The Super Mario Bros. Movie

In terms of iconic mascots, few to any would be able to reach the realms that Mario has been able to achieve. Essentially being the original figurehead for all things gaming since his 1981 debut in Donkey Kong, the titular Italian plumber helped save the industry as we know it with his 1985 NES platforming game, Super Mario Bros, which resulted in countless sequels, remakes, expansions, and different appearances even outside the realms of gaming, which of course meant eventual movies. While his first outing (that being the 1993 live-action film) was not well received outside of a specific cult following, Mario was too big a character not to have a successful film under his belt, which is exactly what Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, thought when he decided to give a movie another shot, this time working with Universal (who have a Mario-themed attraction in their theme park) and Illumination. The results of this 2023 CG animated movie looked risky at first yet turned into something far more magnificent. Italian American brothers Mario and Luigi (voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) try to start up their own plumbing business, yet everybody, including their family, have zero faith in them. With Mario believing that they can achieve anything together, this thought is put to the test when both are sucked into a parallel universe through a giant green pipe and separated, with Mario ending up in the Mushroom Kingdom inhabited by a race of mushroom people and their ruler, Princess Peach (voiced by Anya-Taylor Joy),  and with Luigi ending up in the Dark Lands, and into the clutches of the evil king, Bowser (voiced by Jack Black) who is overthrowing surrounding kingdoms in order to obtain their power stars, all for the means of marrying Peach (whether she agrees or not). Finding out that Luigi has been captured by this mad king, Mario agrees to work with Peach and her helper Toad (voiced by Keegan Michael Key) to travel to other kingdoms in hope of joining forces, stopping Bowser, and hopefully reuniting with his brother. The Super Mario Bros. Movie far exceeded its predecessor as well as many other movies that same year, becoming a smash hit at the box office (earning $1.36 billion worldwide), reaching the level of third highest-grossing animated film of all time, and switched the perspective on video game movies for the general public. Although the critical reception was heavily split between critics and audiences, and the film at its centre isn’t anything that special, it provides a perfectly nice and watchable film.

Although this film acts as a somewhat origin story for the franchise, this isn’t really a movie that is going to try and hand-hold any newcomers. While not knowing who Mario is at this point is the same as not knowing who Mickey Mouse or The Beatles are, it should still be mentioned that this film isn’t going to take time away to establish much in terms of past or context for this world or its characters, and is instead going to shove as much fan service in your face to the point that almost every scene has something for fans to acknowledge. This mindset does make sense as Nintendo actually had a strong creative control over this picture (far more than other previous adaptions) and it can be a little distracting at times as while providing an easter egg is fine for the fan base, the constant nature of how much is being thrown at you whether it be a line, character, visual or even a musical score can feel so overwhelming at times that it’s a little distracting. With that said though, it doesn’t feel like this movie needs to change anything about its narrative layout as the actual outline for this plot written by Ed Skudder, isn’t too bad for what it is. It’s nothing groundbreaking, elaborate or even that fresh and new, but a Mario property has never been run by its plot and more so on its energy, personality, and visuals, and that does come across in this movie with just enough hints towards character and narrative fulfillment to make it feel like a decent upgrade. The directors for this movie were Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, who are most well known for being the creators of Teen Titans Go! While that might seem a little horrifying and some of their cons of storytelling can show their face in this film like a very hollow resonance when it comes to its emotional beats, a pace so rapid and fast that no moments of quiet are ever allowed to sink in, and a heavier focus on slapstick and active cartoonish motion rather than a subtle composure (all of which are elements that actually fall in line with most of Illumination’s filmography anyway, so it feels like a match made in heaven), but to their credit, they actually manage to hold this film together decently enough and work within their own strengths to make this movie flow pretty nicely (with assistance from co-directors, Pierre Leduc and Fabien Polack probably helping as well). The plot is pretty bare and dry, yet not without a few nice new touches to the formula to make it flow better, the characters are generic yet still likeable, the humor is not very good but doesn’t feature anything groan-worthy, and the visuals can be a little hectic at times yet are never hard to follow and still manage to be creative and very visually pleasing. The biggest problem with the film is in its scripting by Matthew Fogal, producing a screenplay that is pretty shallow, weak and bland in the humor department, and outside of a few nice ideas and sequences, isn’t resulting in anything that impressive.

With characters this iconic in the gaming space, it’s going to create a situation where people are going to be distracted when they hear new voices coming out of them. While Mario never existed in the world of dialogue, the minimal voice work that came from the franchise, mainly the voice of Mario himself, Charles Martinet (who does cameo in the movie), have become very popular among fan, who were quite shocked and even a little flabbergasted by the voice actors chosen for this movie when it was announced. With names like Seth Rogen, Jack Black, Anya-Taylor Joy and especially Chris Pratt, everybody saw this as another example of studio typecasting not for the benefit of the characters, but rather as a means of forcing in recognizable celebrities to draw people in, yet when it comes to the movie itself, it actually doesn’t detract from the overall experience. While some of the voices are pretty distinct (Seth Rogen is never not going to just play himself), most of them do a pretty good job and aren’t as noticeably distracting as you would expect (outside of a truly awful performance from Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong). Although receiving a lot of backlash and scepticism when he was initially cast, Pratt is honestly perfectly fine as Mario, being just distinct enough away from his usual tone of voice to feel like an actual character and never taking the audience out of the moment’s he’s talking. What seems to help a good chunk of these performances is that most of these roles are simple, yet still likeable. There’s a nice relationship between Mario and Luigi (who is also voiced fairly well by Day) and while Luigi should’ve had a bit more screen time to make the ending a bit more impactful (letting him get captured instead of Peach does make sense from a storytelling perspective, but he doesn’t need to be as stagnant as the usual damsel), it doesn’t make that conclusion still feel at least slightly rewarding. There’s also a nice bond formed between Mario and Peach, allowing the two to actually grow a romance and makes Peach more than just a prize to be won (after the number of times she’s been useless, seeing her save herself in this film is oddly cathartic). Jack Black is oddly perfect as Bowser, capturing the booming brutish demeanor, but also the pathetic and even hapless side of the role that makes him more of a childish bully with power than an actual world-ending threat. Someone like Toad can be a little annoying (despite Key doing fine as the voice), but due to his almost non-existent role and the film’s overly brisk pacing, he’s not even given chances to be annoying, so it oddly works out.

While people may have been sceptical about Illumination leading this movie due to their less-than-impressive movie line-up in the past, everybody seemed to agree that they were the right people to make a Mario movie not only because of their cartoonish personality, but also from a visual standpoint, with a design, liveliness, and coloration that seemed perfect for the world of Mario. While their movies have always looked quite good, this might be their most impressive and even most ambitious looking one yet, with wonderful recreations of several familiar worlds and characters with enough new additions to still feel like their own thing, a sense of stretch-and-squash that allows these characters to feel solid, yet still remarkably fluid and expressive, and a tone and lighting that is bursting with vibrant colors and active motion. As previously stated, the quick pace and slapstick-heavy attitude of Illumination is present in this film, but that activeness is used well in the action sequences and are supported by some really fun inventive shots that also feel very mobile and energized. There’s a lot of swooping motion, the angles can be very precise and even well-framed, and it allows for a great feeling of flow in lot of the movie’s more high-octane moments, especially during the rainbow road sequence which has a lot of great visuals and would’ve looked incredible on the big screen. The music for the film is a weird split between an abundant number of remixed versions of classic Mario tunes handled by Brian Tyler (to the point that there are too many familiar motifs to count) and real-world songs used for the soundtrack, which feel very distracting in this context. While other animated movies do this all the time (especially ones done by Illumination), considering how much of this movie is being smothered by its own fan-service (including several aspects of its iconic score by Koji Kondo), hearing songs that so clearly don’t belong in this universe can feel very out-of-place and very unneeded.

Mario has been able to hold the crown of video game royalty for a while now, and he can even say that he’s got a foot in the door of cinema now considering how much money his movie was able to rake in (especially during a time when most movies were not doing well), and considering the kind of film it is, it is understandable if a little undeserved, the kind of reception it received. It’s not a movie that is going to appeal to those outside of the fan base, but considering how gargantuan that fan base is, that wasn’t going to matter in the long run, and Mario was never a property that had grand story, characters, or writing anyway. Illumination has always produced junk-food cinema (movies that have no depth, extreme thought or dynamic characters and writing, but contain pleasing visuals, acceptable presentation, and a comfort-food tone), so this is no different from their usual outings, yet the brief expansions on some of the familiar ideas and characters make this honestly, one of their better movies overall. It’ll provide what you want out of a Mario movie, without too many of the expected Illumination problems holding it back, so that alone is a ‘’power star’’ level success.