Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review: Rachel Zegler Gives the Sweetness And Romance That Dc Needed
Cast: Zachary Levi, Adam Brody, Jack Dylan Grazer, Lucy Liu, Helen Mirren, Rachel Zegler
Director: David F. Sandberg
Where to Watch: In Theatres
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Shazam! Fury of the Gods will hit cinemas tomorrow. After several postponements due to the pandemic and beyond, fans of the first Shazam can finally admire the long-awaited sequel on the big screen. Shazam! Fury of the Gods keeps the promises presented in the various promotional trailers and raises the bar compared to the first film: David F. Sandberg’s film is as colorful and funny as the first film, it talks about family, inheritance and lineage. Laughter is generated genuinely from beginning to end, and there is no shortage of references to pop culture and to all (or almost) Warner Bros franchises. The presence of Rachel Zegler gives the film a touch of romance and sweetness that never fails, Helen Mirren is always wonderful. The real villain of the film is slightly weak and formulaic but does not damage the heart of the work in its entirety. Here is our review of Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
After the moderate commercial success obtained in 2019 by Shazam, Warner Bros. gives the green light to the production site of its sequel, to date the twelfth feature film in the DC Expanded Universe. Co-written by Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan and inspired by the characters created by Bill Parker and CC Beck in 1939, Shazam! 2 also marks the return behind the camera for David F. Sandberg. In our review of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, we will focus on how much the American author’s directorial vision behind the Warner commercial successes of Lights Out and Annabelle 2 has given life to a sequel that is much less narratively balanced than the previous one four years ago, but which still retains that touch of humor and lightness that had made the success of the progenitor of 2019 with Zachary Levi.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review: The Story Plot
Where were we? Following the thrilling events of 2019’s Shazam, Billy Batson (Angel Asher) and his foster brothers are having a blast living two separate but parallel lives: at home, they are the loving and irresistible foster kids of their extended family, but when duty calls the just secretly say the magic word “Shazam!” to transform into the Champions wielding the power of lightning. A life of superheroes is put to the test when the sisters Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Calypso (Lucy Liu) leave their kingdom to avenge the death of their father Atlas, who had stolen the stick of supreme power from the Great Wizard (Djimon Hounsou). Meanwhile, to complicate matters.
Four years after the first film directed by David F. Sandberg, the director returns behind the camera for the sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods, multiplying the action, the fun, the abundance of good feelings and special effects, but forgetting along the way to rely on a more solid and balanced script. It’s a shame, because the obvious narrative imbalance penalizes the film with Zachary Levi and Helen Mirren, far from the surprising glories of the first chapter of 2019. But not everything is to be thrown away in this sequel. The story of Shazam, Fury of the Gods picks up shortly after the events of the first film.
Now Billy Batson (Asher Angel/Zachary Levi) is no longer the only superhero in the family, finding himself coming to terms with his brothers, and trying in every way to keep together a group of people who are still trying to discover their potential, each following a different path. Thus, the film oscillates continuously between the childish/adolescent dimension and the super one, carrying on the story of these heroes who, although out of the ordinary, find themselves facing a context much bigger than them from many points of view. History takes over all this, with the Greek epic becoming the main driving force behind all the magic present in the lives of these boys. We finally discover the origins of the term Shazam and the reasons for its existence, when Antheia (Rachel Zegler), Calypso (Lucy Liu) and Esperida (Helen Mirren) raid the world of humans to seek their revenge. These three goddesses, daughters of Atlas, belong to the past and are looking for the so-called “champions” to make them pay for what happened to their father and put an end to the domination of the magicians.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review and Analysis
Shazam! Fury of the Gods, therefore, focuses a lot, as anticipated, on the concept of family. A decidedly non-traditional family made up of a couple with six adopted children from different realities and backgrounds. One of the biggest fears, which arose from the ending of the previous film, was how an entire family of superheroes could be managed, each with their personalities and abilities. Although this was the most difficult aspect to manage, as admitted by the director himself, the result is a balance that does not displease, in any case providing each of the characters with the possibility of having their moment, without however stealing the show from the real protagonist nor making everything chaotic. Indeed, the very way in which Shazam’s family superheroes are managed helps to better tell the protagonist’s particularly lively fear of growing up and seeing himself further and further away from his loved ones.
Beyond this intimist dimension, managed with good control over the rest of the narrative, the sequences more properly dedicated to superhero activity are particularly compelling. Without wanting to overdo it, Shazam! Fury of the Gods manages to offer well-kept battle scenes and special effects, sometimes even surprising in the way they are made. The powers of Antheia, for example, remain particularly imprinted. A not particularly high budget for a film of this kind, estimated at around 100 million dollars, is therefore exploited in the best possible way (just think that Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, with far from positive results, has a budget of about 200 million). Of course, not everything works well and in its first part the film is sometimes slow to get into gear, but when everything gets going, Shazam! Fury of the Gods becomes a highly enjoyable blockbuster, capable of surprising, moving and even entertaining with some decidedly memorable jokes.
Not to mention, in conclusion, the skill of its cast. Zachary Levi confirms himself to be very skilled in managing Shazam, making him credible both in the most comical moments and the most heroic ones. Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu instead establish themselves as convincing villains, if only for their innate charisma, but it is the young Rachel Zegler, discovered by Steven Spielberg with West Side Story, who catalyzes all the attention on herself. With her Antheia, the actress proves once again an interpreter with great skills and stage presence. In light of this, waiting now to find out what will be the future of Shazam in the DC Universe, one can only be satisfied, if one appreciates this superhero and the characteristics, of this sequel.
Not everything works in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, vastly inferior to its 2019 predecessor in terms of balance and narrative scope, yet the feeling one gets while supervising this sequel by David F. Sandberg is that it flies so low in a conscious form that the result is pur always a very dignified cinecomic in which great fun goes hand in hand with a cinematic look that is not pimping and genuine. Here there is certainly not the dark and serious ambition that had characterized the appearances (alone and in the company) of Ben Affleck’s Batman or Henry Cavill’s Superman, but not even the tested solidity of a certain irony typical of Marvel which, perhaps in a slightly more fluctuating way than before, nevertheless manages to retain millions of viewers. Nope, in Shazam! Fury of the Gods the simple story is at the full service of a sincere comic book movie with small personal ambitions.
Probably thanks to a very close-knit cast that already from the first film had given the audience the most genuinely irreverent and tender moments of the entire series dedicated to the DC character created by Parker and Beck: not only the stainless Zachary Levi in the role of the titular hero ” in the adult form”, but also the adolescent ensemble is not far behind, between an increasingly natural and launched Jack Dylan Grazer and an ironic and charismatic Asher Angel to the right point. The respectable new entries, including Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, and Rachel Zegler, can only accompany a very healthy dose of levity. A superpower, the latter, that not all contemporary cinecomics have the luxury of being able to use with wisdom and correct doses. Shazam! Fury of the Gods, despite not competing in reach and memorability with other DC cinematic pieces, nevertheless manages to carve out a place of honor at the table of “adults”, including Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman; maybe overdoing it a bit, but always with your feet firmly planted on the ground. And for David F. Sandberg’s sequel, it’s all good.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods enhances its heroes and delves into their psychology because there is the advantage of a first film that has done most of the dirty work. He wisely uses the charisma of the three splendid new entries, one for each generation, Rachel Zegler, Lucy Liu (very bad), and her majesty Helen Mirren. The action is fast-paced and well-made, and the story has its fair share of iconic references and places (above all the Rock of Eternity, the bat cave of Shazam and his companions). In short, the film beats the tracks of (practically) any other cinecomic in circulation with extreme fidelity. So why, in the extreme linearity and predictability of its intentions, Shazam! Fury of the Gods does it work more than decently? Because it makes sense of the measure.
David F. Sanberg also knows that talking about the family, the cross and thematic delight of every self-respecting cinecomic, is possible and indeed desirable, as long as you stay away from didactic excesses or, worse still, from the temptation of the “message”. The film doesn’t hit the key too much: if there is praise for the strength and inclusiveness of the family as a social and emotional foothold in a chaotic world, this is especially true at the beginning and end of the story. In between, laughter and thunderous heroism. Zachary Levi confirms a certain ease in managing the double soul (registry) of his hero. Jack Dylan Grazer, among the boys, is once again the most incisive. It is no coincidence that his playing time is higher than that of the same age, apart from Rachel Zegler. His nervous intensity, flawed and self-deprecating, ties in well with the overall tone of the film.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review: The Last Words
The DC sequel and directed again by David F. Sandberg does not reach the levels of narrative balance and brilliance of the previous chapter, often preferring confusing and exhausting action sequences to the content, but Shazam! Fury of the Gods still entertains with lightness and simplicity, without aspiring to be what it is not. And that’s no small thing nowadays. Shazam! Fury of the Gods keeps the promises presented in the various promotional trailers and raises the bar compared to the first film. David F. Sandberg’s film is as colorful and funny as the first film, it talks about family, inheritance and lineage. Laughter is generated genuinely from beginning to end, and there is no shortage of references to pop culture and to all or almost all Warner Bros. franchises. The presence of Rachel Zegler gives the film a touch of romance and sweetness that doesn’t hurt never, while of course Helen Mirren always is. The villain of the film is slightly weak and formulaic, but it does not damage the heart of the work in its entirety.
