Shazam! Fury of the Gods

This weekend, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the newest film in the DCEU was released in theaters. Shazam! Fury of the Gods follows Billy Batson and his family as they continue to use their newfound powers as the heroes of Philadelphia. When a new threat emerges, the family must work together to save their city. I really enjoyed the first Shazam! movie so I was really looking forward to seeing where they went with this one.

I had a lot of fun with this movie. Just like the previous film, this movie has a lot of funny moments that would be expected from a child in an adult superhero body. This movie delivers more of that as it has all of Billy's siblings in their superhero forms. Zachary Levi does such a great job in playing a man-child and really matches the energy needed for such a role. The daughters of Atlas were also a great addition to the movie. These villains are a lot more menacing and have a reasonable motivation for their actions. I like how this movie also allows the other characters to get some of the spotlight. Specifically, Freddy gets a lot more moments on his own in this movie and we really get to see him as an independent character with his own subplot. I also really enjoyed that this film had more of a fantasy aspect to it, as it ties in Greek Gods and monsters. It was a lot of fun to see our heroes fight all of these mythical creatures. Finally, I thought the action in this movie was a lot of fun to watch. It goes a lot more intense than in the previous film as well as has a much higher scale to all of the battles.

However, there are a few things that keep this from being a top-tier film. The biggest issue is that this film just really fails to capture the charm of the original film. The first was a lot more family-focused and I felt that this movie just didn't have as much of that. The first film was also a lot funnier with Billy trying to adjust to his new powers that this film just didn't have a lot of. I also thought that the general plot was just a lot more generic in terms of the overall story and action. While it is still a lot of fun, the movie just doesn't do anything special to make it stand out. I also had an issue with the direction that the film took The Daughters of Atlas. I liked them as characters but I just wasn't totally on board with the direction the plot took them in the third act of the film.

In the end, I thought this movie was very entertaining and a lot of fun to watch. However, it really fails to capture the charm of the original film and in turn, becomes more of a generic superhero film.

Score: 7.5/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Check it out if you like superhero movies