Shazam!: Fury of the Gods

I love the wish-fulfillment aspect that lies at the very core of Shazam!: Fury of the Gods.  The idea of a teenager (and in this sequel to the 2019 original, a group of teens and preteens) being granted the ability to become full-grown adult superheroes with incredible powers holds a lot of charm to me, because comic books are built entirely around the wish fulfillment of the reader.  If the movie had truly run with and explored this idea, we could have something truly whimsical and perhaps powerful.

However, like so many blockbuster epics, this central idea gets buried by a sense of everything but the kitchen sink being thrown up on the screen.  If ever there was a movie that didn't need an hour of endless special effects, buildings being shattered, and mythical creatures threatening humanity, it's this one.  This is a movie that calls for a light touch, not a sensory bombardment.  Alas, that's what returning director David F. Sandberg does.  He throws so many special effects shots into the mix that they start to blend together, and the audience can no longer be involved, because it's no longer a story, but a tech demo.  The first hour of the film filled me with promise, while the second hour drowned me in an orgy of senseless spectacle that meant nothing.

Here once again is young actor Asher Angel, playing high schooler Billy Batson, who in the last film was granted the ability by a powerful and snarky wizard (Djimon Hounsou) to become a caped adult superhero (Zachary Levi) whenever he shouts the magic word, "shazam".  Last time, we got to see how he gave some of his powers to a group of fellow foster children, so they now all get to be superheroes as well.  The movie has some fun with idea early on, with Billy wanting them to be a family of crime fighters, while some of the other kids in the group are starting to drift into other interests like college and dating.  It's right about this time that the Earth faces a new threat in the form of the Daughters of Atlas, three mythical sisters who are the daughters of the Titan Atlas, and wish to seek vengeance for what the wizard did to their father.

The sisters include the powerful Hespera (Helen Mirren), the vindictive Kalypso (Lucy Liu), and most importantly the youngest sister Anthea (Rachel Zegler from 2021's West Side Story), who unlike her two older sisters has a soft spot for the humans, particularly Billy's best friend Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer).  Their plot involves encasing the city of Philadelphia within a magical dome, and it takes a superhuman effort for the viewer not to think of 2007's The Simpsons Movie when you see the city permanently encased.  I actually was waiting for someone in the movie to bring up the plot similarity, but no such luck.  Despite three enormously talented women taking on the roles, they get to do little more here than to summon the special effects that will menace our heroes for the remainder of the over two hour run time.  It's at this point that Fury of the Gods slowly started to lose me, because everything that came before was a set up for non-stop destruction that we've seen in countless superhero movies by now.

I like these characters, and the actors who play them, so why waste all this talent in a movie that's not even going to exploit them, other than to react to monsters and destruction that will be added in post-production?  Given the current glut of superheroes filling theater space, you have to do a lot to stand out, and simply having hordes of monsters stampeding down the street just isn't going to cut it.  I say, you see one cyclops ripping a car in half, you've seen them all.  The filmmakers have a strong foundation here.  Billy wants a "family", because as a foster kid who was abandoned early in his life, he wants to belong.  And because of this, he clings a bit too tightly to his friends.  This element is here, but not as strongly as you would imagine.  It doesn't drive his character like it should, so it never comes across as the character arc like it should.

Once the carnage starts, it's nonstop and gets to be tiresome.  It's all a bunch of set up to more films and a wider universe for Billy and his friends, but given the current behind the scenes turmoil going on at Warner Bros. and the DC Cinematic Universe in general, you have to wonder if it's just going to be a bunch of build up to films that will never happen now that other people are in control of these characters.  I'd like to see this continue, because like I said, I like these characters.  I just want to see them in a movie that truly knows how to use them, and has them interact with each other, instead of participating in endless battles.  There's charm here, but it all gets blasted away once the sensory overload of destruction starts up.

There is such a likable and whimsical movie at the core of Shazam! that never gets to come out here.  The filmmakers had a chance to truly play up the wish fulfillment aspect, and create something truly delightful.  Instead it tries to mimic current blockbuster trends, and ends up being much less memorable because of it.

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