Just saw it with Zontar Jr. He had a great time and enjoyed it more than the first Shazam movie. I agree with him that the action was on a bigger scale than the first film. He really enjoyed the humor. I thought it was an improvement over Black Adam, but…
When I heard that the villains would be Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu, I thought that sounded really underwhelming. Six heroes with the power of Superman, and they going up against those two?! There was no doubt Ann would side with our heroes, so that just made the odds even more stacked against the Daughters of Atlas. I think just making the villains brawny males (“the Sons of Atlas”) would have done more to attract an action audience to the theater.
I knew it would be a challenge to go from the first film, with it’s grounded personal story for Billy, including how he fit in with his new siblings, to one where all the other kids are super-powered. I think having that many super-heros was a bad move in the comics, and I’m not sure whether it made for a better movie here. I’m pretty sure Big would have been a less effective movie if it was Tom Hanks and five other main characters all experiencing youthful emotions.
I thought we spent way too time with the Wizard and way too time with Ann. There were many funny moments in the movie, but, like last year’s Thor movie, they went for humor too frequently. All of Freddy’s dialogue seemed to be one liners, with as many jokes that missed the mark as connected. Billy Batson was mostly absent, but maybe that’s for the best: Billy and Shazam are definitely not the same personality - Shazam is considerably more immature than Billy.
I had a feellng, after seeing the “Wonder Woman movie cancelled” thread suddenly spring back to life here, that the cameo would turn out to be Gal. I liked that they misled us with an initial “Wonder Woman” appearance where we didn’t see Gal at all. I loved that we then got the Wizard’s head on her body. And I liked how they used Wonder Woman in the plot, even though I didn’t understand why her status would likely bring Billy back to life.
I am not an avid fan of the Harry Potter films, and some of this felt so magic-heavy that it drifted into that territory. Part of the problem here is that characters’ powers and limits are so ill-defined that it is hard to get concerned for our characters’ safety.
Like Black Adam, I thought Fury of the Gods started out strong, and then…too many minutes of the sisters bickering over their incomprehensible needs and relationships to each other, too many minutes of the Wizard wise-cracking, too many minutes of Ann being supportive of Freddy took their toll on my enthusiasm level. Just editing out the jokes that didn’t work and cutting the number of minutes devoted to lesser characters would have helped the pacing. The action mostly worked and the humor earned a good number of chuckes, but the pacing was off.
The sisters spreading a mind-control virus through the crowd in the opening scene was very effective, but the sisters mostly stayed away from that modus operandi for the rest of the film.
Post credits. the Economos/Harcourt scene was great, maybe the funniest in the film. I loved that Shazam is objecting to being cast in the JSA. As we waited for the final post-credits scene, I leaned over to Zontar Jr and said “if there’s anyone we know that WON’T be coming next, it’s Mister Mind.” And it turned out to exactly that, and it was done well!
I appreciated the Michael Gray cameo and the shots of Mentor’s 1970’s RV in the junk yeard. I loved that they got Diedrich Bader to play the teacher.
Much of the movie worked for me. I look forward to seeing it again. But the elements that seemed liked they’d be problems months ago did turn out to be real issues to me.
Even the casual moviegoers