Back in 2019, Shazam! appeared as a surprise. With a minimal budget and extremely big competition (Avengers: Endgame), Shazam! was able to stand out because of its well-written and balanced story. In contrast, its sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, turned out to be a disappointment for all the DC fans like me, despite having a relatively bigger budget. That disappointment was reflected in the movie’s earnings as well, leading to a box-office bomb.
Now, what makes Shazam! Fury of the Gods such a bad movie when Shazam! is considered a good one? Let’s talk about the causative factors here.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods didn’t have a center or a focal point. In Shazam!, the plot was tightly centered on Billy’s journey of becoming a hero, exploring his abilities, and his struggles with his family issues. The movie managed to explore all of these aspects properly, which made the story so engaging and relatable. As an audience, you knew what you were watching. On the other hand, Shazam! Fury of the Gods brought in multiple villains, mythological elements, and some new family struggles, leading the narrative in multiple directions but failing to weave all the threads together. None of these plotlines received proper attention, so the whole movie became an immature compilation of a bunch of scattered, undercooked stories.
Inconsistent Tone
The first Shazam! was a perfectly balanced blend of its humorous tone and emotional depth, which was one of the reasons why the movie stood out among other DCEU movies. The movie was praised by critics and audiences for that.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods, on the other hand, failed to blend its humor with relatively serious and dark moments in the right way. This imbalance and inconsistent tone created flatness in the serious and supposedly ‘sad scenes,’ leading to an awful movie experience.
Lack of Character Development
In a sequel, audiences expect to see more exploration of the characters they’ve seen in the previous movie. Failing to manage further character development means failing to make a good sequel. And that’s exactly what happened in Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Also, we don’t get to see any significant growth in the characters of Billy Batson, Freddy Freeman, or any other family members. In the movie, Billy Batson could have been the courageous and wise leader of Team Shazam while showing us more of his personal struggles.
In the last movie, the Shazam family was introduced with their newly gained superpowers. In Shazam! Fury of the Gods, I expected to know more about them. Each of the Shazam family members has a unique ability and personality. The movie could have focused on that and developed their characters. Despite having the potential to participate with their own superpowers, the whole Shazam family appeared as some kind of backdrop for the fight between Shazam and the daughters of Atlas.
‘Meh’ Villain
In the movie, two of Atlas’s daughters (Hespera and Kalypso) were introduced as the antagonists without making their motivation clear or their actions logical. As the movie says, they are on a mission to reclaim the power that was taken from them earlier and restore their own world, which sounds like a pretty good reason for them. But as an audience member from Earth, I didn’t find that reason compelling or relatable. Also, their course of actions didn’t make any sense. I didn’t find any logical reason for Anthea being in a school, Kalypso killing her sister, or planting the seed on Earth. We don’t even know what their powers are.
In the first Shazam! movie, the antagonist character—Shivana—was surprisingly well-developed. His motivation was clear. Audiences were well aware of what and why he was doing whatever he was doing, which was missing in Shazam! Fury of the Gods the entire time.
Lack of Emotional Depth
Shazam! was a success mostly because of its well-crafted emotional depth in Billy’s journey of becoming a superhero, his struggles with his biological mother, and his foster family. Shazam! Fury of the Gods, on the other hand, failed to establish any sort of emotional depth for the audience to relate to. The movie recycled some of the previous movie’s themes (such as Billy’s insecurity about his family). First of all, repeating the same themes in the sequel isn’t something I appreciate much as an audience member because they may seem boring. But to make it work, they needed to take the repeated theme to the next level by deepening and exploring more of it. But sadly, that didn’t happen. They came up with the same old ‘insecurity towards family’ theme with a much less compelling story, which made the audience kind of annoyed.
Predictability
The movie wanted to surprise the audience with some so-called ‘big reveals’ or ‘twists.’ But these twists could be spotted from miles away, so these scenes barely made any positive impact on the viewing experience. Take Shazam’s death in the movie, for example. His death didn’t make me upset even a little bit, knowing that he was going to be alive again somehow. Some scenes were kind of spoiled by flat foreshadowing (such as Darla’s unicorn management or the appearance of Wonder Woman). Shazam! Fury of the Gods became a cliché superhero movie with its typical predictable story, lacking the unique vibe of the first one.
Narrative Gaps/Plot Holes:
Shazam! Fury of the Gods suffers from a bunch of narrative gaps and plot holes that weakened the entire story. Some events in the movie should have been explained more to fill those gaps. For instance, the daughters of Atlas easily regain their power using the wizard’s staff, but the movie barely explained how that worked. So, as the audience, we don’t know how exactly the staff restores all the power back after centuries. Another example of logical inconsistency is the Shazam family struggling with their superpowers when they were seen kind of mastering their powers in the first movie. That doesn’t make any sense either.
The movie has several problems like this with its narrative, which downgrades its quality significantly.
So, if I were to summarize the reason behind the movie being so bad, I’d say Shazam! Fury of the Gods suffered from a weak story, inconsistent tone, and lack of character development. The villains were underdeveloped, emotional depth was lacking, and the plot was predictable with significant narrative gaps. Overall, it failed to capture the magic of the original Shazam! movie and turned out to be a great disappointment.
