Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Seth Rogen are among the voices in the Nintendo game adaptation.
After waiting almost 40 years for Nintendo to make a Super Mario Bros. movie that looks and feels like the games it’s based on, it took all of 40 seconds to realize it’s going to be a mess. The film begins with Bowser, the King of All Koopas, arriving with his followers to take over a kingdom of penguins. War is imminent and it’s at this moment that “Battle Without Honor or Humanity,” popularized by the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill, starts playing. “Oh no,” I wrote in my notes, knowing if this supposedly kid-friendly video game movie was going to use such an adult, misplaced, and obvious piece of music this early, there was a good chance it might have a crisis of identity. Ninety minutes later, those worries were more than validated.
Based on characters that have existed for almost half a century, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was not made for anyone who has been alive long enough to remember any of that. It pretends like it is, occasionally throwing a nostalgic wink into the set decoration, but the bulk of the movie is disarmingly straightforward, with characters who barely learn anything, and stakes that never elicit even a hint of emotion. Everything happens randomly. There are very few explanations or instances of context. It’s just lots of bright colors with characters entering and exiting the movie like they’re running across a game screen. From its very first scenes, it’s clear The Super Mario Bros. Movie is made for children.
Which is fine! And when you look at who made it, this totally tracks. The film is a collaboration between Nintendo and Illumination, the company behind Despicable Me, Sing, and The Secret Life of Pets. Illumination has a glistening box office record, but not quite the critical acclaim of some of its animation contemporaries. This is the studio that made billions on movies about little yellow Minions that speak gibberish. And once you think of The Super Mario Bros. Movie like that, it makes more sense. It’s a movie made with an elementary-school level of story, character, theme, and humor because that’s what Illumination does.
This is, admittedly, what much of the audience who goes to see it, and their families, will be looking for. You just would’ve hoped, with a legacy property that’s so beloved by so many, the team behind it, which includes directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic plus writer Matthew Fogel, would’ve aspired to more. A balance, perhaps, between childlike wonder and emotional resonance. Instead, the film goes all-in on the former and resorts to haphazardly throwing lots of old-school Easter eggs into the background to appease long-time fans. (That said, there is some super fun stuff thrown into the background, even if it adds literally zero to the story itself.)
That story follows two brothers named Mario and Luigi (voiced by Chris Pratt and Charle Day, respectively) who have decided to leave their day jobs and start their own plumbing business.
