Director: David F. Sandberg
Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Duration: 130 minutes
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Back in 2019 we quite adored Shazam’s cinematic outing, and it was thanks to the lighthearted personality of this teenager-turned-superhero that we were secretly hoping for a sequel back then. Sadly, during the course of the last few years, the DCU has somewhat shattered and the last few movies that are tied together are being released. Recently The Flash was released, only to underperform, and we are still awaiting Aquaman 2’s cinema debut. For now, however, we’ll have to make do with the home release of Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The sequel proves to be an entertaining movie, albeit without some of the charm that made the first movie great.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods starts off sometime after the events of the first movie, and Billy (Asher Angel) and the rest of the kids are still getting used to their powers as superheroes. They are not always appreciated by the city, as they tend to cause quite a bit of damage to peoples’ properties when saving people or fighting crime. On top of that, it seems that the group is somewhat drifting apart, as everyone truly wishes to do their own thing, and Billy seems to be the glue that is trying to hold them together as a troupe. Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) sometimes feels a bit suffocated by Billy, and he is trying to find his own way, which eventually puts him on the radar of an ancient evil that has awakened once again. The daughters of the Titan Atlas have managed to acquire the Wizard’s (Djimon Hounsou) staff. With this staff, they wish to take back the powers that were given to all the members of ‘Team Shazam!’, and they don’t care how many people die in the process.
The movie progresses pretty much as you expect: the superheroes are getting used to their powers while learning to work together as a team, while a new ancient evil awakens. The movie has a fairly good balance between giving the viewers information about what is going on while also showing a lot of action-packed scenes. We do feel like the movie could have used a little more character evolution, as you simply don’t care that much for the actual superheroes here. In this movie, most of the additional members of ‘Team Shazam!’ don’t even get their own individual superhero names. This shows that the writers didn’t really care that much about the other members of the group, even though they are supposed to have powers on par with Shazam himself. That being said, the overall formula is still enjoyable, and as far as superhero movies go, this isn’t a bad flick in the slightest, it just plays things a bit too safe.
The acting performances here are great, and the second movie basically still has all the familiar faces you saw in the first installment. This sequel does, however, introduce a few new leading villains, namely the very talented Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, and Rachel Zegler. These three leading ladies do a great job bringing their characters to life, even though their interesting godlike personas in the film don’t get fleshed out that much. We understand some of the actions of this revenge-plotting trinity, but we would have loved a bit more backstory here and there. All other cast members pick up their roles and continue with the same quality level of acting we saw in the first film. Shazam! Fury of the Gods did cut the role of Michelle Borth, who originally played the superhero version of Mary. Grace Caroline Currey played both parts in this sequel, and we can only commend her for her great performance here, as she did in fact constantly had to swap outfits and go through make-up for her different personas.
When purchasing a Blu-ray copy of Shazam! Fury of the Gods you’ll get loads of additional content to plow through. While most of the bonus features revolve around the creative process that went on behind the scenes, it’s still interesting to watch all of it. You’ll get simple features revolving around general making-of content, insights from the cast members, but also commentaries, and other fun bonus material. All in all, the extras do add some value to buying a physical copy.
Conclusion
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a decent continuation of Shazam’s superhero antics, but it also lacks a bit of the flair and charm that made the original great. Don’t get us wrong, Fury of the Gods is a perfect movie if you want to wind down and watch a somewhat generic superhero flick on a rainy afternoon, but it feels very shallow and somewhat bland. If you’re a fan of Shazam, we reckon you’ll still quite enjoy this one, but it will not blow you away.
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