Lucas

This average rating right out of the gate doesn't bode very well.

4/5 RadioTimes 7/10 IGN 3/5 Empire 3/5 ScreenRant 3/5 Guardian B- IndieWire

https://comicbookmovie.com/shazam/shazam-fury-of-the-gods/shazam-fury-of-the-gods-review-a201042#gs.snzdf5 Seems like the Comic Book Movie review dropped early.

Yeah, that's what the 65 on Critics' Choice is reflecting. I'm asking you to check other movies on Critics Choice and compare them to their Rottentomatoes scores. 65 never means 65% on RT or even a 6.5 average rating. Eternals has a 61, Black Adam has a 66. If you're in the 60s, then most often you'll find the movie is rotten on RT.

That's very accurate on the Critics' Choice metric. Check out other movies and compare and contrast.

It'll be interesting to see because, as someone who has seen the film and talked to others who have seen the film, I can't really tell where it's gonna end up. Reviews came out this morning in Sweden and they're pretty much all at 2/5, but then you see the positive reactions going around on twitter, the two positive reviews that appeared early on RT, and also the positive Critics' Choice rating (unless it's about to collapse as more votes come in). I wouldn't be overly confident in it, but there does seem like there was a notable chunk that genuinely enjoyed the film.

Really interested in how this is gonna turn out.

Now they're reeeally lacking in major outlets reacting to it.

Interesting to note that the letterboxd user rating has somehow managed to hold on to 3.9/5 even after 118k votes, which is way ahead of all the other sequels (2, 4, and 5 are all at 3.4/5, and 3 is naturally the lowest with 2.9). Looking at the wayback machine, 5 was down to 3.4/5 as early as 45k votes and never moved from there (394k now). VI is certainly going down a little at some point, but being the highest rated sequel seems certain.

Finally

It needs 75% to be certified fresh, it's different. Since this has a risk of dropping below that, they're gonna wait until the bitter end. EDIT: But a green stat on MetaCritic looks to be secure with 52 reviews now and still 61/100. It's very close, but there shouldn't be any more reviews being added after this (Scream 5 had 50 reviews total, ended at 60/100).

uh oh

Very much the appropriate amount, had there been even one more turtle then we'd really be in trouble.

I do think families would enjoy it, it is the kind of harmless fun that should play pretty well, but I don't think there's anything in the movie to motivate many to go out of their way to see it. For comic book movie fans I'd recommend it over Quantumania, Black Adam, Love & Thunder and Morbius. If they go see those movies then why not see this one. I agree with you on the first movie, it was a quaint breath of fresh air where it felt like the superhero movie I was watching was actually about being a hero. I also really loved the found family theme, and while elements of that definitely continue here, it's not very developed and feels more like a footnote overall. Freddy and Billy's friendship does not get a lot of focus this time. Sandberg is indeed a delight (and now happy to say the same about him in-person) and you can tell he has a lot of fun making these. I do hope he gets another horror movie off the ground soon, and not necessarily because Shazam 2 didn't really work for me but because I just want to see what he'd like to do. Also because I'd hope it cuts down on the time between movies.

Pretty funny the one Sandberg movie I didn't end up caring much for is the one I watched sitting right behind him. He still feels fully aware of what he's doing and hasn't let any success get to his head, which is a really admirable thing. I did congratulate him afterwards, despite not really getting much out of the movie personally. I wish him the best and especially that he gets to make what he wants to make because he is a very competent audience-friendly filmmaker. He's the last guy who deserves any kind of dunking on the internet so I hope people stay the fuck calm about this one. What I liked about the first film is either a diet-version here or not here at all, it feels like one of the old Disney direct-to-video sequels rather than a "real" sequel. It doesn't really justify itself as necessary compared to how quaint and charming the first movie was. The first film has a very solid thematic core that it could hang everything else on, but the few things the characters have in this one feel undercooked. A lot of them are reduced to bullet points and whatever arcs are set up early on don't really progress until a payoff appears at the end. I can't be too negative because I admire all the good old fashioned superheroics that feel so bizarrely rare in these movies today. It's often pretty funny, the actors are putting in solid work, and nowadays these effects are above what I expect (this is a much better movie than Quantumania lol). At the very least it doesn't feel like I have to carry a whole bunch of baggage into the theater to see it, and my brain isn't going haywire thinking about how every little stupid thing in the movie might affect the entire damn industry. It is about as substantial as a saturday morning cartoon show (not derogatory), it doesn't feel like the deciding factor in what an entire corperation is going to do next. Compared to 2020s superhero movies, it's by no means the worst one. Had it come out last year I'd put it straight in the middle, and even higher the year before that. But as a big fan of the original film, this isn't really what I was looking for. It's pretty funny at times, but never particularly interesting, the general plotting is mediocre and the characters don't do much to overcome it this time around. Now because I'm an adult I can move on with my life, though if anyone has any questions you can ask away lol.

Dipped a little but still pulling slightly ahead of where 5 was at this point, particularly with the average rating. Since it's so close they're probably going to hold out with marking it as certified fresh.

Seeing this later today, we'll see how it goes.

A friend saw it on monday and thought it had several of the best set-pieces of the series and now prefers the core 4 to the OG 3 characters, but that the tradeoff was a weak plot. They saw it again today and liked it more (from 7 to an 8/10) and believes the reveal in particular works a lot better on a rewatch. EDIT: should also add that they believe the general audiences will eat it up more than 5.

We're gonna need some of the major outlets to chime in soon lol

After 66 reviews it has slightly pulled ahead of 5 on RT, 80% 7.1/10 average compared to 79% 6.9/10