Shazam! Fury of the Gods: A Spoiler-free Review

I really enjoyed the first Shazam! film. In the DCEU it felt like the weird cousin cracking jokes in the corner while the angry siblings shouted at each other incoherently. Shazam! Fury of the Gods was more of the same.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods continues the story of teenage Billy Batson who, upon reciting the magic word “SHAZAM!” is transformed into his adult Super Hero alter ego, Shazam.

This film has tons of humour but I think it does even better than the previous outing, is that it has a lot of heart, with a particular focus on family, whether it be the Shazam family or the daugthers of Atlas. The sisters were great, particularly Lucy Liu, who I’ve always liked as a villain.

Zachary Levi was ok. He was consistent in his portrayal from the first film, and the dynamic with the rest of the family is very entertaining. Jack Dylan Grazer was the standout for me, he’s probably the funniest character and his line delivery and comedic timing is always spot on.

Director David F. Sandberg comes from a horror background, and he really taps into that with the look of the monsters in this film, which I particularly enjoyed.

The third act loses a bit of steam and becomes very cliche but it makes up for it with some geniune heartfelt moments. It’s going to be interesting to see where this franchise goes from here. My head says it’s all going into the bin and Gunn and Safran will reintegrate Shazam! into the fold in a few years as part of the new DCU. My heart says Safran (who produced this film) will see out the trilogy and give it a good ending. even if it – regrettably – doesn’t feature Black Adam. We can’t get into that now, I’ll rant about that missed opportunity some other time.

In summary, a fun film that could have had a better ending, but has good humour and great heart.

6.5/10

Fun fact: this film mentions the Fast and the Furious franchise, in which Helen Mirren appears, but also co-writer of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Chris Morgan, featured as a writer and producer on many of the Fast and Furious films.

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