Laurence Boyce | On 02, Jun 2023

Director: David F Sandberg
Cast: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Glazer, Rachel Zegler, Adam Brody, Luci Liu, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren
Certificate: 12

While Superman was snapping necks in Man of Steel and Batman outright murdering people in Dawn of Justice, 2019’s Shazam was a welcome reminder that comic book movies could be fun. Amid all the dark introspection of the DC Cinematic Universe, the film was a colourful and often silly affair that wrapped up its genre thrills and spills within an almost Spielberg-like exploration of parental abandonment and the desire to find one’s home. Entertaining and emotional at the same time, it remains one of the better modern DC movies.

The inevitable sequel arrives amid a swathe of industry turmoil for the DC Cinematic Universe. It’s all led to Shazam: Fury of the Gods feeling a bit left in the cold. This ends up being rather appropriate when we consider what the film ultimately turns out to be.

After the events of the previous film, Billy Batson (Asher Angel as the young version, Zachary Levi as the supercharged one) now alternates life as a school kid and a superhero. With his equally superpowered foster siblings, they offer good natured superheroics, even if their lack of experience and subsequent property damage gives them a less than glowing reputation. But as superhero life continues to loom large, young Billy struggles with soon ageing out of the foster system and worrying that he’ll lose the only family he has ever known.

Even worse, Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu) – two of the daughters of the Titan, Atlas – have kidnapped the wizard (Djimon Hounsou) who gave Billy his powers. Now knowing who possesses the power of Shazam, they are set on a course to regain the powers that have been stolen from them and to take revenge on a humanity that have spurned them and the Gods. Only Billy and his family can stop them.

Everything about Shazam: Fury of the Gods is just a bit bland. The fights are all present and correct. The CGI monsters are all well done. The quips and witty remarks are sassy and knowing. There are the requisite cameos from other DC properties. But nothing about it stands out at all. The previous film made good mileage out of the difference between Billy as a child and his superheroic alter-ego. Here, Asher Angel is reduced to around 10 minutes of screen time and – as goofily endearing as Levi can be in the lead role – his slightly annoying teenage persona begins to grate. The emotional beats – such as a subplot in which foster brother Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer, better served than Asher in this film) begins to fall for Anne (Rachel Zegler), only to discover she has her own secrets – are rather obvious and thinly written. The resultant focus on a lager cast of characters means any character development is done with rather large brushstrokes. It leads to a film that tries to head to an emotional conclusion but the ending moments feel rather underserved and forced.

Mirren and Liu do the “proper actors making the best of it” out of the material that they have been given, and there is some attempt at throwing a little moral ambiguity into everything. But there’s just no room for any depth or subtlety. Speaking of which, while product placement is a normal part of the blockbuster movie business, here it’s done in such a way that they might as well bludgeon you in the head with a large packet of fruit-flavoured sweets that are often compared to rainbows.

This is nothing actively bad in Shazam: Fury of the Gods, but there’s nothing actively really good either.

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