All things considered, ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ is a pretty good movie. Unfortunately, it’s not a great SEQUEL. And, in this genre, that really, really matters.
Funny enough, all the ingredients are here to set up success for ‘Fury of the Gods’. That is to say, the primary cast is back, the budget is hefty, and momentum is good, as the first outing was a blast; just the right mix of goofball energy and sci-fi wow to keep the DC Universe…two years removed from the disappointing ‘Justice League’…propped up at the box office.
Unfortunately, lost in this exercise of visual effects, one-liners and a candy advertisement (more on that later), is the magic of the concept. What sets Shazam apart from his spandex-clad co-workers is that this towering hero isn’t just a kid-at-heart, he IS a kid, the idea behind the whole thing being sort of a ‘Big’/’Freaky Friday’ meets ‘Superman’. And the playfulness that captured and embraced that in 2019’s original gets a little clobbered by a feast of destruction in the follow-up.
In ‘Fury of the Gods’, we find Billy Batson/Shazam (Asher Angel/Zachary Levi) struggling to become the hero he’s expected to be. His efforts to be a leader to his superhero family often lead to a collection of fumbles, prompting the local media to brand them as menaces….and just to put an exclamation on that point, an early sequence in the movie has Shazam and the gang swooping in to save hundreds of motorists stranded on a slowly deteriorating bridge. Once every citizen is brought to safety, the confident Levi proclaims the only thing left to do is stop the bridge from collapsing and, boom!….cut to news clip of fully collapsed bridge.
It’s the sort of fun, exciting, not-too-serious moment that defined the first film. And it’s the kind of moment that goes missing for much of the remainder of the ride.
We are then introduced to the daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler) who, having retrived an ancient wooden staff, are hellbent on restoring their father’s power on earth. And….well, the two families fight. And fight. And….shoot, there’s really not a heck of a lot else to this storyline.
Well, I suppose there’s the continuing coming-of-age subplot and the message about finding your place within a family. But that too is kinda pushed aside for…..Skittles. Yes, those brightly coloured little balls of sugar, combined with the presence of unicorns (really!) have such a prominent role in this movie, I sincerely wonder just how much the candy company shelled out to have us tasting the rainbow.
All that said, ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ is probably nowhere as bad as you’ve heard it is. It’s just a disappointing sequel. I guess that’s what happens, sometimes; with expectation comes the letdown.
