Directors: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Pierre Leduc & Fabien Polack
Starring: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy & Charlie Day 
Rated: PG
Runtime: 1 hour & 38 minutes

 
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is a fun video game film with plenty of references for fans and a better story than the first film.
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The first Illumination Mario film was a very adequate film for what it was. Tons of references, a fine but baseline plot, and a lot of scenes that are interesting to look at. Where it fell flat for me was the soundtrack (I know, “unpopular” opinion), the sense of humor that felt too tongue-in-cheek and what I can only describe as a lack of passion. This film improves upon these issues.

The story starts right off with a little more pizzazz than the last one. We get a quick setup of “this is the villain, this is what they’re doing, aaaaaaaand go!” Although this intro has a very similar setup to the first film, I think they put a little more elbow grease into this opening.

I think with them being able to skip Mario’s whole “I’m a loser” arc that we saw in the first film, we got a lot more room to play with fun stuff. That being said, we did kind of gloss over some things throughout the film. There were a few plot points that were set up and executed, but they kind of just … didn’t have a lot of weight to them. Yeah - this big thing happened, but let’s move right on to the next thing. Pacing is overall the funk of this film - we bebop around reeeeal quick, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a good time.

Life-long dweeb/dork has a smile on his face for most of the video game movie… fork found in the kitchen. I did genuinely enjoy this movie. It was a lot of fun - especially for the fans. Tons of Easter eggs and references for Nintendo fans are littered throughout this film. I do worry for fandom franchises in the future with this - I don’t want things to become reference slop. If you hurl a million “wink winks” at me, I’m going to get bored with them. However, I don’t feel like that’s the case for this film at all. Even some of the references have underlying references that I could point my giant man finger at and say, “I understand this!” It also takes some characters who don’t have much in-game backstory and zhuzhes them up to be a little more interesting. I was very interested, and I had a great time.

Passion is a word that is thrown around a lot with media. Do I think the creators of this film were passionate about the source material - almost. Do I feel like the weight of Illumination’s thumb was still present from the first film - not as much. I don’t think you can have a movie like this with this many nods to past media and say that there wasn’t any passion behind it… However, there is still that feeling of something missing. You can eat a cake and think it’s delicious while also saying, “I think this was missing something.” I mean - look at the ‘Sonic’ films (woah Mario v Sonic discourse in the big ‘26). You can look at those films and those actors and the team and say, “Whoa - these people really like Sonic.” There’s just energy around it. From hiring fan-favorite artists to redesign your characters to hiring writers from the comics and games to assist you in making the story - the ‘Sonic’ films have done a lot of things right. For Mario, we don’t have any modern comics to pull lore or references from, but we also didn’t have to worry about the design or plot too much because Nintendo would never let Illumination mess with their mascot too much. We also had Shigeru Miyamoto on as a producer - Mario’s figurative father figure in the eyes of many. I do think a lot of passion went into this film. I really do, but there was still that mark that wasn’t hit directly. We’re inching closer and closer, but we haven’t hit it head-on … yet! I have high hopes for the next Nintendo Animated Film. I think we’re heading in a more correct direction after this film.

Director: BenDavid Grabinski 
Starring: Vince Vaughn, James Marsden & Eiza Gonzalez 
Rated: R (strong/bloody violence, language, sexual material & drug use)
Runtime: 1 hour & 47 minutes 

Director/writer BenDavid Grabinski’s “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” is a whole lotta fun. It’s the kind of action-comedy you may have seen in theaters two to three decades ago that has been jettisoned to streaming-only (this film’s case on Hulu) because comedy doesn’t play in theaters anymore.

Mike, played by James Marsden, is a hitman who doesn’t really have the heart for cold-blooded killing anymore – probably because he’s fallen in love with Alice, played by Eiza Gonzalez. The only problem is that Alice is married to Nick, played by Vince Vaughn, a gangster who is Mike’s colleague. Nick doesn’t love Alice anymore, but still, she’s his. And this is why Mike is in some danger at the beginning of the film.

But Mike has an unlikely savior … Nick, but a Nick from, like, a month in the future. Yes, there’s time travel involved, but you don’t really have to worry too much about that because the movie knows it's just a fun comedy-crime caper and doesn’t bother too much with the science behind it. If you can’t get past that, this one won’t be for you.

You see, Nick knew that Mike was sleeping with his wife and, in a jealous rage, told the crime boss Sosa, played by Keith David, that Mike was the rat who got Sosa’s son, Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), sent to prison for years.  

There’s not a single character in this film that isn’t a bundle of laughs, and you definitely want to spend nearly an hour and 45 minutes with them, especially the titular foursome. Yeah, there’s twice as much Vaughn, who I know can be a “take him or leave him” personality (even for me), but he’s firing on all cylinders here.

The film is a smorgasbord of pop culture references (I particularly like the “Doctor Who” one early on). Potentially, the film’s highlight is a conversation between Mike, Nick, and Alice while waiting for a scary hitman who takes his victims alive and then eats them, in which the foursome discusses which of Rory Gilmore’s boyfriends from “Gilmore Girls” is the best. It’s a delight and goes on for a ridiculous amount of time, just eating up the scenery.

Tatro and David are a blast as the father-son crime duo, with Tatro doing what he does best in playing a character who is delightfully dumb in the funniest of ways, and David playing the loving, but confused by his son, father, who just wants to give Jimmy Boy the gift of killing the man who sent him to prison.
Stephen Root has an incredibly quick, but incredibly hilarious scene-stealing scene, and Ben Schwartz opening the film as a scientist jamming to Billy Joel’s “Why Should I Worry?” from the animated film “Oliver & Company” is quite fun, as well.

While frequently laugh-out-loud funny, “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” can get quite bloody too, especially during a scene with “The Barron,” the cannibalistic hitman, and a balls-to-the-wall shootout near the film’s completion – set to masterful soundtrack moments like Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” and Andrew W.K.’s “She Is Beautiful.”

“Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” is the kind of film that’s probably not going to stick with you for long, but it’s certainly one you won’t regret watching and will have a lot of fun doing so. It’s perfect for a late-night wind-down viewing.   

Let’s send Rob Schneider to Iran
He can make his copies in the sand
There ain’t no use for him in Disneyland
Let’s send Rob Schneider to Iran
 
Douche Bigelow wants to reinstate the draft
But we should send his 62 year old ass
He’s claims that he can do it all night long
He knows all you need about making bombs
 
Let’s send Rob Schneider to Iran
Only has a job because of Sand-man
He has 8 Razzie nominations
Because he’s an abomination
Let’s send Rob Schneider to Iran