and again very, very forced. They had the opportunity to actually wrap this movie up nicely with a major death but decided to again deep fake which just brought all the disappointment back.

The action is completely mediocre and unsurprising. The fight scenes felt almost turn based. You hit me, I crash into the wall then I fly back hit you then you fly. With all powerful beings would have been good to see some evenly matched hand to hand combat on display. The CGI didn’t help. In some scenes well done in others quite shoddy.

Overall if you liked the first movie chances are you might like this one. With any sequel I expect a form of upscale from first and this was too familiar perhaps even worse. The pacing and narrative didn’t know what direction it wanted to go in so felt very uneven. Compared to the original it had a lot less charm and none of the heart and wholesomeness. I believe the post credits scene confirms James had similar thoughts to myself in which Shazam gets demoted to a TV show rather than spend all these millions making a D – rated movie. However as the People’s Critic, I’m here for you… as the saying goes… KenKen paid in the cinema, that way you don’t have to!  I’d give this a full miss!

Which do you prefer, this or the original? Did you like the cameos? What do you think Mr Gunn should do with this franchise? Bin it or just demote it? React and comment below…