Rachel Zegler defends “actually very good” movie Shazam! Fury Of The Gods
Critics who didn't like the DC film are just a bunch of big 'ol meanies, cries Zegler
Aux News Rachel Zegler
Even as we’re living through one of the softest eras of arts criticism, celebrities are still finding ways to be huge babies about it. Most recently, Shazam! Fury Of The Gods star Rachel Zegler called those who have negatively assessed the film “senselessly mean.”
“Some people out there and just being… senselessly mean,” Zegler wrote on Twitter. “And it’s unnecessary. And I know, I know, ‘If you can’t handle the heat…’ and all that nonsense, and you’re right. But our film is actually very good, it’s just cool to hate on fun nowadays. That’s okay. We’re good.”
People don’t hate fun, but a lot do hate actors getting paid millions of dollars to appear in formulaic, bad movies with little to no substance. Especially when these movies are currently choking out the industry and giving audiences few viewing alternatives. Fun movies are applauded and adored all the time, but critical consensus suggests Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is not one of them.
The general vibe concerning criticism as of late feels like actors wanting applause simply for being in something, without any consideration for the art and industry at hand. Things aren’t “good” simply because they’re made. To say that the Shazam sequel is “actually very good” not only flies in the face of recent reviews, but is a discredit to actually very good films.
Leveling professional criticism with any random negative post on social media is a disservice to what critics actually do and its importance in cultivating truly great work. Any proper evaluation comes from a place of love of the art itself and knowing the joys of arresting, interesting, and even fun films. To reduce critique as simply coming from a place of hatred is not only inaccurate, but beyond boring.
We can’t live in a world of participation prizes and back-patting for cash-grabbing works that come at the cost of $125 million, especially when they are often poorly written and look like CGI sludge. While sometimes time affects the lasting evaluation of a work, it seems unlikely that Shazam! Fury Of The Gods will be seen as an overlooked masterpiece in ten years. It’s okay Rachel, you got the check you needed, now take the criticism and move on.
107 Comments
I liked it. It just felt like the script could have used another pass. I felt like some beats took too long to set up, and it felt like there were too many MacGuffins. I’m sure at least some of that was a result of trying to give all six of the Shazams something to do (and yet, Mary Marvel really ends up with nothing). But what works, works IMO. The humor worked. The chemistry between the actors worked. I thought all of the individual performances worked. If the whole thing was just shorter, I feel like I could confidently say, “Actually, it’s very good.” I certainly liked it more than Quantumania (which sounds liking damning with faint praise, but I didn’t think that movie was as bad as its RT score would suggest either).But also… isn’t Zegler like 19? It’s her first major role coming off of West Side Story, and it’s in a big superhero movie. Your own readers say worse things about professional critics and movie reviewers in the comment sections all the time. Maybe take a step back and chill.
“But also… isn’t Zegler like 19?”Twenty-one, but your point is still valid. This is her second film, the first having been a critically lauded box-office bomb, and she had every reason to believe that this one would be successful. I think we should cut her some slack. No matter how talented she is, a string of flops is not a good way to start a career. (Fortunately for her, her next film is a Disney live-action remake which will rake in cash hand over fist in defiance of all logic and taste.)Edit: Apparently there’s a Hunger Games (!) coming up first, without any of the original cast, so that’s kind of a crapshoot.
This means I haven’t seen the two movies she’s been in?
She’s not as prolific as Jenna Ortega, that’s for sure.
I’ve probably only seen Ortega in “You”, and I don’t even remember her from that season, but Ortega sure is making sure her 15 minutes will turn into 20.Zegler needs a better agent or be cast in a good TV show. We get better TV shows than movies these days.
It was bad. But it wasn’t that bad.
My friend took her 10 year old to see it on Friday night. He said it was good but he liked the first one better. She said at least it moved and wasn’t boring.
So yeah, it’s good, actually.
Oh shit, a 10 year said it wasn’t boring… give it the fuckin’ Oscar!
No, the 10 year old said it was good but he liked the first one better. His mother, a grown adult woman, said it wasn’t boring.Considering that the movie is more geared to a 10 year old than a grown adult, I’m gonna say ‘it’s good’ is a fine way to describe it. Nobody’s saying it deserves an Academy Award here.
I’d say instead that “it’s fine” is a good way to describe it.
Cromulent, even?
Perfectly so!
As a sequel, I hope it embiggened the themes of the first.
You know what was weird about it, the actor who plays Billy (when he’s not in Zachary Levi form) is so unmemorable looking to me that every time he came on screen I was like “who’s that guy?” for a second.
I feel kind of bad for him. He’s ostensibly playing the main role but is in, what, three scenes?
But you don’t understand! A movie has either got to be Oscar-worthy or a flaming dumpster fire! There can be no middle ground; that way lies madness!m a d n e s s s s s
Sidenote, but honestly the modern Internet has led to that style of thinking about EVERYTHING , and I think its gotten the world into a tonne of trouble.
I saw it with my kids , and hey I liked it , it has that slightly weird vibe the previous one did ( 85% blue skies actually FUN superheroes, 15% people getting killed by pretty nasty monsters/spells) but it was enjoyable even with the product placement ( and yeah I laughed at the “taste the rainbow motherfu..” line).
Same here. Brought the kids, we laughed and enjoyed it. I found myself wishing when he had that staff in the baseball stadium he could’ve used it as a baseball bat and creamed the dragon, a boulder, or something.
Its neither good or bad…. which is what they are going for.
Fun movies are applauded and adored all the time, but critical consensus suggests Shazam! Fury Of The Gods is not one of them. Frankly, snark from critics is less fun than this movie was. I don’t think this movie was “actually very good” but I thought it was more fun than not!
God damn, this country deserves its downward spiral. Criticism isn’t snark, especially because it bothers you for some reason.
What is it with this site being on this movie’s balls of late?Are y’all (entire outlet) trying to take a movie that few people care about and, like, generate a clickbait chimera out of whole cloth?
I miss when the whole site was devoted to Darling worry…
You misspelled Martin Scorseses name. We gotta talk about his not cinema MCU quote again!
What’s with this pop culture site writing about the current pop culture offering of late?Geez, I really fucking wonder…
Already got my first dipshitted reply, from someone with a Ralph Wiggum avatar.Points to him for staying on brand, I guess!
Of late?This is and has been the standard on AV Club for years now. It’s like once a month they throw a bunch of movie titles into a hat and pick one to focus on for a few weeks.
It’s weird because most reviews are basically saying it’s, as the kids say, “mid”, but AVC has been treating it like a toxic waste dump.
They can’t even be arsed to be consistent in what they’re saying about the movie. First they’re implying that Zegler hates the film and just did it for the paycheque. Now they’re implying that Zegler is an overly sensitive baby who can’t see the flaws in her film. Which one is it? (Before you say “different authors,” I checked, and both pieces are by the same author.)
Because as usual, the writer doesn’t have a point of view of his own, and develops articles guided by whichever way the wind is blowing on Twitter that day.
I think Zachary Levi said something recently that upset what passes for “Writers” around here these days. It’s not uncommon. You can generally guess what kind of reception a movie will get based on the snark aimed at people involved in it beforehand.
People don’t hate fun- Citation needed.
Not only do people demonstrably hate fun, but they love to hate fun. It’s practically a national pastime these days
They have so much fun hating fun. Which they then have to hate.
Before, or after you figure out who they vote for?
It certainly was quite a bold choice to devote one of the post-credits scenes to directly saying to the audience “You didn’t think we were actually going to follow up on that cool story we teased at the end of the first movie, did you? Idiots.”
Sometimes patience is the key to victory
As much as I love the ‘Captain America’ series, I always think Chris Evans is having the most fun when he pops up in other characters’ movies. This, as Loki in ‘Thor 2′ and ‘Endgame’; he’s really good at tweaking the good guy image of Cap a little.
Thats cause he’s cute, he’s a beautiful man….
The fact they brought back Mark Strong and Mr Mind just to poke fun at the absurdity was brilliant. For the record, they said they did try a sequel with Mr mind as the villain, but realised quickly it would just be a repeat of the first one. Which is why, for better or worse, they tried something different. But I love they went back to Mr Mind, and since this is likely the last we ever see of shazam, this is a funny and oddly fitting finale. Sivana rotting in prison while Mr Mind makes insane plans that he won’t ever be able to pull off.
Please, tell me the hero you like, well devote 15 secs in the credits to that one 😉
She and Dwayne can hash out how actually it’s the audiences who are wrong over a bottle of Teramana.
She doesn’t want to hang out with that candy-ass.
“Especially when these movies are currently choking out the industry and giving audiences few viewing alternatives.”This isn’t a true thing that’s happening.
Superheroes, Everywhere, All At Once
‘All Superheroes on the Western Front’.
Hold on….do you know Jui Jitsu
Yeah, he’s a good guy.
I’m fairly certain that on the whole, there are way more movies released per year now than 30-40 years ago. Do all of them get theatrical releases? No. Do all of them need theatrical releases? Also no.
Exactly. With streaming services movies are more accessible than ever before (okay maybe not ever before, since they used to cost a nickel, but more than in recent memory), and the variety of movies available is good.
It is, as you can see here in this bar graph of movies based on % existing IP
Except “based on existing IP” doesn’t mean “formulaic, bad movies with little to no substance” that give the audience “few viewing alternatives.” “Based on existing IP” includes anything adapted from a book, play, TV show, video game, as well as movie sequels. As for few viewing alternatives, I haven’t seen a Marvel movie in years. I find I still have plenty of viewing alternatives.
Hell, ‘Glass Onion’ was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, on the grounds that it was adapted from the other movie about the same guy.
I bet you love retreads…
Why would you think that?
The original story bar…
Last year was a truly great year for movies, one of the best in recent memory. At least three of the Best Picture nominees were easily better than 90% of the last ten years’ slates.
Besides that, how far back in history do you have to go before this actors getting paid millions of dollars to appear in formulaic, bad movies with little to no substance
stops being true? Does such a time actually exist?
I’m sad that ‘Banshees of Inisherin’ didn’t get any gold at the Oscars, but I think that’s just a testament to the calibre of films it was up against.(If there had been a category for Most Expressive Eyebrows, Colin Farrell would have had it locked down.)
Whereas he should have merely won Best Actor.
I mean…. a donkey is dead.
AND his feckin amazing eyebrows
I was crushed
You could drop a Batman movie tomorrow and it would make a billion bucks…
So? That doesn’t mean it’s “choking out the industry” or “giving audiences few viewing alternatives.” There have always been blockbusters.
The last one didn’t.
Rachel Zegler defends “actually very good” movie Shazam! Fury Of The Gods because she’d probably like to be in another one.
She’s already got Snow White lined up, and I have to assume she was cast for that specifically to piss off the most racists statistically possible.
That should do it.
Generally I want people cast who’ll do the best job in a role out of those who could potentially play it, but “pissing off the most racists statistically possible” is almost as good.
It’s right there in the name! You wouldn’t hire a white guy to play Radagast the Brown, would you?!
Site?
Also, who is racist, and why?
“IT’S NOT FOR THE CRITICS, IT’S FOR THE FANS”
Jesus Christ the vitriol from the writer here is insane. I saw the thing. This was exactly average. You people are acting like it’s the Gigli of Superhero movies.That was Catwoman.
This is the year when everyone has to write about how much superhero movies suck because, like, Ant Man did better opening weekend box office than the past 2 Ant Man movies so that means that the superhero movie trend is totally over.
The jiggly of superhero movies:
I don’t know if you saw that pilot, but it wasn’t super terrible. There were so many things that could have been better but it was well cast, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more Elizabeth Hurley face off with Wonder Woman a couple more times.
More garbage filler. Sorry, the CW additions to canon are, and were trash.
It was NBC
I will put it this way. Everytime I see photos or footage from that pilot I keep thinking its from a porno.
‘Under Woman’.
My favorite part of Palicki’s unsold Wonder Woman pilot is when WW is racing down an underground hallway towards a guarded door and she grabs a piece of rebar and hurls it like a javelin. It immediately impales the guard, sticking him to the door and she kicks him in the chest, so the guard and door both flatten inward and she runs over them both to get inside.
It is, ahem, metal as fuck.
God she is hot af tho….
Did she lasso your heart?
Gobble gobble.
Leveling professional criticism with any random negative post on social media is a disservice to what critics actually do and its importance in cultivating truly great workkinda seems like someone is also defending their work against meanies in this here article. celebrities, they’re just like us (us being online culture critics who are sometimes uncharitably snarky about stuff!)!
I feel bad for the actors in this. Probably every single major actor in this is going to get asked at some point: “Why did you think Shazam! 2 under-performed?” And it’s not really their fault – the film is fine, but got screwed over by delays and bad marketing.
. . . Although admittedly, Zegler’s character and the whole subplot with her and Freddy is one of the more undercooked parts of this film. She just didn’t really have a lot of screen presence, either – I can buy Mirren and Liu as thousands of years-old, malevolent goddess characters, but not Zegler in this.
Some people ARE senselessly mean. Are some of them professional critics? Probably*, though Ms. Zegler doesn’t specify. She just as likely could be referring to Twitter trolls that have been harassing her for months.She’s barely out of her teens and promoting only her second movie. Of course she wants it to do well and defend it. I thought her response was fairly measured, to be honest. Not sure why you felt personally attacked or why she must personally atone for the sin of comic book movie saturation.I suggest you send this “edgy” burn article back to the the mid 2000s, where doesn’t really belong but would at least fit in. Then meditate on what you’re so angry about.*For instance mean critics repeatedly refer to people who disagree with them as babies in their articles
I don’t even think the response has been particularly cruel to the movie, let alone to Zegler herself. I’ve seen a few people criticize her acting in the movie, which feels misplaced because none of the villains were really good in it, and I’ve seen all of them act well in the past (Zegler is quite good in West Side Story). I’m sure there’s a vocal Twitter bloc that out there being awful in a dozen different ways, but that’s almost old hat now.This article is just relentlessly fucking mean and personal though. We all sort of snickered at The Rock for not being able to tolerate the critical response to Black Adam (a much worse movie than this one), and part of that is because he’s been in the business for a long time, and was literally in the business of being an actual heel for years, so he should have a thicker skin than what he showed. But this is way harsher than anything I saw thrown against him and Zegler is not in a position to take too many critical hits.
No kidding. This article reads like the author has an inexplicable personal vendetta. Just downright spiteful.
It’s not hard to say something isn’t good… though it alienates you from…stuff
At leat this wasn’t article #852 of being about a guy that said/did something.
Just wait till the actors of The Flash start tweeting post-release of their much-delayed blockbuster…
With last year’s sob story about not getting an invite to the Oscar’s, and this one, she’s quite the public whiner. Needs a new publicist!
are still finding ways to be huge babies about it – the av club
Wow, a whole article written just to pick on Rachel Zegler. Classy. (And Fury of the Gods, because AV Club hasn’t been bashing it enough lately. We get it, you guys hate it. I don’t like it either, but give it a rest.)
Did Shazam 2 run over your dog or something?
You know what’s way more cringe than an actor with thin skin? A critic with thin skin.
Sorry?! Was the movie that bad? I had to re-read the review…. wtf?! Lol, AV Club!? Whats going on?
Its a 6.5 of 10. Gab sounds like a 3…maybe 4.
Fuck me, what a horrible, mean-spirited article.Critics lashing out whenever they get a bit back is always terrible to watch, this is even worse Zegler’s comments had nothing to do with this site or this writer in the first place.
This almost like an old school AV Club thread, the comments/views….
I have no idea why Jez laser focuses on certain movies (this, Don’t Worry Darling) and getting a 21 year old’s response to her second major movie under-performing is barely newsworthy. That said, I think the reason why this response was highlighted is because Zegler made the mistake of saying “the movie was actually good.” Most people, especially consumers, really get agitated when they say they don’t like something and the response is that no, the consumers are the ones who are wrong. Virtually every seasoned performer can diplomatically get out of explaining their crap movie without saying that you are dumb for not getting it. “It’s for the fans” (wank motion), “there were a lot of different voices”, “I really loved the role when I read it”, “I think the marketing was difficult” or one of 1,000 other canned responses are better than “No, this is good and by extension your feeling that this movie is bland/unenjoyable is wrong”. Shaymalan did that with one of his movies, where he said it had European sensibilities or something that American’s wouldn’t get, and was ripped for that too.I imagine that her PR team (if it is any good) will explain this to her, she’ll move on and no one is going to remember this in 2 years or even 2 months.
Sounds like this critic got her job as a participation trophy.
WTF? Do you not know that, “senselessly mean,” Zegler was referring to? It wasn’t critics, idiot. It was Snyder-trolls.
I mean what’s she supposed to say, “I know the movie I made was shit”? What is she, the next Jenny Ortega?She probably had a great time making it and bonding with some amazing actresses like Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren. She wants to keep working in the industry, so she’ll promote the movies she does, even if she knows they’re not great.Are we supposed to put her on trial for furthering her career?