Nick Nack New To Theaters (Catchup Edition Pt. 3) - Shazam's Sequel, Dungeons & Dragons Doesn't Disappoint, And Its A Mario Movie

Well hey you, long time no chat?  But now is the time to get reacquainted with one another as well as some of the movies that have been around the theater scene.  If you like video game adaptations and want to see another Jack Black musical bop, well good, we are talking about The Super Mario Bros. Movie .  If you like nerdy things, Chris Pine, and nerdy adaptations, we got Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.  Lastly, if you want to see if lightning can strike twice with Shazam's sequel, and if the DCEU can go out on a high note with one of the last few entries.  All that and more are here for this Nick Nack Goes to the Movies new(ish) to theaters catchup edition, the latest of the bunch.  

If you do want to send me one of those AMC D20 popcorn things from the D&D movie or just want to talk what you've seen or are excited to see in theaters next, hit me up on social @NickNack_IC or @NickNackMovies on Instagram, Tik Tok, Letterboxd, and Twitter!

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S4E3

-Intro/Jingle

-Hello and welcome once again to another episode of Nick Nack Goes to the Movies.  It has been a busy vacation from the mid-west and leading up into an even busier chunk of time with drafts and even getting a potential concussion.  But during all that I was able to watch a ton of Tuesday Night discount movies at Marcus Theaters and got a few has been a while experiences at other theater chains including both Reading Cinemas and AMC, so yes, I finally was able to see Nicole Kidman in the theaters saying her declaration and the movie theater viewer anthem we all needed.  We do make movies better, it was magical.  

-I love Greg and his Marcus movies, but until I get into one of those pre-movie commercials, that Nicole Kidman one will have my heart.  Hit me up on my socials Marcus Theaters, I would love to meet up in Wisconsin to star in-front of the camera with you Greg!

-So today, it is another mixed bag catchup episode with a ton of things I had seen in the theaters as of late.  Each movie was in a different theater type, and while AMC has some cool giveaway purchases I can’t find here and some neat food options, since I am not a huge movie snacker on my weight loss journey overall, the best one had to be the Marcus Theater in GB west side with the super comfy fully reclinable seats!

-But to the movies to be discussed today now that that is out of the way.  It is a super hero sequel that probably had the least amount of hype going into it, Shazam: Fury of the Gods.  The latest and apparently one of the most successful video game adaptations and animated movies of our era, The Super Mario Bros Movie.  And lastly, we had a movie adaptation based on one of the nerdier activities out there.  I was more of a Magic the Gathering kid, but this is instead based on Dungeons and Dragons with Honor Among Thieves.

-Shazam! Fury of the Gods

-So, I wanted to start with a super hero movie, and normally that is something that would be super exciting, but I wasn’t quite sure with the shazam sequel.  Look, Zachary Levi was very fun in the first one as the super hero alter ego Shazam, and I thought that first movie had a cute story about finding a family with who you have and not just being born into one.  It also had Mark Strong as pretty fun villain, Doctor Sivana.  He may not have been perfect, but overall the movie was fun enough. 

-Now with the sequel, outside of Levi, there was not really any actor that really drew me in or stood out outside of a more pronounced and stronger role for Jai-muhn Hahn-sue as the Wizard.  I really do feel like that he is more well utilized in this overall, I don’t think Asher Angel did as much for me in this sequel in Billy Batson form instead of his Shazam form.  

-I think Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman had a more interesting arc of wanting to be on his own.  The theme was good, but the execution was not there for me.

-And while it didn’t matter as much in the grand scheme of the plot, it was fun to see DJ Caht-rona again, it has been ages since I stumbled onto the from dusk till dawn show, and I should finish that at some point.  Same with Cooper Andrews and needing to finish the Walking Dead with all these spinoffs coming at some point.

-It has been a while so I forgot many parts of this movie, but the staff granting powers being broken at the end of the last one was for sure a big plot point.  

-There is a lot of lore packed into these two movies, first was CGI creatures that were the seven deadly sins.  Now we have god characters that we never really heard about before now and they are just there with some god daughters as the villains here who want to either bring back their world or destroy earth, it is always changing and a bit unclear.  But the staff will help with the tree of life I guess.

-There is something fun about a family of super heroes and the media coverage and presence of that all, especially with the ever-quirky nature of kids in adult bodies and how they react to things.  And where the first movie was coming together with family, this one was about letting them go.  I feel like this is a theme that would go great for teens or like parents becoming empty nesters.  It had some interesting ideas in there.  

-From here honestly, I am never really drawn into a lot of this movie.  There is a ton of back and forth about who holds what relic or who is imprisoned by who.  There is some fun character paring of the wizard and Freddy that we did not expect but there were some interesting and fun moments between them.  This movie and the first one had some really funny and heartwarming moments in them, this one just had less and some of the jokes just did not land as well.

-This movie I just wish leaned into the things that make it fun and different, the warm family setup, some of the jokes, and not just monstrous CGI nuisances or kind of blah adversity/villains.  Now while it is not all bad here, it is just kind of average in general.  But the highlight moment of course was the youngest of the Shazamily, aka Shazam family, befriending Unicorns, albeit a much eviler version, to help them clean up their Philly city.  

-Thankfully, somehow, I thought it happened last movie, but it was good to see the Shazam kids open up about their secret super powers with their adoptive parents to finally close the circle and have no lies, and have everyone in the end be accepted!

-Now quickly after that of course Shazam has to sacrifice himself.  I feel like we knew it was not going to last long, we knew that about Superman too, but it felt better there being more fleshed out.  

-Now the way it happened was pretty fun.  We knew they wanted Superman for a post credit cameo that they could not get in the first one, they had a body show up minus the face.  And early in this movie they did the same with Wonderwoman, almost teasing us about it.  But in the end she, in here full face and voice actually brings back Shazam, which I only just learned as a super hero media and not a comic reader, it is an acarnym to these ancient heroes and their powers including Solomon (wisdom), Hercules (strength), Atlas (stamina), Zeus (power), Achilles (courage) and Mercury (speed).  

-It is a shame that there is so much confusion about what is to come with the end of the DCEU and the start of the DCU, the same issue with Black Adam, which is interesting of course with how these characters are tied together but “The Rock” did not want to join into this movie or franchise even with being that character.  But if this is almost the swan song of most of these characters, at least there was some Swan song for Wonder Woman and Gal Gadot unless she also appears in this new flash movie.

-Not much to say for this sequel, it was just kind of average sadly, which has been a bit of a trend for the last few super hero movies with this, And-Man 3, Thor 4, and Black Adam.  But there is hope with the MCU future with Guardians 3 as well as some more recent past entries with Black Panther 2, The Suicide Squad, and the unaffiliated with any overarching franchise, The Batman.  But honestly, none of these 3 movies I had super high hopes for.  But the next one, probably the nerdiest one, I had the most optimism for at least.

-Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

-Like I said, I have never played D&D, I got into the nerdy card game, Magic the Gathering instead.  But Dungeons and Dragons has seen a huge spike in popularity, especially with the rise of probably the best non-Big Mouth show on there, Stranger Things.  Between that show as well as the ever-growing appreciation for good fantasy content, be it Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, or Game of Thrones.  People want to adapt those franchises and bring new ones to the theaters or streaming services, that is how we get Honor Among Thieves.

-But before we do, if someone wants to send me one of those dice block popcorn containers, hit me up on social, they seem super cool.

-But to who is in this, I think that helped draw people in, a fun good-looking fantasy piece with magic and swords also had some actors I wanted to see.  

-I for sure don’t know any lore here, so apologies for not being able to reference any of that or speak to how the movie does that.  All I can talk on is who is in this and what did I think as more so a generic movie fan.  Nothing more, nothing less.

-So obviously the first big draws were Chris Pine as Edgin and Hugh Grant as Forge.  These character names don’t mean anything to me as far as references to them or what they may reference.  Obviously, we know any Fast and Furious legends like Michelle Rodriguez, playing Holga here, and of course her work in the mostly appreciated by only me on the Resident Evil movies.  While I may never be blown away by Justice Smith in the things I have seen him in, I am always enjoying him in them.  The Jurassic Parks he never had a chance to shine, and his leading role with the voice of Ryan Reynolds in Detective Pikachu is good enough.  Overall that movie, and his role, was way better than either thing had any right to be.  Thankfully it felt like he got a lot of time to shine here in the role of Simon and not be fully over shadowed by Pine.

-Having never seen Bridgerton, all I know is people like Rege-Jean Page.  I know nothing about his acting before or after this, but he was another fun addition with his role Xenk.  

-Also, fun surprise, especially with talk of a new IT show coming out on Max in the near future, the girl who was Beverly Marsh in the last two movie, Sophia Lillis, is in this movie, fancy that, here playing Doric, one of the characters who got not as much time to really shine sadly, but she crushed her role in those IT movies.  Still waiting for that 6-hour Muschetti cut combining the two movies and adding even more stuff.  Maybe when he is done with this Flash movie he can work on that project?

-So, this movie does have some fun playing with narrative structure, and a lot of the time I think I just enjoyed what was happening here and the ways this movie did unique and creative things.  And little nerdy film thing, go check out some of the practical effects that they made in this big budget movie as opposed to relying on all CGI stuff, there have been some bad Marvel CGI sprinkled in as of late, and some of the practical effects are super cool.

-To the plot instead, we start with a fun fake out to see our leads in jail after a job gone bad.  And seeing the breakout attempt and the humor with telling a story of the past and filling in the audience on why the group turned to crime to help Edgin’s family and daughter Kira played by Chloe Coleman.  Doing all of that to just break out on bird person Jarnathan’s wings.  

-Speaking of birds, y’all play Wingspan yet.  This bird game that is taking the board game world by storm?  If you are looking for a new game, do this!  And if you want, it is also available for gaming systems with both board game expansions and DLC.  I have it on the Switch and it is pretty cool there too, so check it out wherever you game!

-But it was a fun story of a family coming together through circumstance and that bond growing prologue of overcoming grief and adversity of losing a wife and finding a group of people to help raise your daughter until a family, something Michelle Rodriguez is familiar with from fast and furious, has a big bump in the road.

-This movie delicately balances humor, action, and sadness in an expert manner, you knew their world of stealing things was never gonna end up well.

-Now I did not expect as much gaslighting to be in this movie, but that was a big thing, and having it come from Hugh Grant’s forge, it just feels right from his character and his actor being a big of a pompous charlatan, he plays it so well.  He was clearly a villain in the story, but interesting enough, even he had a redeemable nature to not only be more so a villain of circumstance but also by genuinely wanting to help and raise that daughter as his own and give her the best life he can.  And he actually is one of the funniest and best parts of the movie.

-This plot does take a bit to get going to see what the overall quest and heroes’ journey will be, but at least the heist scene has some super cool moments before to give us just a taste of action.

-And before I get going into the action parts of the movie, having never played Dungeons & Dragons but doing a lot of listening to the Outside Xtra podcast, Oxventure, about the game.  While this can be enjoyed as a movie without it.  You will have a blast with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, now available on Paramount Plus.  There are moments that now just feel like you can hear a dungeon master judging players for dumb mistakes as well as moments of players trying things going well with a high dice role or going poorly with a bad dice roll.

-Now if you are looking for just a fun action movie with an actor or two you like, this movie has that too.  Honestly, this movie has it all.  It is a fun action fantasy movie that has appeal for casual movie goers and I would assume deep lore people.  I think the hang-up a lot of people will have is the title.  Even after Stranger Things brought the idea to more people, it still is a property that sounds super nerdy and people are just not going to buy into it as much as Mario or a Marvel movie.  Not unlike how the buyin for Warcraft was not there, but that was a dense movie that did not do the same thing as this Dungeons and Dragons movie.  Please, please watch this and tell other around you to watch it, it will not be regrettable for anyone.

-There is a good group gathering montage to of events as we bounce back and forth between the castle and kind of learn the true adventurer’s quest.  Rob their backstabbing friend, save an estranged daughter, and of course, make some whatever their currency is.  Honestly, of the movies on this list, it may just be fun.  You can turn your brain off a bit, but still get some stuff out of this.

-Also, as the Chris off is always a topic of discussion, Chris Pine really should get some more credit.  Great hair, lovely acting, and of course as this movie proves, he actually has a good singing voice too.

-There are some movies with forced humor, and this easily could have been one of those with a balance more action or just weird jokes, but at times it lingers in that dry/British or dark humor perfectly.  Nothing better exemplifies this than that teased in the trailers asking questions to dead guys.  It borders on the absurd but jumping from dead guy to dead guy to get info and just how fast and sharp-witted it all is.  You have to like it.

-Also, while this is a tangent, I totally forgot Bradley Cooper was in this movie for a short time, yes that is a play on words for his character.  But holy cow, I thought it when I saw it at first, but seeing it again out of theaters, it really was, fun cameo.

-Now, in all the advertisement, Xenk Yendar, played by Rege-Jean Page, seemed like a big part of the movie.  Like one of the group, seeing all of that in the marketing material, you would have expected that for sure.  Bit weirdly enough, he was a bit player, come and gone through the story.  But thank goodness he makes a fun impact while he is there.  

-The action is great, and he, like others, feels like he would be the hero of most stories, good at fighting and all that.  But like Lord of the Rings, the hero of the story is not the most obvious.  You could think the main hero of action could be Chris Pine’s Edgin, but that too is not the case.  He may be the leader, but he is not the most capable fighter either.  It plays with your expectations in the best possible way.

-Now for the most part, every character has some growth here.  But while some are obvious, I kind of like the one for our struggling wizard Simon working on his confidence throughout the movie.  None of these characters are perfect, some get more depth over others, but they all can be relatable to one of us or another.  And I really appreciate his character regretting some growth for pretty much being known as a bumbling wizard through the movie and as soon as we meet him.

-I don’t know if it is the set dressings, the set pieces, or something else, but man there is something about this movie that is just so much fun and really, I feel like there is re-watchability.  And imagine if they make this a franchise?  It is not announced yet, but it probably has a better chance over Fantastic Beasts or Welcome to Racoon City.  I want those too, but I don’t feel great about it.

-While the whole image of rolling going well or badly thing in this movie, the Chris Pine song and dance that starts well but eventually leads into something from a horror movie, highlight moment of the movie.  There are many, but that is sensational.

-Part of me wonders if this high sun games thing is a clever way to show some retro D&D type gameplay as a not to the franchise.  They really put a literal dungeon in front of us with chests to get weapons, monsters pursuing people, and people who looked like generic D&D archetypes of old, the wizard and barbarian and dwarf to be specific, along with traps and such.  It truly felt like fan service that while I did not get at all, it still felt like it was never stuck in or too distracting.

-Now it may not always have been in the cards for the party of characters to actually save the day, these thieves really are heroes, probably makes sense to the title of the moive.  They could have ended things just getting the money and all getting out alive.  But the save the day big fight against the true villain is a nice tie in to the story to give some final big battle end to this story.  Forge is a great antagonist played so well by Hugh Grant, but it helps to have true evil to fight.  And it is nice that this group of 4 has to do it themselves without the OP nature of that guy from Bridgerton.

-But that leads to growth from everyone and a super fun battle that includes everyone and their skills, that and it finds a way to use Edgin’s daughter.  Who at times has the same Sansa problem of being just a bit unlikable for a good chunk of the movie being blind to the truth we know.

-Now there has to be some emotional moments stuck in here too.  And losing one of the core members of the movie, Michelle Rodriguezs’ Holga, it feels like it transcends the dungeons and dragons movie name and has more than we could have expected.  But this end is a real fun gut punch we needed.  The notion of having a mother who we already had and having the mother we barely met but was teased in the movie.  The crazy thing is unlike some movies, Shazam 2 as one.  We had the whole time a way to bring someone back.  But there were some harsh choices to bring back someone who was a member of the group and not the whole reason for going on this quest.  

-It was a nice end to a fun movie.  That and of course one final moment of Forge getting taken in by one final cameo of Xenk.  And the true best end.  Back to prison with a new character, Forge, who once again becomes a narrator like Edgin before was and once again tried to fly out of prison with the winged Jarnathan.  This time of course it not working having the window closed off.  A fun end to a really fun movie.

-The Super Mario Bros. Movie

-So, onto the latest movie I have seen in theaters, I did not have a ton of expectations for this video game adaptation.  More so it is the source material of Mario that is now a movie.  Now in the world of what The Last of Us and other video game adaptations being successful, the question is how is this.  But yes, let’s start with saying quickly this is a kid’s movie.

-Gotta set the bar and expectations somewhere.  So, this movie was the thing we have seen in some animated movies of late, especially the non-Disney ones of putting recognizable talent in for people to watch.  I feel like I would have seen this Mario movie either way, but it sure adds another reason to want to watch.  For me at least, it was seeing what some of these actors would do with these roles.  We know the Chris Pratt not-Italian thing for Mario, Donkey Kong is really just Seth Rogen in the same vein.  But some people really brought it and put some real difference into their voice roles, Keegen Michael-Key blends his voice with Toad without being the annoying Toad voice we are used to from the games.  

-Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Day just work in their roles.  Be they changing voices or not, all 3 of those castings just worked with the characters of Bowser, Princess Peach, and Luigi.  I don’t know if I expected to enjoy Day and Black in their roles as much as I did, but here we are.

-Lastly, it was a small role, but having the king of the Penguins being voiced by the booming powerful voice of Khary Payton, Walking Dead superstar, very good and very fun.

-So, to the movie, if you have played a Mario game or even have a vague understanding of the character and Mushroom Kingdom cast of characters.  You know the plot, from 1985 till now.  Some change ups along the way, but Bowser kidnaps Peach and Mario has to save her while jumping on some things along the way.  

-But this movie needed to be a movie with more of a story compared to the games we have seen in the past.  So, Bowser trying to take over all of these Mario adjacent realms makes sense enough with the power star, they have been stars, suns, moons and more through this all and the gaming storylines.

-Until like Odyssey, which I weirdly have only just started with like a week ago or so, we never really explored why like a few human-ish characters exist in this world with turtles, Yoshi’s, and shy guys.  This movie kind of answers one of these, not all of them, we never know where Peach came from still, but this movie pretty much has Mario and Luigi come from earth and some version of Brooklyn as actual plumbers.  Terrible enough ones, but ones nonetheless.  So, the movie spends not an insignificant amount of time in this world, but it never really explains why these adult men are so short, especially compared to the rest of their family.  

-But besides that, there is something fun about how we take these two Italian-American plumbers and get them into the colorful and fun Nintendo Mario worlds.  

-They really lean into the scaredy cat Luigi from the Luigi’s Mansion franchise here and of course as Nintendo likes to mess with the taller of the plumber brothers, he gets to end up in Bowser’s kingdom.  Mario on the other hand gets to hang out with a bushel of Toad’s and Princess Peach.  Not a bad gig.  

-The question was always gonna be translating a video game into a story that made sense to people who know and love the lore as well as people who just wanted to watch a fun enough movie without aggressive knowledge.  Now most people probably knew a little bit about this, but they still wanted it to all make sense.  So, if Mario came from New York as a random plumber, he was not gonna be the Mario from all of this from the get-go.  He had some jumping skills, but this movie is not free from an obligatory training montage, some jumping, but a fair amount too of which magic mushroom to eat and not eat.  We had the bigger growing mushrooms, fire flowers, cat suits, and more.

-When we did get to see a power up in action, they actually snuck a pretty good fake out in there.  Along with of course the strongest song in the whole movie, the original DK rap famous for the N64 game and eventual countless Smash sequels, which this scene takes inspiration from.  Mario and Donkey Kong, initial mortal enemies to eventual reluctant partners.  Remember that first game when they were just throwing barrels at each other?  All of that and more is referenced here.  

-While the idea of just one super star being the big item needed to fix everything, there are so many in the games so it just feels weird 1 is the end all be all here needed for Bowser to take over all these kingdoms.  But of course, the best part of this whole movie has to be the beautiful ballad known simply as “Peaches”

-I do like how many franchises they tried to include and characters too.  It was always going to be a question after the trailers of how they were ever going to be able to incorporate everything, they have original Mario games, they have smash bros, they have kart, surprised they didn’t have the other sport games or party in there somehow.  But they can build on it.  And it was cool to see rainbow road in its movie-laden glory.  

-Now the wedding aesthetic of Peach and Bowser did look to be directly taken from the Odyssey storyline, the wardrobes were almost identical.  And honestly you have to love the attention to detail with a massive decade spanning franchise and IP.  

-Starting in the real world, this easily could have been an Alice in Wonderland story where it all takes place in the magical world and then at the end everyone is back to acting like not much happened.  Kind of how Lord of the Rings ends going back home after growth and a big character journey but your home town has no clue.  

-And while it looked that way, saving Peach from a Bowser wedding, all good, the fight shocking takes a turn and a detour to Brooklyn.  The movie started off showing how much more agile Mario is over Luigi, just like in that Luigi’s Mansion 3 clip with the brothers.  But when all hope looks lost, these Italian stallions get the power of the super star and kick Bowser’s ass.  

-Not only do they do that, but they get the respect of all of Brooklyn, and their family who were kind of being dicks to start off.  And instead of being big Brooklyn plumbers, hailed as heroes now, they instead move on over to the Mushroom Kingdom, still doing plumbing, which feels like a bit of a letdown for all the work they did.  But being a Mushroom Kingdom plumber might be more prestigious.  They do have like, so many there, that whole place has a pipe infrastructure it all runs on after all.

-But it was a fun movie for sure.  Was it more than that, not sure.  But if nothing else, let’s recap all 3 of these movies with the definitive ranking from my Letterboxd, the best movie review site you should all be using as fellow movie folks.  And I have to tell you, these three were very different movies for very different audiences, and this took me some time to get these right.

-Letterboxd ratings

-Shazam! Fury of the Gods – 2.5 stars

-The Super Mario Bros. Movie – 3 stars

            -Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – 3.5 stars

-wrap and call to action 

-So that is another edition of the new to theaters catchup type episode, so enjoy this to hold you over until we get to a more thematic longer more franchise episode next time where we take on the final of the 3 Guardians of the Galaxy films, most likely final of the trilogy, there is always a chance of another coming one day.  And eventually, with the release of John Wick 4 and the entire franchise in celebration of the second-coming of Keanu Reeves, that will have to come eventually for another episode in the near future.  Love his Matrix stuff and see what I think of his other big action franchise when we get there.  

-And let me know what you have been seeing in theaters of late on social at Nick Nack Movies or Nick Nack underscore IC on Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, and of course Letterboxed.  Well that is all for me so as always cheers, and until next time cinephiles.