David F. Sandberg’s “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is the latest addition to the DCEU film franchise, having been officially released in the US on March 17, 2023. It picks up where the last “Shazam!” movie left off, a couple of years after the defeat of Doctor Sivana and the Seven Deadly Sins at the hands of Billy Batson and his siblings, who were all bestowed with superpowers once Billy used the Wizard’s staff to share the power of Shazam with them. The story begins with Kalypso and Hespera, the two daughters of Atlas, stealing the magical staff of the Wizard, which had previously been broken into two pieces by Billy, from a museum in Athens. It is then revealed that the Wizard himself is not actually dead, as was shown earlier but has been kept captive in the Realm of the Gods by the two sisters. They force him to join the two halves of the staff in order to use its powers. Meanwhile, the Shazam family continues to perform heroic deeds in their home town of Philadelphia, albeit not acting maturely at all times. Although a tad bit predictable at times, this new superhero flick promises to entertain with its light-hearted humor and a well-designed storyline, with a few surprising cameos towards the end.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Shazam! Fury Of The Gods’ Story
Billy, the unspoken leader of the group, suffers from abandonment issues and is afraid to lose his family again as he is about to turn eighteen in a few months, which means that he would no longer be a foster child and the government would stop paying childcare support for him to his foster parents. His foster sister, Mary, who is the oldest and wisest among the group, tells him that they need to concentrate on finding a way to support their family as their foster parents could not afford to take care of all of them, although they were really good people who genuinely cared for the kids. Freddy, the younger brother, is bullied in school but finds love in an unlikely friendship with a new girl named Anne, who is both pretty and smart and takes a liking to Freddy’s fun-loving personality. Although she is mild-mannered and gentle, she is later revealed to be the third daughter of Atlas, Anthea, who is on a mission along with her sisters to steal the powers of the Shazam family to restore the Realm of the Gods. When Freddy reveals his powers to Anne, she calls her sisters, and they take his powers away. In a dream, the Wizard warned Billy about the sisters coming to the mortal realm to exact their revenge on humanity, and as he and the other Shazams try to rescue Freddy from the sisters, Hespera, the eldest among them, creates an invincible dome around a section of the city, trapping them in it as they take Freddy hostage.
The Shazams regroup in the Rock of Eternity to devise a plan to get Freddy back without having to lose all their powers. They invite Hespera to a meeting where they plan on capturing her, which they successfully do, but, to their surprise, she escapes with the seed (a golden apple) from the Tree of Life. As she returns to her realm with the seed, the three sisters argue: Kalypso wants to plant it on Earth, to destroy it, in order to get her revenge on humanity, but Hespera and Anthea argue that it was not the plan and all that was required was to restore their realm. Freddy and the Wizard sneak out of their captivity with the help of Anthea (since she had feelings for him) and attempt to steal the seed back, but Freddy is discovered. Billy and the Shazams appear just in the nick of time to rescue him and the Wizard, all while restoring Freddy’s powers with the staff. As they return to Philadelphia, they are faced with dangerous consequences as Kalypso threatens to destroy their home along with their foster parents, using the dragon Ladon to tear through the house. In a scramble to protect the apple from falling into the hands of Kalypso, all the Shazams, except Billy, lose their powers, and Kalypso uses it to give birth to the Tree of Life in the city itself, annihilating half of it and spawning monsters that are programmed only to destroy.
‘Shazam! Fury Of The Gods’ Ending
Witnessing their sister unleash havoc on the city, Hespera and Anthea rebel against her, but Kalypso kills Hespera and snatches Anthea’s powers to eliminate any threat to her ultimate mission. Watching the dragon tear through the city and witnessing his siblings lose all their powers, Billy is crushed and asks the Wizard to take away his powers and use them to stop Kalypso, but he refuses, saying that his decision to bestow Billy with the powers of Shazam was, in fact, the right one, as he is a true hero and is capable of saving the city on his own. Thus, Billy flies off to slay the dragon while the rest of the family sets out on a mission to save as many people as they can, armed with nothing but their wit and willpower to aid them. Billy revives Hespera with his lightning and pleads with her to help him create a bomb that would be powerful enough to kill the dragon. Hespera diminishes the dome she had created over the city and confines it to the area where the Tree of Life had been planted, aiding Billy’s plan to trap Kalypso within the dome.
The final showdown occurs at the Philadelphia Baseball Stadium, where the tree had been planted. Billy, using the dome to his advantage, creates surges of lightning to overcharge the staff that absorbed electricity to create the bomb that would kill Kalypso and the dragon, subsequently killing off the Tree itself and all the monsters it had spawned, and at the same time ending his own life in a heroic sacrifice. He is finally buried in the Realm of the Gods, as a fitting gesture for a true hero. At this moment, Wonder Woman makes an appearance to restore the staff’s powers, reviving Billy in the process. The Shazam family is reunited once again as Billy uses the staff to restore their powers. The mid-credits are followed by a scene that features John Economos and Emilia Harcourt, who approach Billy to recruit him for the new Justice Society under the orders of Amanda Waller. The movie has a post-credits scene as well that shows an imprisoned Doctor Sivana being coaxed by a worm-like creature (Mr. Mind) to be ready to enact the malevolent plan that they had hatched, leaving the audience wondering what comes next.