The DCEU, since its inception with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, has been criticized for a multitude of things. Bad casting, bad directing, bad writing, bad storytelling all around, just to name a few. Trying to create an MCU-like universe for the DC heroes seems simple enough, yet DC’s try at it has been lacking in nearly every way. Some hope for a return to Snyder, let him finish his universe, most are sighing with relief that James Gunn has been brought in to just not do this anymore. My biggest gripe with the franchise so far has been the fact that its stories are at odds with the themes. They come out of nowhere, or aren’t developed, and these lackluster and underdeveloped themes create bad characters, bad story cohesion, and ineffective world building. Shazam: Fury of the Gods is the latest in the DCEU lineup, and you know what, I was pleasantly surprised with how much worse it was than I expected.
The Shazam sequel people wanted, yet no one seemingly wanted to put an ounce of effort into, released March 17th, to awful critical reviews, and worse box office revenue. Fury of the Gods may not only be the brick that tumbles down the DCEU train for good, but also might be the biggest showcase in superhero fatigue yet. $30 million in the box office for a big budget franchise sequel is unheard of in the era of superhero films, yet here we are. The fact of the matter is, this movie isn’t really that good; it is only out in the world simply to see what kind of money it can sponge up. The same cast is back, all of them, with new villains played by seasoned actors: up and comer Rachel Zegler, nearly nominated for Best Actress on her debut film, multiple SAG winner Lucy Liu, and Helen Mirren for god’s sake. You’d think with the likable cast of the first film and the amazing newcomers, alongside the same director and writing team we would see a similar product as the pretty well received first film. But that’s not the case.
The writing is horrible, the story starts and ends without much to digest from it, the themes are inconsistent and not given a thought about between introduction and conclusion, and the dialogue is straight from the gutter school of old people trying to figure out how Zoomers speak. The pacing is too fast then way too slow, there are a lot of weird ideas, jokes that just don’t land, and an overused catchphrase clearly put out there for slogan purposes and T-shirt sales. This movie has merchandising written all over it, from the overcomplicated new costumes to the already plastic looking magic staff, this movie doesn’t sit right at all.
Shazam is another nail in the long overdue coffin of the DCEU, and if the reports of Aquaman’s sequel are anything to hear about, it looks like it won’t even be the last nail of this year. We need to stop giving these movies the time of day. Superhero fatigue isn’t the problem, it is the machine generated superhero movie that audiences are tired of. Films like The Batman, Spiderman Into the Spiderverse, or even Black Panther Wakanda Forever, show that it isn’t too late to create good superhero movies. We just need to reject movies like Shazam: Fury of the Gods, which only further alienates the idea of creating something great out of heroes so special.
2/5 Stars