Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Our Review

The sequel nobody was demanding arrived four years after the original, into a universe its own studio had already announced was dead, and it plays like a cast reunion for a show that got cancelled. Zachary Levi is back grinning as the adult Shazam, Asher Angel still barely registers as his teenage counterpart, and the whole household from the first film gets split up so each sibling can carry a subplot that goes nowhere in particular.

The villains this time are daughters of Atlas: Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu play goddess sisters who arrive to reclaim a broken staff and punish the wizard’s Champions, and two actresses that good have rarely looked that bored. They recite apocalyptic threats like they are reading a parking ticket. Rachel Zegler, fresh off her West Side Story breakout, is stranded in a role whose big twist the marketing spoiled months early.

The charm of the 2019 film survives in flashes: Jack Dylan Grazer still gets laughs, the unicorns sequence is a genuine delight, and the emotional beat where Billy learns to let go of his family lands harder than a film this slack has any right to expect. But the whole thing looks cheaper, moves slower, and cares less, the sure sign of a franchise entry made to fill a release date. It bombed, and it closed out the family branch of the old DC line. Our score: 5/10. Harmless, occasionally sweet, instantly forgettable.