Riot’s Reviews: Shazam! Fury of the gods
Full disclosure, I was not a fan of the 2019 Shazam!. But, since I’ve often been described as being a glutton for punishment (mostly by coworkers, you know who you are) I decided to give the Shazam! (Captain Marvel) story another go. Much like what I mentioned while reviewing Black Adam, I have little faith in the DCEU. Their studio controversy, especially involving the removal of Henry Cavill as Superman and having James Gunn take the helm of creative lead, has only served to decrease people’s faith in the building/expanding of the DC Universe. With so much already working against it, there had to be some reasons to look forward to David F. Sanberg’s sequel, right? The original cast is back. There is a pair of big Hollywood actresses in Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu coming in to play the antagonists of the story. Finally, filming began before all of the controversy hit the news cycle. Audiences and critics alike gave the first film some high marks (questionably, I’d argue). So, will lightning strike twice? Or will another god of thunder fizzle out?
Shazam! Fury of the gods opens up in a museum, where a tour guide is leading a group around a familiar sight, the Wizard’s staff. The guide is soon interrupted by two interestingly clad women, Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu), who proceed to steal the broken pieces of the staff and murder the entire room of visitors. The story then picks up with Billy Batson (Asher Angel/Zachary Levi) two years after the events of the first. Batson, along with his adoptive brothers and sisters are still developing into their new roles as superheroes in the city of Philadelphia (originally depicted as Fawcett City). The growing pains are obvious and the opinions of the cities’ residents are divided, as Batson struggles to keep his family working as a unit verses branching out on their own. The Daughters of Atlas are using the staff to reclaim the powers of the gods that were “stolen” from their realm by the Wizard, simultaneously hoping to regrow the Tree of Life, the source of vitality in their realm. It is up to the family of young heroes to grow quickly into their roles and find the wisdom they need to defeat the Daughters of Atlas and free their city from the clutches of the sisters.
I’m going to have to start with the positives on this film because, as expected, this was a rough one for me. Overall, the special effects were pretty fantastic. The kid’s lair, with some new and stunning features, had a Harry Potter feel to it that I really enjoyed and the final battle (involving a massive wooden dragon and a lot of lightning), was especially amazing to watch. The overall plot idea was interesting (although ultimately unfulfilling and infuriating at times) and the original cast seemed a little more comfortable in their roles, even when hindered by some shaky writing.
So where did this movie go wrong? To start, Fury of the gods suffers greatly from multiple issues that have become commonplace in superhero movies. First, the severe lack of development of characters and in this film’s case, the baffling origin, motivation, and desires of its villains. There is no consistency in what they want, quite literally at any point of the story. Performance-wise, it was painful to watch high-caliber actresses like Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu sputter their way through their dialogue and action scenes. I’ve hardly seen anyone less convincing as a villain (both of them). Second, continuing on the thread of consistency problems, the role “magic” plays in the film is so beyond loose and undefined its laughable. Hespera’s powers in particular, referenced as being able to control the elements, are almost 100% more like a form of telekinesis. If the writers were trying to make the argument that it is the manipulation of air for some asinine reason, they failed miserably at that. Speaking of wasted talent, Djimon Hounsou (who I absolutely love in quite literally everything else he’s done) as the Wizard is brought back into the plot with only an extremely brief explanation as to why. The characters are shown to be shocked by his presence and rightfully so. If you can’t come up with a valid reason for his existence (outside of one very brief plot line) then don’t include him. Third, the plot points are absolutely riddled with holes so far beyond the point of switching the mind off and trying to enjoy the movie. It had the feeling much like the latest Star Wars trilogy where “The Force” is used to shoe-horn the plot development. We ask the question, “why did this happen?”…“because The Force!” For Shazam! it’s: “because magic!” Fourth, the unbearable predictability is impossible to escape. I’ve written about what I would call “good” predictability in the past (think Top Gun: Maverick and Creed III here), but this movie reeked of the kind of predictability that makes your eyes roll into the back of your head. Finally, we need to be done with “meta humor” (or self-referential humor). I don’t know who first tried to make it funny, but it has turned into these awkward, often self-deprecating one-liners that simply aren’t funny. If you’re not Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, stop breaking the fourth wall, stop making fun of your production, and stop making low-brow humor that convinces me more and more each day that we are living in Idiocracy. If you can’t do “meta” well, simply don’t do it at all.
Riot’s Rating: 3.5/10: Just skip it. Early prediction but this will probably go down as one of the worst films I will see this year.
P.S. The magic staff design was awful in the first movie and it’s still awful now.
P.S.S. Seriously, how much did Skittles have to pay for their product placement spot?
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