I enjoyed the original Shazam a decent amount more than I did this sequel. It’s not a bad film, but it’s just kind of in the ok camp. It does some things right, it does others super average. It’s kind of a disappointment though still pretty good.

The flick picks up a little after the first with Team Shazam working out the kinks of being champions for Philadelphia. But there are children of a Titan who need a wizard staff and Billy Batson/Shazam and the team have to stop them.

The humor in this film is its saving grace. Like the original, it’s focused on being a smile-worth superhero comedy and it largely succeeds. I laughed a decent number of times at the gags. They mostly worked.

Less successful though was the action/adventure and superheroics. Nothing was bad, but it wasn’t super entertaining, particularly original, or crafted and edited all that well. I got a little bored in the second act, just hum-drumming my way through a lot of plot and character setups. The finale had some life to it with the introduction of familiar creatures from mythology, but there were moving bits of the plot that seemed a little random and the ultimate showdown moment was underwhelming and a little unearned.

Given the apparent dead-end these final few DCEU movies are heading toward, I’m surprised they left in an important cameo, much less the mid-credit and end-credit scenes. I don’t see how these remain relevant if everything is getting wiped clean.

But it’s still mostly a harmless and rather funny superhero flick. I wish it had been better, but it was mostly harmless. Could have moved at a better pace and presented more interesting villains and plot, but it wasn’t bad.

Score: 78