Superhero movies have long since lost the power of surprise. At this point in the game, when wonder is going through phase five of his film empire and CC already has a dozen movies released, the format seems out of stock. The greatest virtue of Shazam! The fury of the gods it appears in the superhuman attempt to find some variation on the conventions of the genre that have already been revised over and over again.
David F. Sandberg had tried to differentiate himself in the former Shazam! with a success relative to the strength of teenage comedy, another formula already used today.
Shazam! The fury of the gods is witty from the start, as the superhero goes through the entire plot of the first film in less than 30 seconds, while talking from the sofa to a doctor, who can barely explain to the beleaguered superhero that he is not a psychiatrist and his la specialty is pediatrics. And right there the film makes explicit the two ideas that fly over the entire plot: identity and family.
The film makes constant use of this pair of concepts as it focuses on the struggle of the daughters of Atlas to recover the superpowers stolen from the titan. Those same attributes are possessed by the teenager Billy Batson and his brothers, who at the mention of the word Shazam transform into adult superheroes.
superhero alter ego
The protagonist, while defending the planet from this pair of nymphs willing to do anything, must also invent a name for his superheroic alter ego and resolve childhood traumas to find his place in the world.
Zachary Levi is back in the superhero suit with a candor befitting his character, and Jack Dylan Grazer is once again very comfortable in the double role of brother and best friend. Big additions to the cast appear as Greek deities, Lucy Liu’s ruthless Kalypso and Helen Mirren’s sovereign Hespera.
The English actress is perhaps the great differential of the film based on the supernatural commitment she shows in every battle, far from wanting to give up her prestige in a small and undemanding role (another common practice in this type of cinema).
The initial sequence of actions of Shazam! The fury of the gods raises the bar: the nymph played by Lucy Liu whispers in a man’s ear to “wreak havoc” in a museum and all the local tourists turn into some kind of wild zombies who suddenly end up petrified like the sculpture of Atlas which enhances the place.
Sandberg tries to continue to throw all the meat on the spit in each confrontation of the young superheroes and, among enemies and helpers, appear other nymphs, minotaurs, trolls, manticores, harpies, a wizard, a “wooden” dragon and fanatics of dark unicorns . the sweets. The director tries to ramp up the intensity for the climax, but the final fight on a baseball field between the overbearing Kalypso and Shazam falls short of the foreboding.
The inner dilemma that, faced with his destiny, torments the superhero in search of his identity becomes a more tempting struggle than that last battle that takes place in the dome.
Shazam! The fury of the gods
Action adventure. USA, 2023. Original title: Shazam! Fury of the Gods”. 130′, ATP L. From: David F. Sandberg. With: Zachary Levi, Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, Jack Dylan Grazer. Rooms: IMAX, Hoyts Abasto, Cinemark Palermo, Belgrano showcase.
Source: Clarin
