Posts Tagged ‘D. J. Cotrona’

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Director: David F. Sandberg

Cast: Zachary Levi, Rachel Zegler, Helen Mirren, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, Ross Butler, D. J. Cotrona, Grace Caroline Currey, Gal Gadot , Meagan Good

Running Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Swedish director David F. Sandberg returns to the Shazam franchise to make the highly anticipated sequel to the 2019 film, simply known as Shazam: Fury of the Gods.

The Gods in this case are the perilous daughters of Atlas, Anthea played by West Side Story star Rachel Zegler, Kalypso played by Lucy Liu (Kill Bill, Chicago, Charlie’s Angels) and the eldest sister Hespera oddly played by Oscar winner Helen Mirren (The Queen) who is quite surreal in a superhero film. However, Mirren does bring a certain gravitas to a film which is primarily aimed at school kids. The scenes between Mirren and Levi are hilarious.

At the centre of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, is Shazam himself wonderfully played again by Zachary Levi in which his younger 18 year old self Billy Batson is played by Asher Angel, who along with his fellow superheroes including Freddy, the older version played by Adam Brody and the younger version brilliantly played by Jack Dylan Grazer, team up together to fight the evil Daughters of Atlas, who unbeknownst to the human population of Philadelphia decide to wreak havoc on the city.

Instruments of havoc for the Gods include ancient Greek creatures and a fearsome dragon which Kalypso loves to ride, referencing the infamous scenes from HBO’s Game of Thrones and more recently The House of the Dragon. During the epic battle scenes unicorns roam the streets of Philadelphia which elevates the film completely into fantasy.

Shazam tries to negotiate with Hespera at a fast food outlet only to be chucked against the wall, as all three daughters possess enormous unearthly powers. While the two older sisters aren’t looking, the beautiful Anthea wonderfully played by Rachel Zegler falls in love with the younger, slightly awkward teenage Freddy superbly played by Jack Dylan Grazer, who at nearly twenty years old is a talent to watch. The onscreen chemistry between Zegler and Grazer grounds the visual effects heavy superhero film and gives the narrative a positive romantic shine, unexpected in most comic book capers. Then again there is always the crush that Shazam has on a more powerful superhero: Wonder Woman.

Unlike the menacing world of director Matt Reeves’s excellent film The Batman, Warner Brothers Discovery Studio decided to make a brighter superhero film and in that respect Shazam: Fury of the Gods delivers a fantastically entertaining film which is perfect for light entertainment. If viewers don’t take the film too seriously, then they will find it immensely enjoyable.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and there is a wonderful surprise at the end as the DC Superhero universe continues to expand exponentially. Recommended viewing as a family film.

GI Joe: Retaliation

All Braun and no Brains

Following on the success of 2009 GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra, featuring Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller, comes the delayed release of GI Joe: Retaliation directed by Jon M. Chu teams Dwayne Johnson with Bruce Willis along with some newcomers including D. J. Cotrona as Flint and Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye and is supported by Ray Stevenson (fresh from playing a Ukranian gangster on the series Dexter) as a fiendishly deranged Southerner, Firefly the muscle for the Cobra group and a little seen Channing Tatum as Duke, one of the original GI’s and Ray Park as Snake Eyes.

With a convoluted plot involving an imposter American president played with evil cynicism by Jonathan Pryce, reprising his megalomaniac villain Elliot Carver from the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, this film is nothing more than a homage to all the weapons of mass destruction, and to a male-orientated obsession with weaponry, arms and naturally testosterone fueled combat. All types of weapons are on display in this film from samurai swords to high-calibre machine guns and whilst GI Joe: Retaliation is a great action packed film to watch, one hopes that it does not inspire some unwanted teenager to randomly gun down a group of strangers in a Mid-Western American mall. Sadly in the wake of the Sandy Hook School shooting in Connecticut and the massacre at the Aurora Theater in Colorado both in 2012, Gi Joe: Retaliation‘s overemphasis on weaponry surely points to a society which is unwilling to relinquish its right to bear arms despite the many casualties.

Gi Joe: Retaliation action spans the globe from Pakistan to North Korea, from Washington DC to South Carolina, and whilst the plot resembles a twisted version of Diamonds are Forever without the glamour and whilst there are some great moments provided by Willis and Stevenson, most of the film is filled with explosions, knife fights, infinitely explosive gun battles, exhilarating boat and car chases and perfectly provides a cinematic reason to showcase all the weapons of retaliation stockpiled by any of the G8 nations, a fill arsenal of destruction, capable of flattening any major capital city in the globe, from London to Tokyo.

Fun to watch, without much thought behind it, GI Joe Retaliation will definitely find a following in its target audience and is not as good or slick as the original film, the slightly more sophisticated GI Joe, Rise of the Cobra. GI Joe: Retaliation has some fantastic sequences in it especially the ninjas on a Japanese mountain and the odd quirky dialogue naturally involving Bruce Willis, but the script is a bit too outlandish to be taken seriously and should really be viewed in the context of a some fun Saturday afternoon entertainment. Definitely recommended mainly for bored teenage boys and young men who like the action thick and fast without much thought.