The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day) in The Super Mario Bros. Movie
When Chris Pratt was announced as Mario back in September of 2021, the internet erupted with bouts of maniacal laughter. “Him? Really?”, they all said. “This movie is going to be a joke”.
Turns out that, whilst he’s certainly not winning any voice acting awards, Pratt’s performance is the least of The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s problems. With lacklustre storytelling and a general vibe that coasts along the lines of ‘toddler with a kazoo’, this is an Illumination animation first and foremost, a Mario Bros. film second.
Brooklynites Mario and Luigi (Charlie Day) are struggling to launch their plumbing business, as well as the little approval that their father has in them. In a fish-out-of-water moment, the pair are accidentally transported to another world through a warp pipe which inadvertently splits them into two separate worlds: Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom, and Luigi in the evil Dark Lands overseen by Bowser (Jack Black). With the help of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), Mario must save both the Mushroom Kingdom, and his little brother.
Die-hard Mario fans can rest easy: this film is littered to the brim with easter-eggs, references, and gameplay elements from start to finish. If you come into this film to point at the screen and count the number of times you’ve seen a blue shell or, I dunno, an underknown one-off mushroom critter named ‘blipzo’, you will be undeniably satisfied. For you and extremely small children, congratulations, this is going to be the movie of your dreams. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is never not stimulating you, and there are certainly things here that are hugely cool to see. When the film is dedicated to free-flowing action scenes lifted straight from the platformers, it’s joyous. I will also give extra credit to Jack Black’s Bowser, and more specifically his hilariously sad solo piano song dedicated to Princess Peach.
Unfortunately, as mentioned, this is an Illumination movie first. Before I’m barked at with statements like “It’s a kids movie!” or “Just sit back and enjoy it!”, I understand where you’re coming from. However, let’s not pretend that we’ve not seen beloved IP executed as an animated children’s film (The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, Into the Spider-Verse, The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie just to name a few) without sacrificing great storytelling. Maybe though, that’s at the fault of Nintendo too. If you’re making a film with the sole-purpose of cramming in as many gaming call-backs as possible, compounded with an awfully ironic, artificial script delivered by not-so-great celebrity voice acting… it’s a sickly combo. So, it is a kid’s movie. It’s just not a good one.
At the end of the day, the critics aren’t the ones laughing here. This is a perfectly designed film if you want to remember everything you loved about playing Mario as a kid, or if you are a kid. It’s a clean 90 minutes and is going to make a bajillion dollars at the box office. But why settle for less? Even for children, this isn’t as entertaining as playing Mario Kart with your friends, as engaging as playing Mario Party with your friends, as investing as Mario Odyssey, as investing as New Super Mario Bros for the DS, as investing as Super Mario Galaxy, as investing as Super Mario Bros 64, as investing as… well, you get the picture.
