Movie Reaction: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Formula: Super Mario Bros. ^ Minions

It's funny how studios spent so many years trying to "crack the code" for video game movies. For so long, they'd take the hippest franchise and try to make it into a blockbuster or action movie. Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter were solid efforts for their day. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider had more to do with Angelina Jolie's star power than anything in the film. Silent Hill and Resident Evil enjoyed life in the genre space. The recurring principle from all these: the Princes of Persias and the Warcrafts was that they should try to be cool. All because the first effort in the video game space was the infamous live-action Super Mario Bros. movie. It turns out, the secret to it all was time. In 2020, Sonic became a hit pretty much just because now generations of people remember that silly game they played as kids or currently. Sure, we can quibble about Chris Pratt as the choice for the voice of Mario, but in hindsight, it's obvious that The Super Mario Bros. Movie was going to be a hit as long as it played all the hits.

Illumination has never been my favorite animation studio. I truly can't stand the Minions, so that doesn't help. Mainly, it's that I've never come out of one of their movies thinking they snuck something meaningful in. They are pretty surface level movies. I see the jokes for the kids. I see the jokes for the adults. There's nothing wrong with that. However, it is the reason their movies have never risen above one-time watches for me.

Super Mario Bros is a one-time watch. It succeeds in all the ways it needs to. It's packed with easter eggs and jokes for fans of the games in any era. I have no issue with the voice cast, because let's be honest, the characters from the games don't have that much personality. They are avatars for the person playing the game. So, Pratt not being a perfect mimic of the 5 Mario sound-bites we all know isn't that big of a deal. They hired Pratt to be Pratt, not Mario. Just like Charlie Day's Luigi is mostly Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy's Peach is mostly Anya Taylor-Joy, etc. The calculus here is that I'd see a live-action movie with Pratt, Day, Taylor-Joy, Jack Black (Bowser), Seth Rogen (Donkey Kong), and more. Attach those voices and personalities to animated characters I have great fondness for, and I'm happy enough.

You may notice I'm not talking much about the movie itself. That's because there really isn't much to it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Mario and Luigi are plumbers in the real world who stumble onto pipes that bring them to the Mushroom Kingdom. They fall backwards into hero roles stopping Bowser from destroying the kingdom. More than anything, watching this movie is a reminder that the mythology behind Super Mario Bros. makes no sense. It's a collection of what could be identified and animated in 8-bit graphics back in the day. The movie doesn't make any more sense out of it, although it strings together something that works well enough.

I didn't love the movie, but I had fun. They probably tackled more Mario properties than they needed to in this one. At least they saved Yoshi mostly for the inevitable sequel. The success of this movie isn't anything in the movie. The success is that Super Mario Bros. has been ubiquitous and beloved for 30 years. That's how this movie earns a billion dollars.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Triangle of Sadness

Premise: A cruise for the societal upper-crust goes very long wrong.

I think I just don’t like director Ruben Ostlund’s brand of satire. I saw Force Majeure and wasn’t that impressed. It’s well-made. I think there’s a canny angle it finds to attack marital troubles. However, to me, it felt like he just kept hitting the same sore spot over and over. Triangle of Sadness is similar in a lot of ways. I think the movie is well done. There are a variety of good and odd performances. He very clearly makes his points. It never reached the point where it broke through as comedy to me though.

This led me to reflect on the nature of comedy. A major brand of comedy I’ve never warmed to is discomfort comedy. I tend to find that it requires more commitment than skill or cleverness. Words like “fearless” are thrown around a lot. In a Borat, it’s the willingness to do crazy things to unwitting participants. In the classic Office episode “The Dinner Party” it’s about how uncomfortable they can make the situation. Ostlund, as I said before, is about repetition of the same punchline. In Force Majeure, it’s very specifically how the wife won’t let go of the fact that the husband fled without the family when he thought an avalanche was coming. Every other scene is relitigating the same argument. The idea being that eventually, the audience will break and enjoy it. Triangle of Sadness keeps hitting on how coddled the rich are. He made the point for me within 10 minutes. The next 140 were about making the same point in new ways.

I really found this movie off-putting. Due to his satirical repetition, the movie felt interminable. Sure, the best part was when they were stranded on the beach in the last act. By then though, I was already fully checked out. It had already spent all my goodwill. And the beach was just an escalation of the same points he made on the boat.

Yes, the sequence with all the puking and shitting was excellently amped up. The constant swaying added tension. It escalated then kept escalating. But I got my laugh out of the way the first time I saw some puke on the window. It failed to find new punchlines beyond that.

I feel like a sourpuss talking about this movie. In theory, I really want to like a movie that’s trying to be clever and sophomoric at the same time. I mean, American Vandal remains one of my favorite shows of the last decade. To me though, Triangle of Sadness felt a lot more like an Adam McKay movie of recent vintage. A social satire that thinks it is smarter than its audience and tries to appeal to people with something crass in order for its clever point to sink in.

Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Chronicles of Riddick

Premise: Riddick is Batman now?

I have to give Vin Diesel credit. It's hard to think of someone who manifested a career better than him. He literally calls himself Vin Diesel. That is the joke name a movie gives an action movie star. Movies he's in struggle to find a name that's more self-awarely cool than that. It's like one day, Mark Sinclair decided he'd be the biggest movie star in the world, made his stage name Vin Deisel, and decided he'd only be in movies where he was the baddest mother fucker in the world (or in some cases, universe). I used to think that came from getting cast in The Fast and the Furious, but Pitch Black came before that. Even in something like Boiler Room, he came at his role from a "punching nerds" perspective.

So, it's no surprise that when he's in a SciFi movie, he's playing an unstoppable killing machine. And when that SciFi movie gets a sequel, his unstoppable killing machine also becomes the Chosen One. What's crazy about this is that Vin Deisel is a bulletproof persona. What's more ridiculous than calling yourself Vin Deisel and picking the roles he does? Yet, he's made it work in spectacular fashion.

The Chronicles of Riddick is a good reminder that I tend to like Vin Deisel movies despite him, not because of him. In the Fast and Furious movies, I like the stunts and action. I find the story and talk of "family" tedious. He's good in The Iron Giant and Guardians of the Galaxy, because it's just his voice, which is his super power. The few other things I've seen him in rely much more on Deisel himself carrying them and I'm not a fan. I used to hate The Fast and the Furious mostly because I couldn't stand him. It took an incredible series pivot for me to work up to those even.

This is all to say that I didn't like The Chronicles of Riddick. I was curious about it, just because of the circumstances around it. Pitch Black came before Vin Deisel was as close to a B-movie as movies got in 2000. Since then, he was in two hits in F&F and XXX that had established him as a star if not a draw. Chronicles of Riddick was a huge step up in budget, casting, and expectations. This was his moment to prove if he was Harrison Ford or Mark Hammill: a true star or someone who hitched onto the right wagon.

It's a shame the movie wasn't as interesting as the narrative around it. It certainly looks more expensive than Pitch Black, but the action wasn't markedly better executed. The upgraded supporting cast all act like performers who made sure to cash their check before learning a line. The movie serves as a reminder of how hard it is to construct a cinematic world that people care about, because I had no investment in learning what was actually going on.

I may still watch Riddick, just to finish the arc of Deisel's career. Pitch Black was before his breakout. Chronicles of Riddick was his big bet. Riddick seems to line up with when he accepted the limitations of his star appeal. Then again, if Netflix removed the movie tomorrow, I wouldn't be heartbroken.

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Tetris

Premise: A businessman tries to secure the international rights to Tetris.

"The creator of Tetris never collected royalties on the game because it was made in the Soviet Union" is one of those facts that's been so repeated that it's moved into legend. It's like the fact that Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity team. And like that Michael Jordan "fact", it's not quite that simple*. Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov did eventually collect royalties about a decade later when he formed a company in the US. Amidst Pajitnov's exclusion from the profits was a whole complicated rights deal that exposed Tetris to the rest of the world despite being behind the iron curtain. The movie Tetris is an attempt to tell that story in the most exciting way possible.

*From what I gathered, as a Freshman, Jordan was a bit undersized and played with the Junior Varsity team while he developed. Not quite the historical injustice it's made into these days.

I must admit, I was expecting less from Tetris. I don't mean it's better than I expected. I mean I expected the movie to be less sensational. I just came from watching Air, and I was expecting - even hoping for - that. When it's at its best, Tetris is a movie about businessmen in separate rooms all trying to get a deal done in a land that doesn't approach business in the way they are accustomed to. To me, Tetris has always been something elemental. It's like a calculator function on a computer. It's just always been there. I love how this movie looks at it like a commodity. It marvels at the elegant simplicity of it. The movie is great at showing how desired the game was and showing how gaming law was in its infancy. Computer vs. arcade vs. console vs. mobile rights is something few people had to think about before this. The mechanics of the parties in this movie figuring that out held my interest throughout.

Where the movie lost me was in its attempts to turn this into an action movie or spy thriller. I don't doubt that there was a shady KGB element to this deal. When it gets to threatening Henk Rogers' family and requiring a getaway chase, I lost interest. I just fundamentally can't see Tetris as a thing with those kind of stakes around it. Maybe if it was caked in an Armando Iannucci layer of absurdity, I could buy it. Like if there was an audience stand-in character calling out how bizarre it is that the Soviet have attached so much trouble to getting gaming rights. As is, this movie feels like a textbook case of someone padding out a draft with higher stakes until it compromises the original story it's trying to tell.

Despite that, Taron Egerton is good as the businessman who is both determined and in over his head. I was never exactly bored by the movie. And there were enough parts of the story I did like still in there to hold my interest during the more excessive parts.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Air

Formula: Hustle - the basketball

The thing about Air is that I wanted to love it. All the pieces are there. Ben Affleck is directing and in a showy supporting role. Affleck and Matt Damon are on screen together a lot. The rest of the cast is a bunch of familiar faces I like, such as Viola Davis, Chris Messina, and Jason Bateman. I like how super specific the story is. It's entirely about the Nike pitch that convinced Michael Jordan to sign with them. Those unseen stories tend to be fertile ground for entertainment. There's even a fun gimmick in that it's a Michael Jordan story without Michael Jordan in it. This looked like a great "People doing their damn jobs" movie. Spotlight remains my gold standard of this. I like a process movie about people who are good at their job overcoming an obstacle.

And I did like the movie. I just thought I'd like it more.

When I break it down, I think the issue is that the movie never sells me on the stakes. I'm fine with a movie being about professional stakes rather than life-and-death stakes. I have no problem investing in the plight of the bankers in Margin Call, for example. Air is presented as an underdog story: how lowly Nike became the dominant force in the basketball shoe market. From the beginning of the movie though, they point out that Nike had a 17% market share. 3rd place. And the company was doing great in other places. Even without the success of the Air Jordan, Nike would've been fine. Likely still around now. Phil Knight would still be incredibly wealthy. It then has to convince me that the Air Jordan was as big a bet as it was in the industry. I know it actually was a big swing to make that deal with the third pick in the draft in a league dominated by bigs. For me, the movie never fully convinces me that getting the Jordan deal was more "hawkish move" than "lucky break". Finally, the most impactful aspect of the deal is treated like an afterthought. The thing that made this deal so legendary was Jordan's profit share on the sales, which single-handedly has made him a billionaire.

All that said, Air is functional in all the ways it needs to be. It's got a lot of actors spinning gold out of sometimes questionable material. There's a Jason Bateman speech about his daughter that sticks out in that respect. And I'll leave room in my opinion that I may be too close to this topic. I know all about that NBA draft and season, so maybe a part of me expected even more depth on the topics in the movie. I guess I'll just have to wait another 20 years for them to try this again with the story of Lebron's Kia deal.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Formula: Dungeons & Dragons / Your Highness

Look. No one was asking for this movie. It does feel like a situation where a studio had some IP that they felt was too ubiquitous to not have a movie. Dungeons & Dragons really does feel like the perfect marriage of all the things that have made the Lords of the Rings and Harry Potters popular in the past. However, it's also understood that the nature of the game is that it gives you the building blocks but not really the story. All D&D means to the average person is something about dwarves and wizards and dungeon masters who tell stories. For as well known as the D&D title is, it means trying to sell a general audience on the idea of a wizard, not a famous wizard character.

I don't think there is any world where D&D: Honor Among Thieves would ever be a big hit. No perfect alchemy situation that would cause it to blow up. The most they could reasonably hope for the movie is to make enough to keep the lights on. A $150 million budget is a tad high, but it's about the most it could be without getting called a bust. There are not the right pieces to get a true blockbuster audience.

Let me back up. I've said all this without saying the most important thing. I liked this movie. It was a lot of fun. Given the practical limitations of the brand, I can't imagine how they could've made a better movie. Directors (and co-writers) John Francis Daly and Jonathan Goldstein are mostly comedy directors, although work like directing Game Night and co-writing Spider-Man: Homecoming shows that they've been building into the action comedy space.

It's hard to complain about the cast. Chris Pine is the right kind of movie star - star of action franchises but always funny - for this. Michelle Rodriguez is the patron saint of effective supporting roles in action movies. Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis fill the up-and-comers who could lead their own big movies soon*. They got the former mega-star who has slipped into supporting actor with gravitas in Hugh Grant. Probably the biggest wild card of the movie is Rege-Jean Page. In this, he's in the role I'd associate more with a huge star doing the movie a favor. Think: Brad Pitt in The Lost City. Page is more in the "future star in search of a vehicle" phase of his career. His appearance in Honor Among Thieves does nothing to tarnish that.

*Smith actually has a healthy number of lead credits already, but he's certainly still in an ascendent stage of his career.

The movie is comedy first, heist caper second, and action movie third in my estimation. It's about a father (Pine) pulling a big con in order to win his daughter back after a former friend turned her against him while he was imprisoned for a crime he definitely committed. He gathers a team, each with their own motivations, and ends up uncovering a larger plot involving an evil sorceress. It's familiar stuff but not in a bad way.

Unsurprisingly, the movie gets the comedy the best. I'm sure many jokes went over my head since I don't play D&D, but there's plenty of general stuff that I caught and liked. As the saying goes, everyone understood the assignment there. I was impressed with the heist stuff too. In particular, there's a sequence with a portal and a carriage that is super impressive. It's nicely tense and has great execution of some tricky logistics. The movie is weakest in the action movie parts and more dramatic scenes. The fights weren't super exciting. The most dramatic scene in the movie was met with some light laughs in my theater. It felt like they were building to a punchline, but it was really meant to be serious. It was a small aspect of the movie though.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Boston Strangler

Premise: So, it's She Said, but about an infamous serial killer.

I guess the idea here was "Let's try the David Fincher thing without David Fincher. It can't be that hard." As it turns out, it is. Don't get me wrong, this story about the two female journalists who drove much of the Boston Strangler story is a decent watch. I love both Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon. I'd watch any movie with them as leads. The basic story of the Boston Strangler investigation is inherently interesting.

The main problem with Boston Strangler is that it's not Zodiac and I was aware of that the whole time. That's not fair. I know. I should judge each movie independently. Too bad. Here's the truth about Boston Strangler. Zodiac is better. If you haven't seen either movie, you should watch Zodiac first. If you like Zodiac and don't mind watching something that's still ok but definitely not as good, Boston Strangler scratches that itch.

One of the nice things about the streaming age is that there's a place for movies that are real movies but really don't need that theatrical window. Two decades ago, I'd call this a TNT watch: something I'd happily watch on cable but would be underwhelmed with if I made a trip to a theater for it. They made the right move by releasing this directly to Hulu.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Pitch Black

Premise: Some people on a space ship land on a planet with three suns and creatures that attack when all the suns set.

SciFi is really useful to me to understand when people don't like horror. You see, I like SciFi, but I won't go out of my way for it. When someone tells me about some great new series on Syfy, I nod along with no intention of actually watching. The holes in anything but the best SciFi I have a hard time ignoring. When the effects aren’t quite good enough or the acting is lacking, the ideas behind the movie or show aren't enough to carry me through. I find this helpful, because it explains how other people feel about horror. I'll watch the hundredth variant of a found footage horror movie with actors who wisely never worked again and eat it up. Then I won't get how other people aren't as head-over-heels for the movie. That's because I have those SciFi blinders but for horror. I'll ignore bad acting and plot holes if I think the styles or scares are cool enough.

I think Pitch Black is laughably bad in a lot of ways. It looks like crap. Some of that is intentional; lighting effects of the multiple suns. But it makes the movie look washed out and cheap. The effects show their age badly. Vin Diesel with the goggles looks more silly than cool. The cast is otherwise filled with more faces than names. I think there are some interesting ideas in the movie, specifically with the protective power of light, but this just isn't a genre where I have the right blinders to ignore the weaknesses.

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Premise: A documentary about a famous artist who uses her clout to fight the Sackler family, who are behind much of the opioid crisis.

The best thing about All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is how well it mixes two stories. The first is the life story of photographer Nan Goldin. The second is the story of the opioid crisis largely caused by the Sackler family's release of Oxycontin, and their work to wash their name by donating money to the arts. The movie never goes too long without addressing one story or the other. I could've watched a documentary about either on their own and remained plenty interested.

I do struggle sometimes with movies about famous artists though. I don't know much about the modern art and photography world. It's hard for me to distinguish between a movie that is covering a significant artist from a movie made to inflate the importance of an artist. I really just rely on the fact that Nan Goldin has an interesting life and if she's good enough to be in some of the museum galleries she's protesting then she's probably a big deal.

Similarly, I don't know how impressive her group's protests really are. By the time this movie picks up, it's not like the Sacklers are beloved. The main point of their protests is just to remind people who the Sacklers are. One of the big moments in the movie is when they are throwing the pamphlets from all levels of that one museum (MoMA, I think). They talk about it like some transcendent experience; where they are shocked when additional people join in their cheering. It didn't seem that triumphant to me though. It doesn't take a lot of convincing to join in calling the Sacklers awful. Of course everyone in the museum will take their side. I'm a cynic about protests though. I'm always late to catching onto the moment when they go from hysterics to real calls to action.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Formula: Shazam! * Black Adam

The nice thing about the mess DC has made of their extended universe building over the last decade is that a lot of fun movies have snuck through. Sure, the core movies like Batman v. Superman and Justice League have been underwhelming to all but the Snyder-stans. There have been great successes too, often on the margins. Wonder Woman fixed her underwhelming entrance in Dawn of Justice. Aquaman was a really entertaining ride. The two smaller Suicide Squad follow-ups (2020's Birds of Prey and 2021's The Suicide Squad) were a lot of fun without the weight of a masterplan to adhere to. Perhaps the best of them all was Shazam!, which found a lot of charm in its “Big with a superhero”, premise.

The sequel to Shazam! was always going to struggle some. It's harder to lean on the child in an adult body premise when the character is less new to it. And there's a sizeable difference between a 14–15-year-old and a 17–18-year-old in an adult body. Fury of the Gods does well by being able to show off how Billy's (Asher Angel) other siblings have adjusted to their powers. Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) is even more front-and-center this time too. And, as you'd expect from a bunch of kids suddenly gifted with superhero powers, their hero group has a reputation around the city as nuisances; likely to match every heroic deed with a colossal screw up. Anyway, they now have to take on a trio of goddess sisters played by Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, and Rachel Zegler looking to restore the power taken from them and given to Shazam! The sisters don't all have the same idea of what to do with the powers once they get them back, but you better believe at least one wants to use them to destroy humanity.

This movie is packed with good performances and casting choices. I love the matching of Adam Brody as Jack Dylan Grazer's superhero form and there's plenty of both of them in here. Zachary Levi's brand of enthusiasm is perfect for a kid in a man's body performance. So much so that the movie does everything it can to sideline Asher Angel as Billy. Djimon Hounsou is really good at using his gravitas for silliness. I really liked seeing Rachel Zegler finally in something else after West Side Story. This isn't the greatest use of her, but it's better than nothing.

Unfortunately, this movie just isn't as fun as the first Shazam! He's not really an "end of the world" kind of hero. There are a few too many characters to balance, especially with three villains to differentiate. There's a running gag with Skittles that either works for you or it doesn't. And for me it really didn't. I don't want to bash the movie, because it's really no worse than a lot of the middling superhero movies that have come out lately. Like Quantumania though, it's unfortunate to watch a movie that lost track of what worked best about the previous movie.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend