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SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS – Christophe Beck
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The 2019 superhero film Shazam remains, for me, the best entry into the DC Extended Universe to date. At the time, I wrote that “its playful tone is a far cry from the grim seriousness of the previous Ben Affleck Batman and Henry Cavill Superman movies, it’s much more intelligent and nuanced than Aquaman, and the less said about Suicide Squad the better. What I love about it the most is how it captures the excitement and eagerness of how an actual kid would behave when given super powers, and much of that is down to Zachary Levi’s central performance, which appears to me to be a combination of Christopher Reeve and Tom Hanks from Big.” Unfortunately the response to this sequel, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, has been less effusive, with some critics calling it “more unfocused and less satisfying than its predecessor,” despite it still retaining much of the source material’s “silly charm”. The film again stars Levi as 17-year old Billy Batson, who transforms into a super hero when he utters the titular magic word; this time, Billy/Shazam finds himself in conflict with the three daughters of the Titan Atlas, played by Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, and Rachel Zegler, who want to re-claim the staff that gives Shazam his power, saying it was stolen from them eons ago. Read more…
SHAZAM – Benjamin Wallfisch
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the race to make a movie about every single comic book character in history, DC have lagged behind Marvel in terms of mining their back catalogue in the search for box office gold. Whereas Marvel have unearthed hitherto little-known gems like the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Black Panther to sit alongside Spider-Man, Captain America, the Hulk, and Iron Man, the folks over at DC have tended to build everything around their ‘big three’ – Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. However, having suffered lackluster critical reviews for their most recent efforts at putting these luminary characters on the silver screen, the producers have now started to dip into their archives in search of characters to explore. The latest of these is Shazam, written by Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke, and directed by horror movie veteran David F. Sandberg. The film stars Asher Angel as Billy Batson, a 14-year-old orphan kid with a ‘pure heart’ who is chosen by an ancient wizard to become a super hero. When he says the wizard’s name – Shazam! – Billy is magically transformed into an adult super hero (Zachary Levi), and together with his best friend Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), Billy sets about discovering his powers. However, this attracts the attention of the evil Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), who has spent his entire life trying to discover the secret of Shazam’s power, and who has harnessed the physical manifestations of the seven deadly sins in order to do so. Read more…
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