Shazam: Gods & Monsters

Shazam: Gods & Monsters is a 2024 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Captain Marvel. Produced by New Line Cinema, DC Films, The Safran Company, and Mad Ghost Productions, and set for distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is intended to be the sequel to Shazam! (2019) and ''Shazam! Fury of the Gods'' (2022). It is directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay by Henry Gayden and Geoff Johns, and stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Mark Strong, Tim Curry and Gal Gadot returning as her DCEU character Wonder Woman.

Plot
In this sequel, we follow the young superhero Captain Marvel/Billy Batson being assisted not only by his superpowered family but also the fellow superheroine and demigoddess Wonder Woman. They face the return of Doctor Sivana, Captain Marvel's archenemy from the first movie, as he works for Mister Mind, an ancient, trans-dimensional evil that seek to retain his full power, unleash the Monster Society Of Evil, his monstrous band, and consume the entire multiverse!

As shown in the mid-credit scene of the first Shazam movie, Sivana manage to escape prison thanks to the help of Mister Mind. We will discover that the talking caterpillar is actually an ancient, trans-dimensional evil entity which preys upon entire universes to grow stronger and has devoured his original dimension. He already tried to devour the Seven Magical Realms in the past but he was stopped by the Seven Wizards and the Old Gods. Through the course of the movie, Sivana will follow Mister Mind's instructions as part of a greater scheme to restore Mind to his full power but also to free other trans-dimensional monsters like him that were also imprisoned by the Wizards and the Gods: the Monster Society Of Evil!

Sivana will not act alone this time: he will recruit his niece Beautia (knowing that she despised his deceased brother and father as much as he did and thus deceiving her into believe they will be a family again) and the Breyer brothers who are always willing to follow her, especially after Sivana reveal them the truth about Billy Batson and Freddy Freeman. But they are not all of his recruits: in one of the initial parts of the movie, Sivana (who is once again empowered with dark magic thanks to Mister Mind's teaching) will go to Themyscira, the island of the Amazons, and reach an underground gate that lead to Tartarus (similar to Justice League animated series) and, after breaking through the defenses, he will open the very hellish gates and release an army of mythological monsters under his command.

This is also how Wonder Woman will come to know about Sivana and Mister Mind and, later, about Billy Batson, the young boy who has been chosen by the Old Gods to be their new champion, just like Diana is. Obviously, she will immediatly take an interest in the young superhero and she'll decide to go meet him personally. Upon realizing immediatly that Billy got's a lot of potential and the right heart for being a superhero, Diana will decide to become Billy's new mentor and also help him and his family stop Sivana and Mister Mind before they wreack havock.

Over the course of the film, Billy and Diana will develope a strong big sister-little brother relationship, based on how Diana will act as a mentor figure to Billy and not just for superpowers or mythology stuff. Billy's brothers and sisters will also adore her especially young Darla with whome she will immediatly become best friend and Freddy who is a huge superhero nerd and know a lot of facts about her fights and powers. Diana will also become the only person - save Billy - that Tawky Tawny will let ride on his back. Cissie, Billy's girlfriend, will be a lot less enthusiastic upon seeing Billy so close and so often with such a beautiful woman: this will lead to many comical misunderstandings. While Billy will indeed form a school boy crush on Wonder Woman, the film use this infatuation for comedic relief only: in the end the two will become much more like big sister and little brother, although, at the end of the movie, before parting ways, Diana will kiss Billy on the cheeck (but she will do the same to Freddy, this time causing Sabina to get jealous).

Despise this, Billy will have his share of romantic moments with Cissie during the film (she will also eventually learn her boyfriend's secret). The same is true for Freddy and Sabina who will have her hardship adjusting to her new life as a normal human (more or less) but thanks to her new family she will learn to love being like other girls.

The first meeting between Billy and Diana will be in the locker room of Billy's school where he and Freddy are resting after a basketball match. When Diana bursts into the boys’ locker room, she’s wearing a skin-tight get-up that’s “unzipped down to there”. It reveals a great deal of cleavage. She doesn’t always dress that sleazily in the movie, but many of her outfits are designed to exploit her figure. When she enters the boys' locker room to retrieve Billy (while the lyrics in a song state, "It's so hot, it hurts"), the other boys stare and gawk at her appearance. One boy tries to come on to her (saying he wants to be in trouble) so she pulls his towel away (we briefly see him butt naked as he scrambles to cover himself up) and uses it to flick several other boys for making rude comments about wanting her to pick them instead of Billy (one lash lands near a boy’s privates, another sends a locker door smashing into someone’s nose).

Sivana's monster army consists of several creatures from greek mythology: minotaurs, griffins, lycans, giant spiders (children of Arachne), centaurs, living skeletons (similar to Jason and the Argonauts from Ray Harryhausen). At some points, they will also summon two more powerful monsters: Cerberus (killed by Tawky Tawny in a savage animal face off) and Medusa (beheaded by Wonder Woman after she sacrifice her eyes to avoid her mortal gaze; though Captain Marvel will later heal her eyes back). The Monster Society of Evil is comprised of Mister Mind (who will eventually assume his hyperfly form), Atom, Jeepers (represented as a giant wolf-bat hybrid), Oom (represented as a rock giant), Storm King (a living storm similar to a Titan in Disney movie Hercules), Herkimer (represented as a giant multi-legged crocodile with a centaur-like torso and several spines all over his body similar to a concept art of Lizzie from the 2018 movie Rampage), Kull (represented as a giant goat-like ogre with a spiked mace) and Drakul Karfang. All of them are colossal in size and each of them will face off with one of the eight heroes (Billy and his six siblings plus Tawky Tawny and Diana) during the final battle with Captain Marvel fighting Mister Mind and Wonder Woman fighting Drakul Karfang. Marvel and Mind's battle will be the most climatic of all which will end only when Billy will strike Mind with a powerful lightning bolt which Mind will begin to absorb, ecstatic to receive the power, but quickly discovered that it was overloading him with too much energy for even him to handle. Unable to stop it, the abundance of energy became so great that Mind is obliterated into a bright light, being destroyed by the same power he sought to obtain.

Cast
Billy's foster family also includes Faithe Herman as Darla Dudley, Billy's good-natured younger foster sister with Meagan Good as her adult superhero form; Grace Fulton as Mary Bromfield, Billy's mature, academically-driven older foster sister (Fulton also portrays Mary's adult superhero form); Ian Chen as Eugene Choi, Billy's younger foster brother and an obsessive gamer with Ross Butler as his adult superhero form; Jovan Armand as Pedro Peña, Billy's older foster brother who doesn't talk much with D. J. Cotrona as his adult superhero form; Brittney Rentschler as Rosa Vásquez, the foster mother of Billy and his siblings; Rachel Zagler as Sabina, Freddy's girlfriend and once one of the Three Faces Of Evil; and Nathan Filion as Víctor Vásquez, Billy and his siblings' foster father. Corey Burton, Jim Cummings, Fred Tatasciore and Grey DeLisle guest stars as the voices of The Monster Society Of Evil: Burton voices Oom and Storm King, Tatasciore voices Herkimer and Atom, Cummings voices Jeepers and Kull, DeLisle voices Drakul Karfang.
 * Zachary Levi as Captain Marvel: The champion of the wizard Shazam and the superhero alter-ego of teenager Billy Batson, who possesses "the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury".
 * Asher Angel as Billy Batson: A teenager and foster child who transforms into a superhero by saying "Shazam!".
 * Jack Dylan Grazer as Frederick "Freddy" Freeman: Billy's best friend and a fan of superheroes. Adam Brody plays the character's adult superhero form.
 * John Rhys-Davies as the voice of Tawky Tawny: the Marvel Family's guardian and best friend who can turn from tiger plush toy to a real talking tiger with magical powers at will.
 * Djimon Hounsou as Shazam: An ancient wizard who gave Billy his powers after naming him as champion.
 * Allison Brennan as Cissie Sommerly: Billy Batson's classmate and love interest.
 * Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman: a demigoddess superheroine and member of the Justice League who has an affinity with the gods of Olympus that empowers Billy Batson (being herself the daughter of Zeus) and thus take the decision to take the young hero under her wing and teach him how to better understand the mythological world and his superpowers.
 * Mark Strong as Sivana: the arch-enemy to Billy Batson/Captain Marvel returning from the first movie.
 * Tim Curry as the voice of Mister Mind: an extradimensional malevolent being that feed on entire universes, he was once defeated by the Council of Eternity who trapped him into the form of a seemingly harmless caterpillar and imprisoned him in the Rock of Eternity (he was briefly seen in the first movie and then in the mid-credit scene) before he escaped and formed an alliance with Sivana in order to return to his full power.