Shazam! Fury of the Gods Movie Review - Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice
2019 was the year that DC brought to the table two interesting surprises from Hollywood’s bag of goodies, one of them was Joker, one of the best movies of that year, and the other being—from what I remembered the first time I saw it—the shockingly enjoyable Shazam! Now did the original have its fair share of missteps particularly in the story and in other areas such as visual effects and its villain’s scheme, indubitably, but was it also something that offered entertainment value as I was watching it with the addition of aspects that were good on their own, for sure. All in all, it was a pleasant surprise from the DCEU after being exhausted by the atrocities from the Snyderverse that has plagued Hollywood for over half a decade.
Now at last we have arrived in the 2020s, and the majority of content released from the murky abyss of Phase Four and Five and what else remains of the wretched Synderverse have been poor to say the least. But perhaps after reaching financial and critical achievements, a sequel of the much acclaimed “Shazam” may have improved from its progenitor and reject the notion of superhero franchise fatigue emerging after the garbage-fire “Quantumania” with the release of “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”. Well, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Yep, it’s another bland, underwhelming superhero film in the 2020s that should’ve been so much better than the final product what we’ve been exposed to.
The biggest takeaway that I have concerning the movie’s flaws, is that it feels like Billy Watson doesn’t even grow as a character or learn anything from his experiences. He doesn’t mature, takes little to nothing seriously (it also doesn’t help that Zachary Levi’s adult version of Billy is more over-the-top and ridiculous than his teenage counterpart than it was in the first film), his whole subplot about him trying to get the team together and being a leader while trying to adapt to change goes completely nowhere. The movie also falls short of a subplot about parental conflict between him and his adopted mom, Rosa. There could’ve been some interesting dynamic between the two and having Billy experience what it’s like to have a mother for the first time, and the film tries so hard to pull on the heart strings and you would have feelings for a plot line like this, but it doesn’t tell you where to put them because of how rushed and hollow the execution comes off.
The story itself is a disorganized, cobbled mess that crams so many ideas to the narrative just as an excuse for characters to have something to do, but doesn’t do it well containing contrivances that have some of the most shameless product placement in a film since 2017’s Power Ranges. The spectacle is an uninspired affair of dodgy special effects and characters smashing into each other, the jokes are tired failed attempts of the movie’s humor, and the ending leaves a bitter taste in your mouth as it goes for something gutsy, online to cheat at the end and go for the laziest writing cop-out imaginable.
As much fun as it sounds to rail on superhero films of the modern era, I just hope that in due time, studios will finally start caring about storytelling, character writing, polished visual effects and grand production in the comic book genre. There’s still hope for movies such as “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”, “Across The Spider-verse”, and “The Batman Part II”. Hopefully James Gunn’s first lineup of DC films work wonders, because the decline of audience interest in the superhero genre maybe coming closer than we thought.
Rating: 1/5
