by Thomas Biamonte

I am not really a negative person. I truly believe that when it comes to movies, I have a fairly positive outlook, and I agree with the public on a lot of their opinions about movies. But when it comes to Shazam! Fury of the Gods, I have nothing truly positive to say. This movie is a snore-fest from beginning to end.

Towards the end of the film, I looked to my friend, Chris, and said, “There is no way a human wrote this script,” and he cordially agreed with me. I mean, pick a frame at random in this film and I’ll tell you my issue with it! Lucy Liu from Kill Bill fame plays one of the least threatening villains not only in cinematic history but in the history of acting in general. She plays the God Kalypso alongside Helen Mirren (of all people) as Hespera. I mean, Helen Mirren must really be desperate in order to look at this script and say, “This is high art.”

Zachery Levi in the title role is fine, not as bad as many others in the film. The biggest problem I have with Zachery Levi is how he does not even try to act like Asher Angel, the other person who plays Shazam. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt him to actually try gaining chemistry with his co-stars either. They try to make this girl, Grace Caroline Currey, one of the stars of the film, but her acting just falls flat and reads as a Disney Channel Original Movie rip off. If you look at her IMDB page, that is no surprise considering the amount of terrible films she has been in.

So I am going to break the fourth wall mid article here to tell you something – I was trying to think of my next opinion to cover when I asked myself, “Wait, who was the villain again?” It took me a solid thirty seconds to realize I had already written about them. That just shows you how forgetful Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren are in the villain roles. Rachel Zegler, who played the best, most emotionally developed Maria ever in “West Side Story (2021),” really tries her best to shine through this horrible script and all the plot points that flip-flop just as much as her character’s motivations do. Fortunately for her career, she is significantly better than most, including the villains of the film which she shares a lot of screen time with. Jack Dylan Grazer, who was probably the best character in the first Shazam film, truly falls flat in delivering a very weak non-believable performance. The writers also are to blame for this because they relegate his character to essentially a walking, talking, nerd emoji. All other characters are so forgettable I will not even attempt to mention them here.

I view this film as DC’s answer to both “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Thor: Love and Thunder”. DC saw Marvel was now making terrible films with a wishy-washy plot and characters that do not grow whatsoever by the end of the film, and they said, “We should do that too.”

I really love the superhero genre with all my heart. My dad grew up with the same Marvel characters that I did, and that was always such a special thing as a kid to watch a film that we could both enjoy. But now it feels like there is a lack of understanding of what makes a superhero story great. What makes these supernatural characters special is their real human problems. We want to relate to these characters as they conquer both extraordinary foes and very relatable real life obstacles. Spider-Man is not interesting because of his ability to swing from building to building. No! He is interesting because we can see ourselves in him! He is human! He is a three dimensional character! To end us off, I will leave you with a quote from Stan Lee, the co-creator of Marvel’s many iconic characters. In this quote, he sums up the reason why the human mind is attracted to a good superhero story:

“Just because you have superpowers, that doesn’t mean your love life would be perfect. I don’t think superpowers automatically means there won’t be any personality problems, family problems or even money problems.”

If DC and Marvel keep heading down this path, the superhero genre may very well go the way of the dodo.