After years of being alone, Billy Batson (Asher Angel and Zachary Levi) finally has a family.
But as they grow up, Billy is finding it hard to keep the group together - Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody) wants to do solo missions, while older sister Mary (Grace Fulton) is thinking about leaving home.
Billy is terrified of losing his family - and that concern becomes more vital when another super-powered family arrives on the scene.
The daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler) have come to Earth to take back the powers that were given to Billy and his family. And they will do whatever it takes to get those powers back…
One of the most interesting aspects of a sequel is tracking what elements the filmmakers consider important, or want to expand upon.
Zachary Levi remains his own man-child as Shazam. He gets way more comic asides and clunky pop culture references. He gets some more emotional heavy lifting to do, but these moments are pulverised by his other antics. His manic energy is cranked up even more than in the original, and it starts to become off-putting.
Conversely, Asher Angel, who brought pathos and maturity to Billy, is a little bit closer to Levi’s performance. It feels like both performers are trying to bring their performances into closer alignment, which does not work in the character's favour.
Levi is still more out of sync with the movie, but Angel is slightly anonymous, and loses some of the soul of his first time in the role (he also has less screen-time, which probably does not help).
While the title character is muddled, one asset of the movie is its greater focus on the Shazam family. Keen-eyed viewers may note Fast & Furious scribe Chris Morgan has a co-writing credit, which might have something to do with it (by the same token, casual viewers probably caught the blatant F&F reference in the film’s trailers).
After his scene-stealing turn in the original, Jack Dylan Grazer is given his own subplot - we get a few more scenes of Adam Brady, but most of the focus is on Grazer. He gets a romantic subplot with Antheia (Rachel Zegler), and the point of his subplot is about recognising his own worth sans superpowers. It is refreshing to see a disabled character who gets to do heroic things with
The emotional spines of the Shazam movies are more complicated and mature than other DC properties - ironically, the films least indebted to the rote grimness of the initial DCEU films are the darkest.
Billy has become attached to his family but he is obsessed with keeping them together - he is afraid of being alone again.
It is solid fodder for a coming of age movie - especially with the addition of Freddy’s plot line.
While I appreciate the brisk runtime - 130 minutes with credits is practically economical in these bloated times - there is a slightness to some of the emotional beats, particularly in terms of Billy’s storyline.
I wonder if it is an effect of the antagonists feeling so rote.
Whilst a decade ago there was something interesting about putting a star in a superhero movie, nowadays there is something depressing about seeing actors like Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu in costumes firing energy beams.
They do not get anything that interesting to do, and lack the motivations of Mark Strong’s Sivana from the last movie. Zegler’s character gets a little more attention, but it is in relation to Freddy.
Sadly, Mirren and Liu are underserved - they do not even get any decent banter or business to dress up their misdeeds.
The movie is burdened with a broader sense of humour that feels out of the characters’ specific voices (Levi is a constant fount of pop culture references which feels like leftover material from his role on Chuck).
Those flaws aside, Shazam 2 is a solid sequel - the focus on Grazer’s Freddy ensures that the heroism of ordinary humans is foregrounded.
And you cannot hate a movie where a little girl (Faithe Herman’s Darla) rides a unicorn with a cyclops impaled on its horn.
There is a pleasing interest in fantastical monsters and slight touches of horror - one almost wishes these threats were rendered with more practical elements.
Like a good superhero movie, the filmmakers pay attention to ordinary people on the ground - for the most part, the film keeps the action to the local Philadelphia area and only has two huge setpieces at the beginning and the end.
In both these setpieces, the filmmaker keeps cutting away to civilians fleeing destruction, or having them in the foreground or background of shots - it always feels like our heroes are in a city.
There is a sense of stakes, and not just in terms of super-powered beings - the kids are still living in their house with their foster parents, and reference is made to the financial pressures the family is under - Mary points out to Billy that as the kids age out of the foster system, they will have to get jobs and/or move out.
It is not as good as its predecessor, but Shazam - Fury of the Gods is a decent sequel elevated by a couple of great elements.
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