Mini Film Review – Shazam! Fury Of The Gods

I have just seen Shazam! Fury of the Gods; and it was alright! Directed by David F. Sandberg, and starring Zachary Levi, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Rachel Zegler; Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a superhero film, and sequel to Shazam!. Following on from the first film (by quite a few years), teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his family of superheroes, appear to be splitting at the seams, which comes at a bad time as two Greek Gods have arrived to claim their long overdue revenge! The first Shazam film is easily one of the standout films in the soon to be defunct DC Extended Universe. It was a surprising film as it was in it’s elemental form a superhero movie, but it was also secretly a Christmas movie, as well as a story about family, packed with good humor, and a strong villain (and that’s not just because his real name is Mark Strong). With this very firm foundation, all this film needed to do was just more of the same thing…not more than the same thing! It has it’s merits, the acting from the younger cast is still rather excellent, and there’s still plenty of room for laughs, and other lesser characters to still have a great impact on the whole film. But, the rest of it, is just a jumbled mess really. There is no strong villain! There’s technically three which carries a great early twist, but, not enough development to really hone into one villain. Yes, whilst they do argue a lot, which could be funny, here it’s just dull. And when a villain does finally get picked, there’s no real time to create a good one, it’s just someone who is bad, for being bad, no real development sadly, unlike Mark Strong! And as that’s finally resolved, its half-way through a very long ending. Somethings mentioned earlier on do get wrapped up, but you do forget about those, as you watch a Duracell Bunny of an ending, it just keeps going, and going, and going. If the ending had been halved in length, then it would still look really cool, but what you really want is not an epic ending, but more like the first film’s rather snappier ending. I am not saying it’s a bad film though, it’s just a bit weak. It’s perfectly enjoyable and entertaining, but on the whole it’s sort of the DC version of Thor: The Dark World. It carries all the possibilities in the world, but chooses the wrong direction, and as such is rather incapable of living up to it’s own potential. However, if this is Shazam! The Dark World; imagine what Shazam! Ragnarok could be; it just needs a bit more imagination (and possibly a desire to just get to the point)!