If you wandered into a theater during one of the many loud, overblown and underwhelming action sequences in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” you’d know immediately you were seeing a superhero movie. But unless you’re fully geeked and loaded when it comes to identifying the various save-the-world universes, it might take a beat or two for you to figure out WHICH superhero movie you were watching.
Hey, there’s an iconic, Oscar-winning actor all costumed up as a god of some sort and making Shakespearean pronouncements! Ooh, and there’s a ferocious dragon who looks like a 4/5ths completed version of one of the flying beasts from the “Game of Thrones” franchise. Meanwhile, there’s some sort of Golden Apple everyone wants, and an ancient magic staff capable of harnessing incredible powers, and creepy-slimy CGI creatures are plucking innocent humans from the streets of the big city and hurling them this way and that, and the good guys are alternating between snappy banter and declarations of love and loyalty for their fellow crusaders …
