Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)

This movie picks up some time after the last one and now all of the kids are comfortable with their abilities, but they seem to leave a lot of damage in their wake. Billy is also trying to build his confidence in being a leader while being scared of losing his family. Toss in some upset goddesses, a dragon, and then a whole bunch of other mythical creatures and you have the latest DC movie. The goddesses want two magical items to bring life back to the realm of the gods. The personality of this sisters are very different and there are a few surprises with them that I do not wat to give away. In this film we also learn what Shazam stands for, the abilities of the gods that the carriers of Shazam have. Although some of the abilities are very clear the first one, the wisdom of Solomon. The kids do not seem to get smarter when they transform even though all of the other powers can be clearly seen.

For the acting, I'm just not a fan of how Zachary Levi plays Shazam. There is supposed to be a bit of childness to the character since he is supposed to be a kid in an adults body, but Zachary pushes too far to the point it seems almost slapstick. The other actors that play the older kids seem to actually pull off the acting in a more believable way. Actually the star that stole most of the attention for me was Jack Dylan Grazer since this movie gave him much more character development then the last one. Even just watching how his character changes through the movie was much more interesting then what was going on with Billy. Also Djimon Hounsou, who plays the wizard, also stood out. He just brings a presence to the screen. I was also happy to see Helen Mirren show that women can still kick butt at any age. She has done other action movies like Red and shows power and strength in different forms.

The special effects in this movie were about average for what can be done today. The previews I saw for the film focused mostly on the dragon. Yes it was large and had a good amount of screen time, but I wish they would have spent more time on the other creatures that were awakened. It felt like they missed out on a lot of cool things they could have done with them. Also when his one brother was exploring and mapping the doors, it would have been interesting to see more of what was behind those doors instead of the notes he was putting on them.

For my rating it is a complex mix of some of what I have spoken about above and just the over all Shazam story in the DC universe. Of the Shazam related movies I actually thought that Black Adam was the best. I think that this film was better then the first, but I'm still waiting for a DC movie to really stand out. The best so far has been The Suicide Squad and in a way that is the standard that I rate other DC movies against. This movie had some chance where they could have expanded it and made it great, but they just missed out. 3.5 stars out of 5 or a C+.

Picture 1 From: https://subcultureentertainment.com/2023/03/film-review-shazam-fury-of-the-gods-review-2023/

Picture 2 From: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10151854/

Picture 3 From: https://people.com/movies/shazam-fury-of-the-gods-everything-to-know/

Picture 4 From: https://twitter.com/ShazamNews/status/1449467612061126663

Picture 5 From: https://deadline.com/2023/03/shazam-fury-of-the-gods-box-office-bomb-1235303827/

Video From: https://youtu.be/Zi88i4CpHe4