FILM REVIEW: Shazam! Fury of The Gods
Shazam! Fury of the Gods more or less delivers exactly what it’s expected to. That is, a good-hearted and campy superhero romp largely coasting on the superficial charms of the first outing, 2019’s Shazam. Is it actually good? Well…
Those enamoured with Shazam’s personal core story, in which titular hero Billy Batson had to contend with parental abandonment, are likely to be let down by this sequel’s over-reliance on bland blockbuster trappings. And not for nothing, but Zachary Levi’s smarmy “immature doofus” schtick wears thin, too often pulling Shazam! Fury of the Gods into SNL comedy territory.
The general gist of this slapdashedly plotted dreck is that Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu), daughters of Atlas, make quite the entrance to Philadelphia in order to steal a magical staff that contains their father’s powers and restore the former glory of their realm. Meanwhile, Shazam (Levi) and his merry band of superhero cohorts, are still getting the hang of their newly acquired powers. They make a decent go as Phily’s champions but their childlike ineptitude leads to them being derisively dubbed as The Philadelphia Fiascos. This is one of the few bits of down-to-earth humour that prevents Shazam Fury of the Gods from being a total waste of time. Anyway, it’s a clash of gods, and children playing at gods, with Shazam learning the real meaning of family, again.
That said, seeing kids inhabiting super-powered adult bodies and flying through uninspired if occasionally well done set-pieces still has a charm to it, even when the plot devolves into a dreary slugfest in the last 40 minutes or so. If you ask me, James Gunn’s retooling of the DC Cinematic Universe can’t come soon enough.
