As I walked into Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, I almost panicked that I hadn’t done any DCEU homework. I hadn’t rewatched the first Shazam! (mostly because I remembered enough of it, it was such good fun!). Would I be okay? See, I just came to Shazam 2 to have a good time, to get entertained, and to go “Whoa!” when the good guys fought the bad, bad dragon, heightened by what looked like pretty fantastic CGI. And bless director David F. Sandberg and writers Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan, Shazam! was a total blast, no revision needed. Zachary Levi and Asher Angel return as Billy Batson, along with Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Grace Caroline Currey, Ian Chen, Ross Butler, Jovan Armand, DJ Cotrona, Faithe Herman, Meagan Good, Rachel Zegler, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, and Helen Mirren.
I am a huge Manmohan Desai fan, and I love it when family—brothers and sisters and parents included—come together to defeat adversity. In Shazam!, also directed by Sandberg, we met Billy Batson, an orphan, who is granted superpowers by a dying (or so it would seem) wizard. SHAZAM! is supposed to have the wisdom of Solomon (or so it would seem!), the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the flight of Mercury. What’s more, it also turns teenage Billy into a full-grown man.
Billy is then placed into a foster family, the Grazers, where he finally gets his ‘found family’, starting with Freddie Freeman, a paraplegic nerd who loves Superman and Batman. By the end of the film, as he goes up against the bad guy, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, Billy isn’t the only one Shazaming his way to superpowers; his foster brothers and sisters are now part of his extended superhero family too.
In Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, two years after the first film, we meet the Shazamily chilling at the Rock Of Eternity, as an almost 18-year-old Billy struggles with imposter syndrome and holds on to his foster siblings a bit too strongly. Meanwhile the Daughters of Atlas—Hespera, Kalypso, and Anthea—are trying to use the Wizard’s broken staff to restore the Gods’ Realm to its former glory, when plans change midway to a much more evil version. Now Billy’s very own city is swarming with monsters, a dragon breathing blue fire is on the loose, and the Shazamily must rise to save their world, at one point minus some of their powers too. Will they?
Of course, yaa! As Dominic Toretto would say, It’s family! And family is all you need to save the day!
One of my favourite things about Shazam! is the writing. It’s like they put a bunch of hilarious comic book nerds who know their thing in a room and told them to write how they think their favourite superheroes would talk and act. The dialogues are funny, and delivered by the actors with great comic timing. You’ve got characters making references to Justice League heroes, and even to other Warner Bros. movies. The singular moment of having Levi’s Shazam quote Fast & Furious to Helen Mirren, who is herself a part of the franchise, is a meta joke you can’t not cackle at!
It’s hard to not love and feel for Billy Batson, both the teen played by Asher Angel and the grown-up played by Zach Levy. Both actors bring through the character’s childlike innocence, zest, and unbeatable optimism even in situations of extreme duress, especially Levy, because Billy is a grown-up with the heart of a 17-year-old. Billy’s grappling with imposter syndrome and fears of losing his family are treated with a light hand, but never is the gravity of it all admonished by the tonality. I found myself relating to it, because don’t we adults too become like helpless kids and seek familial comfort when going through imposter syndrome?
Furthermore, the makers don’t forget that this isn’t just a Billy Batson show. This is about family, after all. And in fact, this is family vs family. Mirren and Liu play their parts as seriously as this film would allow them, and with just the right amount of quirk. Billy’s foster siblings, particularly Freddie and Darla, get space to do their thing and come through. I think Freddie (or shall I say Everypower Man), played endearingly by Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody, remains my favourite character, because he represents all that is good and funny and nerdy about being a hero despite odds not being in his favour most of the time. Besides, every single member of the family gets to do something substantial and be a hero in their own way. For this and many other reasons (not limited to thestral-like creatures and dragons roaming around Philly), Shazam gave major Harry Potter feels.
Shazam, to me, is like a throwback to the superhero movies of old that we loved, where the bad guys (in this case, girls) could come around and were not burdened with some complex existential purpose about destroying the world. But the CGI is in no way old, rather it is pretty banging awesome. The scenes involving the dragon and lightning strikes look incredible, the monsters look big, bad, and icky enough, and in a cliché as old as time, there’s a bridge collapsing over water and superheroes saving the day (erm… almost) scene that is deliciously self-aware. But ultimately, the good guys, despite all odds, do win, and the win is such a euphoric one (I LOVE HOW IT HAPPENS!) that you walk out of the theatre smiling from ear to ear.
Also Read: What to Watch March 12 to 19: Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway, Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, Rocket Boys 2, Zwigato, More
Verdict
Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is a blast and a totally entertaining time at the movies. And imagine, I didn’t even have to do revision before walking in to watch it! It’s hilarious, adorable, very meta and self-aware often, and never not endearing. It once again proves that superhero film fatigue, if any, exists not in the audience but in the studios making these movies. Just give enough time to the people working on these films to get it right, maybe?
Sit for the two post-credit scenes. And sure, the second one will make you wonder what is even the point of it, but it’s all in good fun. Here’s a couple of crossed fingers, that the wisdom of Solomon prevails and the DC shuffle doesn’t zap away this piece of joy that I gleefully return to every time I hear SHAZAM!
Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is currently in theatres.