Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) Review

Taste The Rainbow!

Let’s Start By Showing Y’all The Trailers Shall We?

Oh boy. Also, yes, i’m aware i’ve been holding off on this review. I don’t know why.

When the trailers for Shazam! Fury of the Gods came out, I remember feeling cautiously optimistic, but not excited in the same way I was for the first movie. The first Shazam! was not perfect, but it had charm. It had a fun premise. It had this kid suddenly becoming an adult superhero and not knowing what to do with that power. It had a nice found-family story, some genuinely funny moments, and a surprisingly darker villain than I expected with Dr. Sivana. It was one of those DC movies that worked because it was not trying to be massive. It was smaller, goofier, more personal, and that was the appeal.

Then the sequel came out and somehow forgot what made the first movie work.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods is one of those sequels that feels bigger in all the least interesting ways. Bigger villains. Bigger monsters. Bigger action. Bigger magic. Bigger CGI. Bigger stakes. And yet somehow it feels smaller emotionally. That is impressive in a bad way. The first movie worked because Billy Batson’s story mattered. His search for family mattered. His relationship with Freddy mattered. His struggle to accept the foster family mattered. This sequel feels like it took that emotional core, pushed it off to the side, and said, “Don’t worry, we have dragons now.”

And I’m sorry, but dragons are not automatically a personality.

Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

The movie follows Billy Batson and his foster siblings after they have all gained Shazam powers. They are trying to function as a superhero team, but things are not going well. The public sees them as reckless, the siblings are growing apart, and Billy is terrified of losing the family he finally found. Meanwhile, the daughters of Atlas arrive on Earth looking for revenge after the Wizard’s staff is broken and magic begins returning to the world. They want to restore their realm, punish humanity, and reclaim what they believe was stolen from them.

Again, on paper, this does not sound terrible. Billy being afraid his family will leave him could have been a strong continuation of his arc from the first movie. The siblings growing up and wanting different lives could have created actual tension. The idea of ancient gods being angry at humanity for stealing magic could have made the villains more interesting. But the movie does not handle those ideas with enough focus. It has all the ingredients for a better sequel, but it keeps getting distracted by jokes, monsters, and plot mechanics.

Character Rundown

Zachary Levi returns as Shazam, and honestly, this is one of my biggest problems with the movie. In the first film, his performance worked better because Billy was younger, more immature, and still figuring everything out. But in this sequel, the disconnect between Billy and Shazam becomes much harder to ignore. Asher Angel’s Billy acts older, more emotionally grounded, and more serious, while Zachary Levi’s Shazam often acts like a hyperactive child who wandered into a superhero suit. The result is strange because they are supposed to be the same person, but they barely feel connected.

That issue hurts the movie because Billy’s emotional arc is supposed to be about fear of abandonment and losing his family, but the adult Shazam performance is constantly undercutting that with jokes and goofy behavior. It is hard to take his insecurity seriously when the movie keeps presenting him like the human version of a sugar rush. I get that Shazam is supposed to be comedic, but there is a difference between immature and annoying, and this movie crosses that line more than once.

Freddy Freeman is probably the character who comes closest to having a real arc. His relationship with Anne, who is secretly one of the daughters of Atlas, gives him more to do than most of the siblings. Jack Dylan Grazer is still entertaining, and Freddy’s insecurity and desire to be seen as more than just the sidekick could have been interesting. The problem is that the movie has so many characters fighting for attention that even Freddy’s storyline feels rushed.

The rest of the Shazam family gets shortchanged. This is especially frustrating because the first movie ended with this big emotional moment where the entire foster family became heroes. That should have opened the door to exploring them as individuals in the sequel. Instead, most of them feel like background members of the superhero team. They have powers, costumes, and a few personality traits, but not enough depth. The movie wants the family theme to hit, but it does not spend enough time making each member of the family matter.

Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu play the daughters of Atlas, and while I like both actresses, the villains are not very memorable. They have presence, sure, but their motivations feel generic. They are angry, they want revenge, they want to restore their world, and they have magic powers. Fine. But they never become as interesting as the movie seems to think they are. Rachel Zegler’s Anthea is the most sympathetic of the three because of her connection with Freddy, but even that relationship feels like it needed more time to develop.

Pacing / Episode Flow

The pacing in this movie is rough because it constantly feels like it is trying to juggle too much. We have Billy’s fear of losing his family, Freddy’s romance, the daughters of Atlas, the Wizard returning, the collapsing magical realm, public backlash against the Shazam family, the siblings growing apart, the dragon, the unicorns, the dome over the city, and the future of magic itself. That is a lot. Too much, honestly.

The movie moves from set piece to set piece, but it never feels like it is building emotional momentum. It is busy, but busy does not mean engaging. A lot of scenes feel like they exist because the movie needs something loud to happen. The bridge rescue at the beginning is fine as an action sequence, but it also sets up one of the movie’s biggest problems: the Shazam family is treated as a chaotic superhero team, yet the movie never really explores what that means beyond surface-level jokes.

By the time the third act arrives, the movie has turned into a giant CGI fantasy battle with dragons, monsters, unicorns, magical barriers, gods, and lightning. And somehow, with all of that happening, I still felt bored. That is the problem. This movie has spectacle, but very little of it feels exciting. It is the kind of superhero sequel where the stakes are technically huge, but emotionally I am sitting there thinking, “Can we wrap this up?”

Pros

I will give the movie a little credit. There are a few moments that still have some of the charm from the first film. Freddy has some decent scenes, the foster family dynamic occasionally works, and the idea of Billy being scared that everyone will leave him does make sense for his character. After everything he went through in the first movie, it is believable that he would cling too hard to the family he finally found.

There are also a few jokes that land. Not many, but a few. The movie is clearly trying to keep the same comedic tone as the first film, and every once in a while, that tone still works. The cast is trying, and I can tell there was an attempt to make this a bigger, more magical sequel. I do not think the movie is lazy in the sense that nobody cared. I think the problem is that the movie cared about the wrong things.

The dragon is visually fine. Some of the magical creature designs are decent. And yes, Helen Mirren riding around in a superhero fantasy movie is funny just by existing. There is some entertainment value in seeing respected dramatic actors walk into this comic-book chaos and treat it seriously. Unfortunately, that novelty only gets the movie so far.

Cons

The biggest issue is that the movie is not funny enough to be this jokey and not emotional enough to be this dramatic. It gets stuck in the middle. The first movie balanced comedy and heart better because the emotional story was simple and clear. Billy wanted his mother, then learned he already had a family in front of him. That worked. This sequel’s emotional story is more scattered. Billy is afraid of abandonment, Freddy wants independence, the siblings are drifting apart, Anthea has doubts about her sisters, the villains want revenge, and the movie never gives any of these ideas enough room to breathe.

The humor is also exhausting. There are so many moments where the movie undercuts itself with a joke. Sometimes the joke is fine, but after a while it becomes tiring. Not every scene needs a punchline. Not every dramatic moment needs someone making a goofy comment. This is the same problem a lot of modern superhero movies have. They are terrified of sincerity, so anytime the movie gets close to being serious, someone has to say something awkward to remind us we are still having fun. Except I was not having fun.

The villains are weak. Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu are talented, but the daughters of Atlas feel like generic fantasy antagonists. Their whole thing is that they want revenge and restoration, but they never become compelling enough to carry the movie. The first Shazam! had Dr. Sivana, who was not amazing, but at least his connection to the Wizard and the Seven Deadly Sins gave him a stronger link to the story. Here, the villains feel like they wandered in from a different fantasy movie.

The Wonder Woman cameo also feels desperate. I know the movie tries to play it as this big moment, but by the time she shows up, it feels less like a natural story beat and more like the movie waving keys in front of the audience. “Look, Wonder Woman is here!” Cool. And? The DCEU was already falling apart, and cameos like this no longer felt exciting. They felt like reminders of a universe that did not know where it was going.

Final Thoughts

Shazam! Fury of the Gods is awful. I hate saying that because I liked the first movie. I wanted this sequel to work. I wanted to see the Shazam family grow. I wanted to see Billy mature. I wanted the movie to take the emotional foundation of the first film and build something fun on top of it. Instead, this feels like a sequel that mistook “bigger” for “better.”

The first movie had a soul. This one has a dragon. And unfortunately, this was about the time the DCEU was starting to die off, so this released at the worst time possible.

And a dragon is not enough.

What makes this sequel so frustrating is that it had a clear path forward. Billy’s fear of his siblings leaving him could have been powerful. The family slowly growing apart could have been relatable. Freddy wanting his own identity could have been interesting. The movie could have explored what happens after a bunch of kids suddenly become gods. Instead, it becomes a noisy fantasy sequel with forgettable villains, uneven comedy, and emotional beats that feel rushed or undercut.

By the time the movie ended, I was not excited, moved, or entertained. I was just tired. It is another one of those late-stage DCEU movies that feels like it came out after the audience had already moved on. The universe was dying, the marketing was weak, and the movie itself did not give people much reason to care. The sad thing is, the first Shazam! deserved a better sequel than this.

Rating

3/10

Spoiler Warning

Everything past this point contains spoilers for Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

Spoilers

Billy’s death near the end should have been a massive emotional moment, but it does not work because the movie never convinces you it will stick. In a superhero movie, especially one connected to a universe full of magic and gods, a character death only works if the emotion is strong enough to overcome the audience’s awareness that they will probably come back. Here, Billy sacrifices himself, the movie tries to treat it like a huge moment, and then Wonder Woman shows up to revive him. So the death barely has time to matter before it is reversed.

That is another problem with the Wonder Woman cameo. It is not just that it feels desperate. It also turns Billy’s sacrifice into a temporary inconvenience. Diana appears, fixes the staff, brings Billy back, and then leaves. The movie wants this to feel triumphant, but it mostly feels like a random cameo solving the problem. It is the superhero equivalent of calling customer support.

Freddy and Anthea’s relationship is one of the few storylines with some emotional potential, but even that feels rushed. Freddy likes her, she turns out to be connected to the villains, she eventually switches sides, and everything plays out more or less how you expect. It is not terrible, but it also is not strong enough to carry the movie. Anthea could have been more interesting if the film spent more time on her conflict with her sisters, but again, the movie has too many moving parts and not enough focus.

The Skittles unicorn scene is one of those moments where I understand the movie is trying to be silly, but I was just sitting there wondering what happened to this franchise. The first movie had goofy humor, sure, but it also had horror elements and emotional weight. This sequel has unicorns eating Skittles so they can help fight monsters. I am not saying a Shazam movie cannot be silly. It can. But there is a difference between playful silliness and something that feels like product-placement insanity dressed up as a joke.

The final battle is loud, messy, and forgettable. The daughters of Atlas unleash monsters, the city is trapped under a dome, the Shazam family fights back, Billy sacrifices himself, Wonder Woman revives him, and everything wraps up exactly how you expect. There is nothing in this finale that comes close to the emotional satisfaction of the first movie’s family transformation scene. That first film ended with a sense of joy and discovery. This one ends with exhaustion.

And honestly, that sums up the whole movie. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a sequel that should have been charming and fun, but instead it feels overstuffed, underwritten, and strangely hollow. It has more magic, more monsters, more heroes, and bigger action than the first film, but somehow far less personality. It is not the worst superhero movie ever made, but it is one of those sequels that makes you appreciate the first movie more by showing you how badly the formula can go wrong.