Shazam! Fury Of The Gods

Nicked Fury

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods
USA 2023 Directed by David F. Sandberg
Warner Bros
UK cinema release print

Warning: Very minor spoilers but there’s no way I’m giving away the ending or the really important cameo in this review.

Wow. This film is awesome. And if you want to take that as my final, less detailed verdict of the film so you don’t feel like you need to read to the end, please do so.

And it’s not just the awesome cameo towards the end of the movie where an amazing character restores a semblance of the status quo to things here... although that scene was so brilliant it had me crying by the finish. Nope... the whole film is a great, fun and respectful sequel to the first movie, which was a little better than this but... this being only slightly less better than absolutely brilliant is still pretty good, I reckon.

Okay, there are a few negative criticisms I have to make about this one and I’ll get those out of the way first because, yeah, they don’t even begin to make a negative dent in the movie and I can’t wait to get this thing on Blu Ray (partially because I saw this at Cineworld and I’m guessing the physical copy will be more in focus than how they projected it there).

So, okay, I was disappointed that the big dramatic beat from the first one of Mary Bromfield (still not yet revealed in this iteration as really being Mary Batson, Billy’s sister he didn’t even know he had) getting into college is sidelined to a throwaway scene explaining why she didn’t go. I thought the emotional investment in this character set up in the first film wasn’t given it’s due, to be honest.

Another negative thing was... I didn’t quite understand the physics of the big dome utilised by the villains in this one. It has certain physical properties in one scene which are completely forgotten about in a later scene but, yeah, I guess anything is possible when you’re dealing with magic.

Thirdly, but not so much of a big deal... one of the best lines in the trailers for the movie, about throwing a truck at a dragon, didn’t make final cut... which is a shame. However, the pacing of the scene in question is such that it would have slowed things down unnecessarily and been less credible so I suspect it was better out than in, in this instance.

That’s it. Those are my only negative things about the film. The rest is absolutely brilliant and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The cast from the original film, including stand up performances by Asher Angel as Billy Batson, Zachary Levi as Captain Marvel (because, two fingers up at Marvel who ‘legally acquired the name for one of their own characters... luckily, many audience members past a certain age can still remember what the name of the Worlds Mightiest Mortal is), Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman (like the first movie, he’s basically the lead kid in this film), Grace Caroline Currey as Mary Bromfield (and Mary Marvel... again, lets call her by her real character name for the purposes of this review) and a load of other returners are all great here. And, by golly they sure fooled me in the first film because, apparently, this is Grace Caroline Currey’s first time playing her super hero alter ego. The girl they had in the first film (which I reviewed here) looked so much like her I just assumed it was the same actress playing both roles in that one so... yeah, don’t know why they bothered with someone else in the original.

And this lot are joined by some nice additions including a couple of super villains played by Dame Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu and, also, a nice turn from Rachel Zegler (in her second film, after playing Maria in Spielberg’s quite good remake of West Side Story). Plus a couple of cameos but, seriously, that one towards the end of the picture... absolutely gave me a huge rush of emotion (while simultaneously keeping me angry at James Gunn... more on that anger in a little while). One thing I did miss was the sequel set up from the post credits of the previous movie but... the final post credits scenes here (there are two of them) is very much a sequel to the post credits of the first. So, yeah, if the direction of DC hadn’t suddenly changed then that talking earth worm ‘Mr. Mind and the Society Of Evil’ adaptation story may well have been coming along at some point.

I’m not covering the plot here but the film is full of great little references both to other comic book characters (including little digs at rival company Marvel) and also some great pop culture references in general. Such as the ‘pediatrician’ scene from the trailer... I’d already spotted the haunted doll from The Conjuring movies in the shot in the previews but I’m happy to say Annabelle remains in the finished movie here. And a nice moment where a guy on the street calls the main character Captain Marvel... and he’s not only played by Michael Gray, who used to play Billy Batson in the Shazam TV series in the 1970s but he’s even wearing the same t-shirt costume he wore in it. And, wow, I love the symmetry of having a character originally co-created for Fawcett Comics (before DC bought the rights years later) by C. C. Beck, get a score by composer Christophe Beck. I mean, I doubt they’re related but, even so.

Oh... and I’m not even going to say anything about the wonderful Unicorns or the fact that the makers of Skittles must have paid a fair amount of money for their quite prominent plot point of a product placement... but I don’t care because, even if it will date the movie some years from now, it was just delightfully done.

And, well, it’s such a good movie with a brilliant, post bad gal defeat denouement scene that, in light of the first of the post-credits scenes here, you just have to hate James Gunn’s new DCU ending policy even more. After Blue Beetle, The Flash and the second Aquaman movie have played out in cinemas later this year, the decision has been made to pull the plug on the current movie DC universe with even their most highly anticipated movie originally on the slate, Wonder Woman 3, completely cancelled. So no more Henry Cavill as Superman (as set up at the end of Black Adam) and no more Justice Society (not to mention the Justice League). The whole thing sucks but these movies are teasing and building towards a series of event movies that will now, unless DC does an about turn sometime very soon, won’t happen. So yeah, while I’d like to see another Wonder Woman and a Justice League/Justice Society team up movie where they take on Black Adam before becoming his ally to ward off some greater evil... it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now. Which is a huge pity, especially after DC have finally seemed to have been gaining traction after their earlier cinematic efforts didn’t quite get things right, it all seems to have been scuppered... unnecessarily, it seems to me.

But don’t let that sourness put you off going to see what is probably the best superhero movie that’s going to be in cinemas this year. I suspect Shazam! Fury Of The Gods might well make my top ten movies of 2023, by the end of it... time will tell, I guess.