Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
Is the superhero genre flirting with irrelevancy? Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a perfectly acceptable kid-friendly comic book movie. And not much more than that.
If that sounds like a diss, I’m sorry. Director David F. Sandberg has done a good job, but what’s lacking this time around is the element of surprise.
The first Shazam! (2019) felt like a breath of fresh air and made it the Ant-Man of the DC Universe: a quirky, charming movie sandwiched between the bigger projects.
It told the story of the young Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who, by uttering the magic word ‘Shazam!’ transformed into his alter ego, the adult superhero Shazam (Zachary Levi).
Shazam! was successful enough to guarantee a sequel, which is pleasant enough to watch but at the same time feels fairly predictable.
It makes sense that, now that Billy and the other kids from the foster home possess the powers of the gods, it's a little more difficult for them to be normal teens and adult superheroes at the same time. Because not all of their enterprises are successful they are dubbed the Philadelphia Fiascos by the media, which causes Billy a lot of chagrin, but leave the other members of team more or less cold as they have other interests to pursue, like going out, watching baseball. Or simply having a life.
Or even fall in love. In Shazam! Fury of the Gods there is a major role for Jack Dylan Glazer, who plays Billy’s best friend Freddy Freeman and falls in love with Anne (Rachel Zegler), a new girl at school.
It is soon revealed that Anne is one of three Daughters of Atlas (the other two are played by Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu). These ancient goddesses not only want the magic back that was stolen from them, they also want to exact revenge on the kids who did it.
Anne feels loyal to her sisters, but also develops a soft spot for Freddy. At some point she will have to make a choice.
Can the warring parties come to a truce? Fortunately, Djimon Hounsou returns as the Wizard to help out the kids and their superhero alter-ego’s.
Director Sandberg keeps the story beats ticking over and he is helped by crisp cinematography, fluent editing, and a score that verges on the bombastic without going completely overboard.
There are some nice action sequences spread throughout the movie, even though the final half hour of this 125 minute movie feels both obligatory and superfluous. Still, it’s not bad. A solid three star movie.
The question is: will it be enough? The movie is produced by Peter Safran, who has made big movies like Aquaman and who now runs DC Movies together with James Gunn. But Fury of the Gods is now projected to open with around 35 million dollars in the US (and 85 million worldwide) this weekend, which for a superhero movie is at the low end of expectations.
And even though the movie doesn’t have to break the bank to break even - 300 million dollar on a reported 120 million budget should do the trick - there is a sense of superhero fatigue finally kicking in.
So to come back to the question I raised at the beginning: I’m sure superhero comic book movies will remain relevant, because there are so many people who enjoy at least some of them. But the blow-out success of Avengers: Endgame may not be repeated any time soon, even though I won’t be surprised if at some point a new (or old) hero steps up to save the day.
It may all come down to James Gunn to reverse the trend and give both his old (Marvel) and his new (DC) home a superhero kick in the butt with the release of Marvel’s highly anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in the first weekend of May.
As Gunn has recently announced that he will also write and direct Superman: Legacy (due July 2025) there is still plenty to look forward too!