Shazam! Fury of the Gods
The Shazam family faces off against the gods of ancient Greece in a sparky, CGI-heavy caper.
The human face of ancient Greece: Dame Helen Mirren
Although both formulaic and derivative, the first Shazam! was great fun. That sense of buoyant bonhomie persists in the new film, although the now seventeen-year-old Billy Batson, part-schoolboy, part-grown-up superhero, behaves more like a nine-year-old. And like many a sequel, this expensive up-grade isn’t as fresh, original or even as funny as the first. So, one has to accept it for what it is: a galumphing, box-ticking whirlwind of action and one-liners, sarcasm and dragons. On the positive side, the CGI is pretty impressive, in a city block-folding Inception way, although it’s no match for the deadpan delivery of Helen Mirren. Cast as the daughter of the Greek god Atlas, she (as Hespera) seems the most recognisably human member of the cast and winks not at the camera once. That is not to say that her sister-in-crime Lucy Liu (as Kalypso) is no less formidable – and is even scarier.
The plot this time starts in contemporary Athens, where an impassioned curator is extolling the magnificence of the ancient staff of the gods, in the Acropolis Museum (“an amusement park for the brain”). Then two Greek soldiers march into the room, smash the glass display, steal the two pieces of the staff and turn all the surrounding tourists into Pompeii-like lava-encrusted statues. As it turns out, the soldiers, once unmasked, are none other than Hespera and Kalypso, who are hell-bent on harnessing the unimaginable power of the staff, once it has been mended. But they need the reluctant assistance of the wizard, the original Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), which they achieve with a bit of the old hocus-pocus. Now they are set to go, and head to Philadelphia, where Billy Batson and his five co-heroes (and foster siblings) are negotiating some negative publicity (“the Philadelphia Fiascos!” the headlines scream).
What follows is a helter-skelter ride of wholesale destruction and loud sound effects, creating a Jumanji-like scenario with raging mythological creatures and shifting perspectives. But in spite of the fine graphics, there is no real sense of suspense or awe – or belly laughs – as we are already familiar with the template. Had a filmgoer stumbled into the auditorium from the 1970s, they would be knocked out by the film’s scope, skill and bombast, and marvel at Helen Mirren’s durability. But this is 2023 and we’ve seen it all before. Smaller imaginations might be engaged, and politically correct sensibilities gratified, but there’s little novel here to enthral (give or take an enchanted quill called Steve). Fury of the Gods will pass the time well enough on a Saturday night, but one cannot really deny that this is yet another disappointment from the DC Comics stable.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Rachel Zegler, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, D.J. Cotrona, Grace Caroline Currey, Meagan Good, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Marta Milans, Cooper Andrews, Rizwan Manji, P.J. Byrne, Diedrich Bader, David Lengel, Gal Gadot, Jennifer Holland, Steve Agee, Mark Strong.
Dir David F. Sandberg, Pro Peter Safran, Screenplay Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan, Ph Gyula Pados, Pro Des Paul Kirby, Ed Michel Aller, Music Christophe Beck, Costumes Louise Mingenbach, Sound Matt Cavanaugh.
New Line Cinema/DC Studios/The Safran Company-Warner Bros.
130 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 17 March 2023. Cert. 12A.
