‘Shazam: Fury of the Gods’ Review

Stars: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, Rachel Zegler, Djimon Hounsou, Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Faithe Herman, Cooper Andrews, Marta Milans, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, Meagan Good | Written by Henry Gayden, Chris Morgan, Bill Parker | Directed by David F. Sandberg

Zachary Levi returns for a sequel to DC’s 2019 superhero hit, alongside returning director David F. Sandberg. As such, the follow-up doesn’t quite hit the heights of the first film, but there’s a decent amount of fun to be had along the way.

The plot picks up two years after the events of the previous film, with Billy Batson (Asher Angel / Levi) and his Shazam Family of teens-who-turn-into-adult-superheroes established as a team of costumed crimefighters in their city, even if they occasionally screw up, earning them the label “the Philadelphia Fiascos”. However, when the vengeful Daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu) show up, looking to drain their powers, the super-family face their greatest challenge to date. Meanwhile, Billy’s foster brother Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) is distracted when a new arrival at school (Rachel Zegler, as Anne) shows an interest in him, and Billy finds himself haunted by dreams in which the apparently still-alive Magician (Djimon Hounsou) tries to warn him of terrible danger.

As superhero sequels go, Shazam: Fury of the Gods is something of a mixed bag. Levi is still a winning presence as Shazam (the running joke of his actual superhero name continues here), combining goofy charm and comic delivery to winning effect, while Jack Dylan Grazer continues to steal every scene and gets a significant share of the plot to boot. Similarly, it’s fun to see Mirren and Liu as a supervillain double act, even if you can’t help wishing they’d been given just a little more leeway in terms of camping it up – it’s like the script won’t let them give the performances they clearly want to deliver.

There is, at least, plenty of humour elsewhere, both visual and verbal, and there’s a nice misdirection gag that’s sure to please DC fans. In addition, the action is nicely handled, although the film leans into DC’s tendency to over-indulge in city-wide destruction, in such a way that you can’t help wondering about the resulting body count. There are a multitude of other problems too. For one thing, with six superheroes flying about, some of the characters inevitably lose out on screen time – Meagan Good is particularly poorly served, while one character serves literally one box-ticking purpose and has barely any dialogue to give him an actual character.

On top of that, the climax defaults to the tired superhero movie cliche of characters firing bolts of light at each other with no apparent effect. Indeed, there’s so much lightning crackling around in the movie that they should have leaned into it and called the film Shazam 2: Electric Booglaloo.

However, the film’s worst crime is its absolutely appalling in-your-face product placement, although, somewhat annoyingly, the use of a certain brand of chewy sweet does lead to one of the biggest laughs. The film also fails to learn the lessons of the previous movie when it comes to running time, dragging a little in the middle section and clocking in at an identical two hours and ten minutes.

Ultimately, Shazam: Fury of the Gods never quite captures the consistent magic of the first film, at least in terms of humour and emotion, but it’s still a welcome dose of lighthearted fun in the otherwise rather gloomy pre-James Gunn DC Universe. Speaking of which, stick around for both a mid-credits and a post-credits sting, the details of which it would be churlish to reveal here.

*** 3/5

Shazam: Fury of the Gods is in cinemas from Friday.