My wife warned me this movie was terrible, and she loves everything. To be fair, she hasn’t seen the original set of Superman movies or the Justice League, so I’m not sure she’s 100% clear on how terrible DC movies can be. I found this movie to be simply bad.
The original Shazam was a good movie, so it’s mildly surprising how much worse this one is. The director and most of the actors are the same, but the performances and writing are noticeably worse. Helen Mirren does a fine job, but I was disappointed that Lucy Liu seems to phone this performance in. Zachary Levi is not nearly as charming as he was in the first movie, and his performance like the Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme.
The character changes are also strange. The main character went from being an outsider to being an overbearing leader which… fine, I guess it could happen in the two years since the first film, but it feels like his group dynamic and Freddy’s would make more sense switched. The entire Freddy plot line felt lame, but I guess it might work for young kids, as this is sort of a kids movie.
The basic plot is fine for a movie like this, but the execution sucks. One example is a scene in the climax – there is a 5 minute break in the middle for Shazam to talk to his family. What is the villain doing at this point? Waiting patiently? It’s hard to pay attention to the story when the writers are too lazy to make anything feel believable, even within the context of the Superhero setting.
It’s a bad movie. 3.
My Score
IMDB Score
RT Critics
49
RT Audience
85