So the original Shazam movie was quite a reasonable stand-alone flick, only one problem, I saw it ages ago and can't really remember that much about it. And here lies the first problem for this sequel, you kinda need to remember stuff from the first movie and you definitely need to have seen it (to a degree).
So straight away I had a problem. The wizard character (played by Djimon Hounsou) seemingly died in the original movie, well he's back now. Secondly, these two female characters (played Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu) appear outta nowhere and appear to be the new baddies for this picture. No idea who they were supposed to be, where they come from, what they want, why they kill innocent folks, why they want the staff thingy from the first movie etc...They're just there and they're based on characters from Greek Mythology (or at least named after them), because we haven't seen that before (ugh!).
Firstly these new villains look, act, and sound boring. Both are massively unexciting and hugely derivative. Two girl boss villains? Oh gee! I mean seriously, this trope is getting way way outta hand. The only original aspect of these two is that they are mature women. I just felt completely lost for the first half of the movie! This was supposed to be a direct sequel but apart from the Shazam gang (Shazamily? Really?) none of it was familiar at all and the villains had no explanation other than...being Greek Gods or something? Also it is eventually explained that their realm (the Greek realm? Pfft!) was apparently destroyed by Humans? And now they want revenge, highly original concept I know. No real idea why this happened or whatever, I dunno maybe I missed it.
Yeah so the movie flicks back and forth between moments with the Shazam gang which are admittedly relatively amusing, to moments with these extremely boring Greek God villains who merely talk about their plans all the time. The Shazam gang literally have to research the villains cos they dunno who they are, much like me on Wiki whilst watching the movie. There's also a cliched love story between one of the Shazam gang and this young girl (Rachel Zegler) who, shock horror! Turns out to be the third evil girl boss villain simply stringing him along all the time because...actually I don't think there was any real reason for this deceit.
There are loads of fantasy elements to this movie that all involve classic Greek mythology because for some reason that's a thing in this Shazam sequel (and every other teenage fantasy flick). You've got the golden apple that seeds the Tree of Life. When said tree is planted in the Earth realm it spawns lots of monsters from Greek mythology for some reason, and they're all evil. There's a magical Harry Potter-esque sentient pen (don't ask me why), unicorns, dragons etc...The unicorns in question are originally evil but get tamed by a pack of Skittles, yes Skittles, those chewy hard shelled sweets.
Naturally this being a superhero comicbook flick there's lots of CGI. Yep, lots and lots and lots of really obvious and fake-looking CGI action (zzzzzzz). All the characters are literally indestructible so they spent all their time throwing themselves all over the place causing lots of massive damage. Yep, I just love watching invincible superhero characters punching, kicking, and hurling each other all over the gaff with zero repercussions, zero stakes, and all in glorious fake-looking CGI. How much do cinema tickets cost these days?
But the really funny part at the end is when Wonder Woman turns up outta the blue to virtually save the day when the others kinda failed. Jesus Christ! I mean, this begs the question, where was Wonder Woman this entire time?? She could have turned up earlier and stopped all the trouble quite easily, apparently. And this is where comicbook flicks fall down. Eventually, at some point, you have the problem of all these characters and their stories merging, so eventually they should all be in every story together. Because where else would they be when there is a massive threat? The fact Wonder Woman pops up in this cheesy-ass cameo totally ruins this already crap movie.
DC had a little gem on their hands with the first movie which was reasonably original, well made, well thought out, decent cast, and a reasonable villain. This sequel is totally the opposite of that, it feels like the powers that be had no idea how to move forward with it. Everyone is just repeating what they did the first time which works a bit but generally feels tired. Shazam is a teen in an adult's body, okay we got that, can you expand on that a bit without the same childish gags? There is more Shazam family here but again it all felt very repetitive with familiar beats, lowkey comedy, and the usual outcomes (no stakes!). As said the CGI is just plain poor and I don't know why. And I really hated the whole Greek mythology angle because it's been done SO many times. This felt more like a 'Percy Jackson' concept than anything else. The whole feature is the definition of a generic cookie-cutter release that we've all seen time and time again.
3/10
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