Four years after “Shazam!” surprised audiences with its light and witty take on a superhero origin story, “Fury of the Gods” continues the first film’s legacy with a fun expansion of its characters and story. In the first film, teenage foster child Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is visited by a mysterious wizard (Djimon Hounsou) and granted the ability to change into a superpowered alter ego, Shazam (Zachary Levi). After a run-in with an evil scientist wanting the powers for himself, Billy then grants the same powers to the other children in his home, defeating the enemy and breaking the magic staff that gives and takes the powers away.
Now, Billy learns that by breaking the staff, he unknowingly opened the barrier for three evil goddesses to enter Earth and wreak havoc. The daughters of Atlas, Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu) and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), are arguably one of the best parts of the film, showcasing far more memorable villains than the film’s predecessor. Zegler’s Anthea also spends a good portion of the film rebelling against her villainous sisters and helping the heroes, giving us a more complex side to the trio.
Much of this film is spent showing the dynamic between the family of heroes, both as superheroes and as children, which is exactly what it needed. Oftentimes, viewers don’t get to see superhero groups actually hanging out and bouncing off each other, but here, all of their chemistry with one another is evident.
In the film, both the adult and child actors have amazing chemistry as a group, and not a second of it is wasted. They goof around, they spend time together and they support each other, and it never gets old.
On the topic of chemistry, another sizeable portion of the movie is spent on the romance between Anthea and Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer). While the actors’ chemistry was certainly not lacking, this subplot was egregiously rushed.
The characters only have a couple of incredibly short conversations on-screen, and seemingly only know each other for a day before completely going against their families’ wishes to protect each other. In fact, before it’s even revealed that Zegler’s character is the third Daughter of Atlas (around the first third of the movie), she confesses that she’s never met anyone like Freddy and acts as though she knows him quite well. It seems that although this is only Zegler’s second movie, she’s already being typecast as a “girl that falls in love after one whole day.” It’s a shame this subplot was so rushed because I would’ve liked to have seen more of these characters organically growing.
The main draw of “Shazam!” movies is their comedy, and it did not disappoint. Multiple running gags garnered quite a few consistent chuckles, and things that seemed like throwaway jokes, in the beginning, turned out to be major plot elements late in the movie, which was a fun surprise. It was especially entertaining to see this film follow its own internal logic, which is incredibly loose and carefree but fitting for the tone.
As seen in a few trailers, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) turns up right at the very end of the film, and she quite literally shows up completely out of nowhere. Despite this, I accepted it and laughed, because the one thing this film absolutely refuses to do is take itself seriously. The heroes tame dark unicorns with Skittles in the climax, so sure, Wonder Woman might as well be here.
The film tries to set up an emotional core towards the beginning, with Billy worried he’ll be left behind after aging out of the foster system and him desperately trying to keep his family’s superhero group together, but it doesn’t seem incredibly focused on it during the bulk of the runtime. More time and subtlety should’ve been given to this subplot in order to keep the heart of the first movie, but it also isn’t incredibly distracting either.
The quality and amount of CGI in this movie were, frankly, a relief. The film takes place almost entirely in Philadelphia, but even in the few environments unfamiliar to us, much of the sets appeared to be mostly practical, which was a breath of fresh air after witnessing the all-CGI hellscape that was “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” As far as superhero movies go, the quality of the special effects was not bad at all, and it certainly wasn’t overused, compared to its peers.
“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is no masterpiece, but it isn’t trying to be, and that’s okay. It’s a fun superhero movie that exists with its own logic and small-scale story, delighting fans of superhero movies and meta-humor. If you’re looking for a movie that you can turn your brain off to and watch likable characters and great comedic performances, then you should definitely check it out (especially if you want to see more of these characters in the DCEU since it looks like James Gunn is overhauling pretty much everything).
