Genre: Action/Superhero/Supernatural
Director: Niki Caro
Writer: Jimmy Ellis
Based on DC Comics characters
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, David Strathairn, Noomi Rapace, Monica Bellucci, Brooklynn Prince, Helena Howard, Steven Bauer
Plot: Many people gather around a grave site for a funeral to commemorate magician Giovanni “John” Zatara (David Strathairn). A woman walks down in fishnets, a suit top and a top hat. The people at the funeral turn to the woman and are shocked that she is there. The woman is revealed to be Zatanna Zatara (Aubrey Plaza) the reason for the shock on the faces of all the people is because she and her father John had not been on good terms. Madame Xanadu (Monica Belluci) another magician/occultist, goes up to Zatanna and asks her if they can meet up some time soon and talk about Zatanna’s father. Zatanna who wants little to do with the magical community politely declines saying she is flying to Vegas for a show. This causes some tension and Zatanna walks past her and to her father’s photo before kissing her hand and laying it on the photo of her father. Zatanna leaves in a limo.
We then head to Las Vegas for the first Zatanna magic show. Zatanna is in her element on stage, one of the world’s greatest stage magicians. She speaks her words while using her magic backwards. She starts easy by pulling a rabbit from her top hat. She continues along with various tricks. She then ends with a trick making her disappear before the eyes of the audience, no curtains, no smoke, she just disappeared. She then appeared behind the crowd and they cheer as she bows. As she leaves the theater that she performed at paparazzi hounds her and take her photos. A young girl also walks up to Zatanna and ask her for a selfie. Zatanna does it with a large smile. We then get a montage of her partying, heavy drinking and numerous hook ups. She finds her life fun but ultimately unfulfilling. When Zatanna goes back to her dressing room, she lights some candles and pours herself a large glass of red wine. She awakens to the sound of the dressing room door opening, and two men grabbing her. One man holds her down, while the others starts filling a bag up with her various jewelry items. Zatanna tells them that it is all merely costume jewelry and note actually valuable, but they don't believe her and continue stealing everything. The thief finally finds a small box, inside is a ring with the letter Z. She asks him not to take it as it belonged to her father. The thief pockets the ring anyways. Finally fed up, Zatanna does a backwards headbutt to the thief holding her, hitting him right in the nose. The other thief pulls out a gun and orders her to sit down. Zatanna waves her hand, and the fire from the candles jumps onto the thieves. She then watches as they run away, screaming and on fire. She picks up the jewelry they decided to steal and calmly puts it back in her jewelry box. She looks at her father's ring for a moment before putting it back in its box.
A young Zatanna (Brooklynn Price) is being trained by her father, he teaches her how to harness her magic powers. He shows her how he does it first and then gets her to attempt. She doesn’t think she will be able to harness her powers and is scared of what she may do. John yells at her and tells her to focus. Zatanna is in training once again. Her father projects some magical beings out for her to fight, she manages to destroy one. Another scratches her, proving that these things can hurt. She uses her magical abilities to destroy the last two. Again, the father said, he did this until she could no longer be touched by the creatures. After the training he told her that she did well. A loving compliment from her father.
Another magic show the same as before. However when she reappears the crowd only cheer for a split second, then they are frozen in time. Zatanna is unsure, but senses a change in the atmosphere. Madame Xanadu walks down an aisle. She asks Zatanna why she chooses to entertain the rich when she could be protecting the world from dangerous threats. Zatanna asks her what she really wants. Xanadu explains that she believes Zatanna’s father may have been murdered. She explains that John was looking into an occult, run by the evil Allura, an extra-dimensional entity, that has come to Earth. Zatanna at first wants nothing to do with it but Xanadu tells her that her father loved her, he may have had a different way of showing her but he did. He taught her all these spells, not for fun but for protection. Xanadu asks Zatanna to meet her at her Fortune telling shop instead of wasting the night partying. Xanadu leaves and the crowd is back cheering for Zatanna. She then bows.
Zatanna arrives at Madame Xanadu’s Fortune Telling shop, she enters to Xanadu already expecting her. She has her tarot cards out ready for Zatanna to be seated. Xanadu tells her that she senses John was murdered by an evil entity Allura. Zatanna says that she knows that’s what Xanadu thinks but she is here to find the truth. Xanadu says that she will need to find Allura to defeat her and right the wrongs of her father. She flips the first Tarot card, The Tower. Xanadu explains that disaster has just struck and that the demons of madness and despair are released from ancient hiding places, and nature conspires with human failings to destabilize a society. The next card, The Star, she explains as Zatanna listens that the star is about reconnecting one's soul with the divine, with family and with themselves. The next and final card is Death, Death may not be the death of a person but also the death of a plan. Xanadu advises her to look into her father’s death for some closure and to help the world be rid of Allura. Zatanna says she will think about it and thanks Xanadu for insight.
Allura (Noomi Rapace) is repeating a few words in an ancient language. A sphere of light rises from her hand and shoots off into the distance. A homo magi Mary Ann Hoyt (Helena Howard) walks to her and calling her his deity asks her if she still thinks that Zatara lives. She turns quickly toward her and nods meaning she does. She explains to the Mary Ann that that light she just sent out is trying to sense Zatara out. The light zips back into her hands, she holds it to her ear and says that we she just heard is interesting. She looks to Mary Ann and asks her to do a job for her.
Zatanna is giving yet again another performance the same as before, flawless as ever. The crowd is cheering as Zatanna takes a bow. As Zatanna makes her way off-stage, the crowd begins cheering even louder. Zatanna looks toward the crowd and sees Mary slowly levitate in front of the audience. Mary then makes her hands grow to ten times their normal size and begins swatting at the audience. Many think it is just an encore, but some begin fleeing the theater. Mary continues using her magic to attack the men of the crowd. Zatanna reappears on stage and orders everyone out of the theater - this is not part of the show, she yells. Mary turns toward Zatanna and her hands return to their normal size. Zatanna says she's seen Mary around before, but never knew Mary was a homo magi though. Mary explains that she isn’t - she needs to sacrifice people to her deity, Allura for her magic. She adds that once the daughter of Giovanni is given to Allura, she will transfer all of Zatanna's magic straight to her. Zatanna laughs her threat off and charges at Mary, punching her in the face. Mary Ann knocks Zatanna down and away. Zatanna begins using her telekinesis to hurtle the seats from the theater at Mary, knocking her unconscious. Zatanna drags Mary to her dressing room. She empties a chest of costumes and puts Mary's unconscious body inside and puts a padlock on it. She remembers back to what Xanadu said about Allura and her father and decides to look into the death of her father.
Zatanna arrives at a mattress and furniture store called The House of Secrets. She enters and the man behind the register recognizes her. She greets him and gives him a hug, she says hello to the man, she calls him Dr. Occult (Steven Bauer) but he reminds her he told her to call him Richard. Dr Occult although being an owner of a mattress and furniture store is also a private investigator and user of magic who specializes in cases involving the supernatural. Zatanna asks if they can talk, Occult puts the closed sign up and sits at the front counter to talk to her. Zatanna cuts straight to the chase and asks Occult if he knows anything about the death of her father. He apologizes for not being able to attend the funeral but that he was busy. She finds this odd as Occult and her father were close. Occult says that John asked him not to say anything about his whereabouts. He didn’t want Zatanna being dragged into this problem. She is confused as to why because she had been trained all her life by this man yet he didn’t want her to get involved. Occult apologizes once again and wishes that the meeting was under better circumstances. Zatanna begins to get suspicious of Occult. She asks one question to Occult, what was the last thing Occult had said to Zatanna last time they were talking. Occult stutters and Zatanna gets defensive, something is off. Occult stands and he transforms into a demon. Demon Occult lunges at Zatanna and tries to strike her. She begins telekinetically hurtling lamps at the demon, transforming them into jagged darts in mid-air. The demon runs behind pieces of furniture that the projectiles destroy with every turn. Matresses are torn apart. Mirrors are shattered. Sofas and chairs splinters. Feathers and cotton padding fill the air. With the demon distracted by trying to evade her projectiles, Zatanna uses a spell to lock the demon's hands and feet together. She walks to the demon and asks where the real Occult is. The demon breaks out of the restraints and pins Zatanna down on the ground, the demon is about to give the final blow. Zatanna conjures spells and sends the demon to another dimension. Zatanna, out of breathe, calls out for Occult. A noise comes from the back storage room. She enters and finds Occult with his mouth gagged so he cannot recite his spells. Occult thanks Zatanna and hugs her, a tear almost comes from her eye, Occult expresses his condolences for Zatanna's loss. Zatanna asks if Occult knows who was after her father. Occult says that John mentioned an entity known as Allura. Zatanna nods and says she’s heard that name before. Zatanna starts to leave, Occult runs after her however and tells her that Allura will find her you don’t find Allura, he adds that the only way to stop her is to send her to the depths of hell. Occult tells her to be careful. She is upset that her father never told her what was happening.
Zatanna and John are together they are yelling and arguing, Zatanna keeps repeating that she wants to take her show on the road and travel America. John explains that it is a massive waste of time and potential. He calls it cheap and she should be using her magic for something more substantial than for the entertainment of others. She says making people happy is worthwhile and that everything doesn't to be focused on the magical community. John scoffs at her remarks.
Zatanna decides to go to the theater at which she had been performing to clear her head. She sits in the crowd going over what she had been told. Allura will find her. She decides to get on stage and be in her element. She decides to practice her ‘reappearing’ act. She says backwards ‘portal open’ and jumps in jumping out from the other side to where she appears in her shows. She then opens another portal and through that portal is a fiery, lava. She looks down and thinks to herself that it is hell. She knows that Allura will come soon either to get Mary Ann back or to gain the Homo Magi powers and needs a place to put her.
As if on cue, Allura shows up as she was about to close the portal. Allura lunges toward Zatanna and traps her on the ground. She remarks that she didn’t even have to kill John, he did it himself. Zatanna is a little upset about that and she slips out of Allura’s grasp. She begins talking with Allura about why she came after her father. Allura says that many years ago before Zatanna was born, John trapped her in another realm, she was in limbo. The only way she could escape is by feeding on homo magi children from her state in limbo. She says that once she kills and drains the powers of a Zatara she will be immortal. She adds that since John is dead there is only one left and that is Zatanna. Zatanna has heard enough and begins throwing spells at Allura, nothing seems to work on her. Allura then with a click of her fingers makes all the lights in the theater go off. She is then hit with a fire spell from behind, she utters a spell that douses the flames. She then utters one to turn the lights back on. Allura has disappeared. Zatanna makes her way out of the theater and into her car. She speeds away from the theater.
As Zatanna speeds down the Las Vegas strip, her car suddenly goes through a portal to a hellish dimension. Zatanna quickly makes a portal back to the strip. She looks behind her and sees Allura and Mary in a car behind her. Another portal appears in front of Zatanna's car, but she swerves out of the way and drives around it. As she speeds past the Bellagio fountain, Zatanna freezes the water and telekinetically hurtles icicles at Allura's car. One large icicle impales the front of Allura's car, sending it flipping forward, and crashing into the fountain. Zatanna gets out of her car to check out the damage. When she gets to Allura's car in the Fountains of Bellagio, she finds Mary's dead body, but Allura is nowhere to be found. Allura emerges out of nowhere and tackles Zatanna through a portal, and the two find themselves back in Zatanna's theater.
Allura is on top of Zatanna and begins the process of draining her powers. Suddenly, John Zatara appears near the curtain of the stage, the person she really wants revenge against. Allura is confused since she insists she watched John die. At the entrance of the theater stands Dr. Occult, who has conjured the illusion of John to distract Allura. He yells out to Zatanna and tells her she can do it, this is what her father trained her for. Zatanna kicks Allura off of her. Zatanna then rises, levitating above the empty seats. A white glow appears around her as her eyes also turn white. She points with one hand at Allura, Allura looks shocked. Backwards Zatanna says, “Send this bitch back to the fiery depths of hell.” Fire rises up from the ground, and engulfs Allura, who begins screaming as she is pulled down by oily hands from below the stage. Once Allura has descended below the stage, the flames and oil dissipate, and the theater returns to its normal state. Zatanna collapses on to the ground after completing that spell. Occult runs over to Zatanna and places a hand on her temple. He tells her to wake, she does so straight away and asks if it is over. Occult says that John would be very proud of her. She smiles.
Zatanna is standing out the front of her father’s house with Dr. Occult and her luggage. Occult asks if she will be okay. She replies with a nod. He asks whether or not she will continue her shows, she says yes, but states that she also wants to find something more substantial to do with her magic. Occult smiles and gives her one last hug before leaving her to settle in. Zatanna enters her father’s old house. She sees pictures of herself with her father, both of them smiling. She enters her father’s bedroom. She drops her luggage and breaks down, she allows her grief to hit.
The young Zatanna is crying after her father yelled at her. John hugs her and apologizes for yelling, he just wants her to be safe. He gives her a hug. He tells her to watch him. Speaking backwards he turns Zatanna’s tears into bubbles, she laughs. He stares her in the eyes and says that she will do great things in the future.
Mid-Credits Scene: Zatanna arrives back to her new home from a recent performance. She unlocks the door and immediately senses someone is there waiting for her so she is poised ready to attack she turns and sees that it is John Constantine (Colin Farrell). He tells her that he needs her help.
Post-Credits Scene: A close up of John Zatara’s face shows him chanting something. He seems to be stuck in a desolate place, not able to move, however he seems to be attempting to break free.
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