March 18, 2023 | Total Issue 3179
Now that Marvel's "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" has resumed simultaneous release in China and the United States, DC will naturally not lag behind, "Thunder Shazam! Wrath of the Gods (hereinafter referred to as "Shazam 2") also achieved simultaneous release in Chinese mainland and North America on March 17.
In 2019, the previous work of the series "Thunder Shazam! With the anti-routine comedy style and family elements, it has made a way in many superhero movies featuring action and special effects, and has received 366 million global box office at a cost of 100 million US dollars, while having a good reputation, a freshness of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, a comprehensive score of 71 for MTC media, and a comprehensive score of 7.8 for the audience.
After four years, the appearance of the sequel means that the former anti-routine has become a new routine. Although "Shazam 2" has added more special effects, increased scenes, and even added an epic sense on the basis of continuing the style and advantages of the previous work, the reputation of the trial and premiere has slipped significantly.
When word-of-mouth was first lifted, the freshness of the film was 68% (44 reviews), and the MTC media comprehensive score was 51 points (21 reviews). To make matters worse, both data showed a downward trend as the sample size increased. As of writing, the two figures have been 55% (115 reviews) and 47 points (37 reviews).
In fact, in the eyes of fans who have watched a large number of superhero films, the quality of "Shazam 2" can be regarded as the upper medium level of 8 points (83% popcorn for Rotten Tomatoes audiences). Especially in recent years, the innovation of super-British films has been extremely weak, and the anti-super-British style of this film has slightly buffered people's aesthetic fatigue.
It's just that for light fans, especially those who have not seen the first game of the series, "Shazam 2" has too many alternatives, and the first 30 minutes of viewing experience are very ignorant.
First of all, unlike most superheroes who just drag off, the protagonist of the series, Billy Batson (Arthur Angel), who is still in middle school, must use superpowers by shouting "Shazam!" " to complete the transformation. The transformed Shazam is played by another actor, Zachary Levy.
The opening paragraph of "Shazam 2" does not specifically show this transformation relationship. Two actors, Anqi and Levy, often appear in both scenes. Viewers who haven't seen the previous game can't immediately equate the two characters.
Although director David S. F. Sandberg designed a play to see the "psychologist", borrowing Shazam's mouth to briefly review the plot of the previous work, but this scene has a relatively heavy comedy color, coupled with Levy's playful tone and sand sculpture expression, but it makes the audience who do not understand the inside story more confused.
Levy's contrasting performance has become a double-edged sword of the film - both the audience feels that he is humorous and interesting, and his performance is wonderful and grounded, and the audience feels that he acts like a funny joker, which makes people feel embarrassed.
Secondly, "Shazam 2" continues the ending of the previous game, where Billy shares his superpowers with 5 other siblings in his foster family, so he changes from a solo superhero to a team superhero. 6 children transform into 6 superheroes, and the amount of information is not ordinary. Not to mention the audience who have not seen the previous work, even if they have seen the previous work, it is difficult to accurately match everyone in the "Shazam family" in the first place. "Which is which?" Will linger in your mind for up to tens of minutes.
The brain cells invested by the audience when watching movies are limited, so the superhero films that the team appears in often put a cognitive burden on the audience. In recent years, whether it is Marvel's "Eternals" and "Fantastic Four 2015", or DC's "Suicide Squad" and "Birds of Prey", the box office and word-of-mouth performance have been lower than expected.
Again, Shazam possesses a hybrid superpower. New viewers begin with little trace of their abilities, only to feel routine and cluttered, powerful but lacking in personality.
The film deliberately explains the composition of Shazam's abilities in the plot, namely: "S" represents Solomon's wisdom, "H" represents Hercules' strength, the first "A" represents Atlas' endurance, "Z" represents Zeus' thunder magic, the second "A" represents Achilles' courage and fighting skills, and "M" represents Mercury's speed.
As an ancient superhero born in the 30s of the last century, Shazam's superpowers are indeed a bit "simple", and it is difficult to have anything new in visual performance. The visual freshness of "Shazam 2" is mainly provided by the axis power of the wooden dragon and the third sister of the three sisters of the vengeance, Anthea (Rachel Ziegler).
By the way, the other two high-profile villains - Helen Mirren's Hespera and Liu Yuling's Calypso, both avoided high-intensity action scenes because the actors were older, and most of them put up POSE and then assisted them with special effects. Their focus is more on the aura of literary opera.
Finally, the hi point of fans of this series who plays a lot of terriers in the lines may be an embarrassing point for ordinary audiences. The "Shazam Series" provides a lot of space for memes due to the iconoclastic and anti-super-British characters.
The unobstructed youthful heart makes many terriers play another fun. For example, Shazam envies the members of the Justice League, and the words are very suitable for juvenile identity. However, for audiences who are not familiar with DC's works, they may not understand his joke about "a man in a red suit with a lightning symbol on his chest" - they will mistakenly think that Shazam is talking about himself, but in fact Shazam is talking about the Flash.
And what is surprising is that the meme of "Shazam 2" not only plays its own, but also plays "Fast and Furious" next door and the opponent's "Avengers".
Fortunately, after 30 minutes, both old and new audiences will find that this is a work with a concise narrative, bright rhythm, warm theme and stable feeling. Although it is difficult for the main creators to provide amazement and shock, they have already handled the details as smoothly as possible.
For example, in the final battle, the props that played a role in reversing the advantages and disadvantages of the troops, Shazam's strategy of turning defeat into victory, and the most surprising Easter eggs in the film all had a better foreshadowing in the previous plot. For example, it is precisely because the protagonist Billy is young that there is room to describe the growth of the characters.
Due to DC's reboot of the layout of the super-British universe, the subsequent fate of the series is not clear for the time being. Shazam's anti-Super League model makes its advantages and disadvantages coexist, which is naturally easy to cause word-of-mouth differentiation. I don't know if the audience who likes him can wait for Shazam and Superman's "showdown of the century" on the screen.
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