I thought you were going to review the Super Mario Bros. movie. Oh well. Could you review that next, please? I’d like to see how your thoughts compare to mine. I assume you ready my review already.
I still had
Minions: Rise of Gru in the tank Belchic. Besides, you can't hurry art.
Now, *clears throat* Here we goooooo!
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Distributor: Universal Pictures/Illumination Entertainment
Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Cast: Chris Pratt (Mario), Charlie Day (Luigi), Anya Taylor-Joy (Princess Peach), Keegan-Michael Key (Toad), Jack Black (Bowser), Seth Rogen (Donkey Kong), Fred Armisen (King Cranky Kong), Sebastian Maniscalco (Spike), Kevin Michael Richardson (Kamek)
Runtime: 92 min.
MPAA rating: PG (action, some violence)
This movie, based on Nintendo’s highly successful
Super Mario Bros. franchise, is about Mario and Luigi who, having stated a plumbing service in Brooklyn, are still trying to get off the ground. Seeing a news report about a manhole leak, they go to make the repair but are sucked in and get separated. Mario lands in the whimsical Mushroom Kingdom and while in the company of a Mushroom Retainer named Toad, he goes to meet his benevolent ruler Princess Peach. There he learns that Luigi has landed in Dark Land and is being held hostage by the Koopa King Bowser, used for the purpose of martial blackmail. Having the power of a Super Star at his beck and call, Bowser might be indestructible. Seeking the aid of the Kongs, can Mario, Toad and Peach rescue Luigi, save the Mushroom Kingdom and defeat Bowser?
I’m 100% sure if you have ever touched a video game console ever since the 1980s, you have heard of Nintendo’s flagship franchise
Super Mario Bros. Even if you are not a gamer, chances are you can probably answer that it is Nintendo’s most profitable franchise. It pulls in so much money year after year with a heavy focus on the concept of fun. Another major reason for this is because artistically, Mario could be seen as being a boys’ answer to Barbie. He’s pretty much whatever you want him to be; whether it’s a plumber, a doctor, a pro athlete, an Olympiad contender, a racer, a brawler… that’s probably why he is so successful, because he could be anything.
Being a gamer myself, I still found myself going into self-defense mode when I heard about this movie. I did have my reasons. Mario may be able to appeal to your sense of fun, but being a character is another issue altogether. I never actually saw the original anime film from 1986, but I remember growing up watching the original DIC cartoons from the late 80s/early 90s (the earliest one being
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! which starred Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells in live-action segments). They were certainly entertaining but the quality probably depended on your definition; they don’t hold up so well now. My biggest case of self-defense came from the fact that the last time we saw a movie about
Super Mario Bros. was the original live-action film from 1993 that starred Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha Mathis and Dennis Hopper. Opening so close to
Jurassic Park, it was an abysmal critical and commercial failure for Nintendo and had since put the kibosh on their franchises being adapted into movies. And yes, that was before what happened when we had the first American adaptation of
Godzilla; Toho bought the rights to the character so they could kill him!
Time heals wounds, I guess, as I remember back in 2019 we got the live-action adaptation of
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and it went over very well. Later Mario’s rival Sonic the Hedgehog would get at least two movies when the pandemic was active and were very successful despite the odds. On the other hand, we had a new
Mortal Kombat movie in 2021 that honestly felt like half a movie, and same year release
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City just plain sucked. Surely this could not be worse than that 1993 atrocity, right?
Well there was hope. Accomplished Nintendo game designer/director Shigeru Miyamoto was on hand as an Executive Producer, so he would be with the team at Illumination to answer questions about how these characters are supposed to work; after all, if you are making a movie about a big license like this one surely they would have a rigid bible you would have to follow. And hey, 2023 was the year that Universal opened Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios, so why not have a big screen movie to promote it?
And hey, I’m the guy who wrote a very comprehensive article on
Street Fighter: the Movie (1994), so with that in mind, let’s have my thoughts on the new Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Let’s begin with the story. Now the games don’t exactly have the deepest, most intricate plots to adapt into a movie. You have a story in the game, where it serves a straightforward rescue mission about how Mario is trying to save Princess Peach from Bowser. However that would make for a very blah movie. There is a bunch of other things from the game that movie throws in being that it’s something you would do if you were playing a Mario game, like touching a Super Mushroom makes you grow in size, a Fire Flower gives you firepowers, etc. The movie doesn’t really explain much in regards to how some of these aspects are supposed to work. Then you have the moments of fanservicing that fans want to see. Again, this acknowledgement of the franchise’s history is nice and appreciated but in terms of story it does feel pretty thin. However… I suppose the story didn’t need to make sense because they were trying to emulate the joy you typically have playing the game. I… suppose it’s a fair compromise?
Some of the themes they go for ring true as well, like how you can’t force someone to love you and having family by your side makes you invincible.
The movie’s animation provides a plethora of eye candy; a gamer will notice a lot of small Easter eggs to the franchise’s past which I found to be a welcome addition. There is plenty of details that go into making Brooklyn, the Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser’s Keep, etc. look authentic to what you are expecting from the games. Thankfully the Illumination aesthetic is kept to a minimum here; unlike what you might expect the characters to look, they maintain their more modern game aesthetics rather than make it look what you might from Illumination. I won’t deny the animation is the strongest feature in the movie.
Now, do you remember the characters from the Mario games? Well, you’ll see them here, no question. Maybe I should begin with our hero, Mario. He is the older of the two Mario Brothers and of course his dad doubts his dragging Luigi into his business with him is a smart idea. If you remember in the game series, Mario seemed to be trying to save the day just to be good, however for the movie that wouldn’t have made for the most compelling story. Here to give some dramatic weight to the story Mario is out to save Luigi as Bowser is holding him captive. Luigi is the younger brother of the two and thus is helping push the earlier theme that I listed. The thing I did not like regarding either of them is as while I give the team at Illumination props for going anti-woke with not casting Latin voice actors, as the Mario Bros. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day don’t have the best time with their roles. They both sound rather blah. There was some level of controversy as Charles Martinet could still have done Mario’s voice and would have sounded all the more authentic, I imagine they were cast to give the movie some marquee appeal. Princess Peach is likely the most different in adaptation; in the games she is practically the damsel in distress but here she’s more of a Warrior Princess. Anya Taylor-Joy thankfully does a better job with her role. Toad, the bravest Mushroom Retainer, is likely a comedy relief and Keegan-Michael Key delivers his comic timing with the same enthusiasm you would expect. Donkey Kong appears in the movie as Mario’s immediate rival that following his defeat and some bonding, has more of a reason to side with Mario. Bowser, the movie’s main villain, doesn’t have a truly strong reason for his evil nature; he really does this for the lulz. He does make up for it with a personality, and Jack Black was clearly enjoying himself in this role. There are probably some other characters you’d probably want me to tell you about, but they don’t appear and you have to save something for the sequel. After all, the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t built in a day!
The original movie from 1993 may have a status as being an abomination, but this movie… I guess I can say it has earned the right to live. Despite
The Super Mario Bros. Movie many times feeling like a plug for the IP, it makes up for it with a sense of fun, and it delivers on that promise. Nobody will mistake this movie for high art, but sometimes… you have to remember that these movies are supposed to be fun, not a big lecture on rights or equality. I enjoyed myself and seeing all the money this film is pulling in, we will no doubt see a sequel, and we may end up seeing a Nintendo Cinematic Universe if they are allowed to do other franchises as well.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
TreyVore rates it: B
