Billy Batson and his foster siblings, who transform into superheroes by saying “Shazam!” are forced to get back into action and fight the Daughters of Atlas, who they must stop from using a weapon that could destroy the world. That’s the setup for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and it’s a better pitch than the movie delivers.
David F. Sandberg directs from a script by Chris Morgan and Henry Gayden, and the film runs 130 minutes. It’s a comedy, an action movie, and a fantasy, but the fantasy part is the weakest link. The Daughters of Atlas are supposed to be a threat. They’re not. Kalypso, played by Lucy Liu, and Hespera, played by Helen Mirren, feel like plot devices rather than villains. The youngest daughter, Anthea, played by Rachel Zegler, is barely a presence outside the framing device of Freddy Freeman meeting a girl named Anne. The whole scheme — steal the wizard’s staff, reactivate its powers, trap Philadelphia in a dome — is thin.
The cast is bigger than it needs to be. Zachary Levi and Asher Angel play Billy Batson and Shazam. Jack Dylan Grazer plays Freddy Freeman’s regular form, and Adam Brody plays his superhero form. Ross Butler and Ian Chen split Eugene Choi, D.J. Cotrona and Jovan Armand split Pedro Peña, Grace Caroline Currey plays Mary Bromfield, and Meagan Good and Faithe Herman split Darla Dudley. That’s a lot of people for a story that can’t decide whether it wants to be a family drama or a superhero brawl.
The film premiered at the Fox Village Theatre in Los Angeles on March 14, 2023, and was released in the United States on March 17. Unlike its predecessor, it received mixed reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, grossing $134 million worldwide against a production budget of $110–125 million. The sequel began development shortly after the first film’s release in April 2019, with Gayden returning as writer and Morgan joining soon after to revise Gayden’s screenplay. Sandberg and Levi were set to return by December of that year. The title and cast were confirmed in August 2020, with Zegler, Mirren and Liu cast as the daughters of Atlas in early 2021. Filming began that May in Atlanta, Georgia, and concluded in August.
| Film | Critic Score | Box Office |
|---|---|---|
| Shazam! (2019) | Positive reception | Successful |
| Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) | Mixed reviews | Box-office bomb |
The film tries to build on the first movie’s tone, which was a mix of comedy and action. Here, the comedy is thinner and the action is bigger but less focused. The dream sequence where the wizard warns Billy about the Daughters of Atlas is a decent idea. The scene with the sentient pen Steve drafting a letter to negotiate Freddy’s release is a low point. The film spends too much time explaining the sisters’ powers and too little time making them scary.
The film’s biggest problem is pacing. At 130 minutes, it drags in stretches. The dome-trapped Philadelphia sequence goes on too long. The fight scenes are busy but not satisfying. The film is trying to be everything at once — a family comedy, a superhero blockbuster, a mythology lesson — and it can’t hold together.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a disappointment. The cast is talented, the premise is promising, and the execution falls short. It’s a film that knows its own jokes and doesn’t know its own stakes. The result is a movie that feels like a missed opportunity.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
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