Shazam! Fury of the Gods
Cert: 12 A | ★★✩✩✩

In 2019, David F Sandberg’s Shazam! managed the impossible when it became one of the few universally well received DC Extended Universe offerings. The Swedish-born filmmaker has now returned with a second outing for the franchise, pitting a group of hapless misfits against an ancient evil.

It tells the story of teenage Billy Batson (played by Asher Angel) who, upon reciting the magic word “Shazam!” is transformed into his adult superhero alter ego, Shazam (Zachary Levi).

Billy, his best friend Freddy (whose older alter ego is played by Adam Brody) and the rest of the gang must take on ancient goddesses Kalypso and Hespera (played by Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren) in their fight to save the world.

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Zachary Levi (Warner Bros Pictures)

When a couple of years ago the legendary Hollywood director Martin Scorsese dared to cast some doubts over the longevity and importance of the current crop of superhero adaptations, there was a mighty backlash against his words, but it is slowly looking as though the Taxi Driver and Goodfellas creator might have been onto something.

Shazam 2 not only feels laboured, unfocused and generally out of ideas, but it is also a film that exists solely because the first one did so well at the box office. But throwing money at a project in order to generate more cash does not make for successful films.

Granted that is the whole modus operandi of any successful franchise, but lately it is really starting to look as though the wheels have finally started to come off the whole genre.
Everything that made the first film such a success is sadly absent here.

With a screenplay that often feels a little too pleased with itself and a premise that most of us have seen a million times before, Shazam! Fury of The Gods feels like a real case of, “Haven’t we done this already?”

The only thing in its favour is that the film is often rescued from its own smugness by some fairly solid performances — notably from Jack Dylan Grazer as teenage Freddy —but there’s very little here gained from another outing.

Maybe just the chance to admire talented actors (many of them Jewish, incidentally) in a vehicle that’s not up to their calibre

I was bored stiff and I expect others will be too.