Movie Review: Shazam! Fury of the Gods

SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods [2023]

Well, yeah, this movie just kinda... came and went with very little fanfare, huh? Both Shazam: Fury of the Gods and The Flash kind of... well, it really is kind of hard to get excited for the DCEU material when we get the confirmation that everything is going to be rebooted soon. While I don't think this one suffered as badly as The Flash did, I did also feel that the studio favouring The Rock's Black Adam to the exclusion of not allowing Shazam and Black Adam to really reference each other to basically be another nail in the coffin in this entire 'shared universe' venture. It really is kind of a shame. 

Ultimately, Shazam: Fury of the Gods is... it's honestly a pretty simple movie, one that was a pretty nice (if more childish) watch for an airplane ride. It doesn't really follow up on the Sivana/Mr. Mind stuff hinted at the end of the first movie, or tie in any meaningful way to the rest of the DCEU, but tells basically its own story with three new villains (taken from Greek mythology, but basically not originating from the comics), the Daughters of Atlas -- Hespera, Kalypso and Anthea. They steal the Wizard's staff from a museum and regain their magical power, unleashing a blast of petrification that kills everyone there. There is some nice nods to the origins of Shazam that the first movie glossed over -- like the fact that Shazam draws his power from several Greco-Roman gods (and a Judeo-Christian king, Solomon). The children of one said god, Atlas, wants their birthright back, and also to restore their realm that has been left barren.

On the good guys' side, after the initial action scene of the 'Shazamily' (god, that name) saving people from a collapsing bridge, the majority of the focus is still on Billy and Freddy, with Freddy taking a bit more central stage this movie. Billy has his own smaller arc of dealing with impostor syndrome, realizing that his family is growing up and drifting apart with his other foster siblings having their own lives, him about to outgrow the foster system and generally worried that he's going to lose another family. Meanwhile Freddy feels suffocated by the 'all or nothing' aspect of Billy's leadership, and ends up wanting to branch out on his own, eventually befriending a cute girl at school, Anne... who turns out to be the third daughter of Atlas, Anthea. Oops!

The Wizard Shazam turns out to have survived the events of the first Shazam movie and is merely banished out of the Rock of Eternity, which is honestly a bit of an ass-pull that the movie itself somewhat acknowledges. Billy is trying to figure out the intricacies of the weird dream he had (Djimon Honsou's head photoshopped into Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman body is hilarious!). We get some absolutely top-tier rotating environments CGI effects when Anthea uses her power of 'the axis' to rotate around buildings and whatnot, which honestly does provide the visual highlights for this movie. If nothing else, the movie is visually stunning for Anthea's abilities alone. 

The Daughters of Atlas kidnap Freddy, create a magical dome around the city, and fly off into their own realm. We get some more hijinks as the Shazam Family (that's what I'll call them instead) return to the Rock of Eternity which they made up to be a more homey lair and discuss with the aid of the sentient magic pen Steve on how to outsmart the Daughters of Atlas. 

We get a rather fun fight between Hespera and the Shazam Family, with some good points about how Hespera's actually rather pissed off that the 'lifeblood of [her] father' is being treated as if it's something that the mortals are owed to. There's the fun bit of seeing an old woman in a Greek warrior suit fight against a bunch of superpowered people. In the fight, Pedro gets zapped by Calypso and loses his ability to transform. Hespera does the 'Loki' trick from Avengers, being falsely imprisoned only to break out of jail while the kids are patting themselves in the back, and then steals the Golden Apple... which, uh... isn't a plot point or objective that was mentioned at all prior to this. 

Also, while all of this is going on, Freddy and the Wizard kind of befriend each other. When Calypso has the two of them tossed into the pit where the giant dragon Ladon (he looks like the World of Warcraft Dracolich but made out of wood) is supposed to eat them, but they're rescued by Anthea, who allows them to escape. In an attempt to steal back the Golden Apple, however, Freddy and the Wizard accidentally alert them. There is a nice attempt at giving the villains some personality -- Anthea clearly loves the humans (or at least Freddy), Hespera doesn't care about the humans and cares more about the restoration of their realm, while Calypso just wants to murder everyone. 

Simultaneously, the Shazam Family arrive after chasing Hespera through the hall of magical teleporting dolls, take Freddy and the Wizard, and escape. And... they show up in front of their foster parents, and rapid-fire tell their secret identities to them before being forced to escape because Calypso arrives with Ladon and blows up the house. Okay, Ladon's pretty visually cool, too!

The rest of this climax is just... an extended action scene. Basically everyone other than Billy loses their powers in the fight, while Calypso gets pissed off at her sisters and fatally stabs Hespera. She plants the Golden Apple in the human realm, causing roots to grow everywhere and birth a bunch of Greco-Roman monsters like manticores and harpies, and we get a frankly rather eye-rolling subplot of Darla using skittles to befriend a unicorn herd to murder these random monsters. 

Freddy and a depowered Anthea get a nice little moment that ties up their little gods-vs-mortals storyline, and Billy finally gets some resolution as his foster parents turn out to want him after all, while the Wizard tells him that he's the right champion after all. Billy manages to talk to the dying Hespera, managing to convince her to help him trap Calypso and the dragon Ladon inside a shrinking dome. We then get a big fight as Billy uses the staff to blast Ladon, using the dome as a way to amplify the energy like a battery/bomb and blowing up the tree, Ladon, Calypso, and causing a magical chain reaction that kills off all the monsters. 

Oh, and Billy dies, a moment that is actually well-acted by Freddy's actor as he and the rest of the Shazam Family grieve for him... and then we get around 20 minutes of screentime as Wonder Woman very randomly shows up out of nowhere, reactivates the staff, resurrects Billy and the god realm. It's a literal deus ex machina, and while I get that every mystical thing that we saw originates more from Wonder Woman's Greco-Roman myths in the comics as opposed to Captain Marvel's, it really does feel like an unearned plot-twist.

We later get to see Anthea hanging out with the Shazam Family, the Wizard (who ditches that ridiculous mustache) wandering the Earth, a mid-credits scene where the two normal guys from Suicide Squad and Peacemaker try to recruit Billy (I did like the JSA/JLA confusion) and a post-credits gag with Sivana and Mr. Mind. 

And... I dunno. I do feel like this movie does have some visuals, but ultimately the plot is rather paper-thin. It doesn't make it un-enjoyable, if you want my honest opinion. It feels like a Transformers or a James Bond movie or something where it's just... it's just action with very simple characters. I do think that the ending of Billy getting randomly resurrected does come out of nowhere, and for this being their second outing, I really can't even name any of the movie-original (New-52-original? Same thing) Shazam Family members. I don't think it flows quite as well as the first Shazam movie, and... well, it's honestly rather clear that with so much other problems plaguing the rest of the DCEU at this point in time that this movie wouldn't really have much put into it. It's a fun self-contained adventure, and that's basically it. I did enjoy myself watching this one, for what it's worth. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• We still have a lot of jokes being made at the fact that Billy Batson doesn't have a superhero name. The Wizard names him 'Shazam' at the end of the movie, which is the characters' lawyer-safe name.
• Freddy continually goes around as 'Captain Everypower' and calls Billy 'Captain Everypower Junior'. In the comics. Freddy is actually 'Captain Marvel Jr.'. 
• A random citizen (played by Michael Gray, who is the actor for Billy Batson in the 70's TV show!) actually does name-drop 'Captain Marvel' as a name for Billy, which I'm surprised Marvel allowed!
• Yet another civilian calls Billy 'Colonel Cheese-Steak'. Captain Marvel's in-universe nickname is 'the Big Red Cheese'.
• Michael Gray's civilian character also wears an outfit that resembles Billy's outfit from the 70's TV show. 
• The public school that they attend is Fawcett Central. In the comics, Captain Marvel operates out of Fawcett City, a fictional town. 
• The cat that Darla borrows from the bridge is given the name Tawny. Captain Marvel in the comics has a talking tiger-man sidekick called Talky Tawny. 
• The burning violin is actually from the comics, wielded by minor villain Nero.
• After being confused with 'Justice Society' and 'Justice League', Billy gets impressed with 'The Avengers Society', yet another cross-company reference to Marvel comics.