PREMISE
The film continues the story of teenage Billy Batson, who, upon reciting the magic word “SHAZAM!” is transformed into his adult Super Hero alter ego, Shazam.
THE GOOD STUFF
SILLINESS- Once upon a time, there was a movie called THOR: love and thunder. It was a movie that I thought was decent enough but had an overwhelming amount of complaints about all the humor it implemented in the film. By general consensus, there was an almost unified agreement that the humor felt forced and ingenuine. I’m not going to be the one to say that I didn’t understand that complaint entirely, but I thought people were just being irrational.
But then I saw this movie, and I must admit I see what people were talking about now. Unlike LOVE AND THUNDER, These are characters that were introduced as being silly, none of the side clips or punchlines feel out of place, and the movie seems to know when the humor is supposed to be turned on as well as turned off.
THE HEROES- The comedy doesn’t work, of course, without the cast, and everybody seems to bring exactly what they’re supposed to. Zachary Levi remains delightfully silly and really never tries to fully mature the character of Shazam! Even in this film’s darkest moments. There’s genuine chemistry with literally every character that makes up his adopted family. There are multiple scenes where all of them are in a room just trying to figure things out, and it all plays so well on screen that it just leaves me back to wonder why certain DC films could never pull off something as simple as getting chemistry correctly. Djimon Hounsou also gets quite a few punchlines that land really well. He’s played this character in three movies now, and it’s a nice change of pace from what was a very boring role.
THE BAD STUFF
THE VILLAINS- Theoretically speaking, this movie gives me personally what I want when it comes to movie villains that don’t have a lot of empathetic angles. These villains are archetypes in these types of genre films, and I have come to appreciate that because the heroes are as well.
The problem with the villains here lies in the fact that their plan really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even in your most routine kind of superhero movie, there has to be a good reason why your climactic battle happens. It should be abundantly clear how your villains will benefit from being victorious. That doesn’t happen here, and that’s because they’re so little backstory for these villains as individuals to justify their actions.
THE CAMEOS- I don’t feel it’s too spoilery to say that there are a number of significant cameos that are pushing forward the DCEU universe. (That I think James Gunn is just going to reset somehow anyway) Given who these cameos are, it leads me back to the big questions that I’ve always had when it comes to films in the genre when it comes to superhero guest appearances:
IF YOU KNEW THAT THE WORLD WAS ALMOST GOING TO END, WHY WEREN’T YOU HERE TO HELP? AND WHY ARE YOU SHOWING UP AFTER THE FACT?
That may be a total d-bag question to ask, given that every superhero movie is supposed to be individualistic. However, there’s one particular cameo in this movie that happens where I could hear multiple other people in the theater asking the same thing as I was.
THE UGLY STUFF
MAXIMUM SIMPING TO THE 25TH POWER- Technically speaking, the term SIMP is used to describe a human being who willingly sacrifices their integrity with the FALSE HOPE of hooking up with an individual.
And that’s important to note because this movie has one of the more aggressively simp-tastic characters to come along in many moons. The object of his desire… Is extremely pretty. And only because of that, this movie wants you to believe that there is an honest-to-goodness love story going on involving someone with FLATOUT STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. I haven’t seen a movie character simp this vociferously since ex machina came out NINE YEARS AGO.
Love stories are the most forced-upon gimmick that the superhero movie genre has, and this is one of the worst ones that I’ve seen.
***************
Look, by this point; there’s been so many thermonuclear cinematic disasters on behalf of the DCEU that sheer competence and consistency must be applauded. Along with the first Wonder woman movie, and the second suicide squad movie, these Shazam movies have proven to be the most consistent and competent thing that the DCEU has ever done.
The first one was honestly silly in a very good way, had decent enough action, and didn’t overstay its welcome with a bloated running time. You can say the exact same things about this movie. This has the kind of energy I wish the dceu would have had instead of being so serious and dark all of the time.
SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS is in theaters now
