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The Road to Enlightenment The movie Super Mario Bros. was long and winding. Originally announced in 2018 ahead of the much-discussed voice cast reveal in 2021, we haven’t known for a long time if Mario’s big-screen debut (ahem, of the animated genre) would do justice to the venerable gaming icon. Well , we now have our answer and it’s exactly what we expected: the Mario movie is a fun enough time as long as you’re not so preoccupied with the story.
So what is the story exactly? Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) plan to start a plumbing business in Brooklyn, New York, but things get complicated. Their customers are rare and their parents are disappointed, but hey, at least they know each other, LAW? You will want to remember this, it is important.
Through a turn of events that we won’t delve into here in case we slip down the wrong pipe and land face first in a smoldering heap of spoilers, the brothers are drawn into a mysterious world and immediately separated (see? On told you it was important). Mario lands in a kingdom of mushroom variety, populated by adorable toads (a particularly squeaky Keegan-Michael Key) and overseen by the generally adored Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). Luigi finds himself in a land of lava flows and genuinely creepy Shy Guys, ruled by the scaled fist of the Koopa King himself, Bowser (Jack Black).
What follows is pretty typical of a Mario game: Bowser is after Peach, Mario is after Bowser, Luigi is sidelined – it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Maybe this shouldn’t be a review of the movie itself. The games aren’t very rich in story, so why should we expect more from a big-screen adaptation?
Unfortunately, the games and movies aren’t too similar beasts, and with an action-packed yet satisfying narrative that seems to take place in another castle, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is bound to rely on its other features to keep you entertained. Those other elements do a decent job of keeping your eyes occupied throughout the brisk 92-minute runtime, but the show doesn’t quite make up for the lack of real substance at its core.
Still, this show is something. Based on the obvious, this movie is a dream come true for anyone who’s ever wanted to see Mario’s world come to life with greater fidelity. Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic have ensured that the Mushroom Kingdom is packed with references to nearly every Mario game available, and Illumination’s signature squishy animation does a good job of presenting it all in a colorful and pleasant. When a confused toad asks: “What We supposed to do? Were adorable!“, you can only agree.
Each location is a feast for the eyes, as the animation house has clearly taken the time to work out the intricacies of “Mario style” and bring it to life on screen brilliantly.
Mario aficionados will pick up nods and cameos left, right, and center, from the obvious callbacks to Mario’s signature run or side-scrolling action style, to more obscure Nintendo references (fans of Pikmin, keep your eyes open). But that doesn’t mean these will be a distraction for you if you’ve never picked up a Mario game in your life. The movie Mario is onsometimes to its detriment, but that means you’ll never be left scratching your head just because you don’t know the intricacies of Nintendo’s history.
That clear love for the source material carries over to Brian Tyler’s superb score – undoubtedly the star of the show (which is saying something when you consider the fact that there’s a literal star In this one). Picking up original and iconic Koji Kondo themes at every turn, Tyler’s score is steeped in franchise history. Many of us had heard the grand orchestral arrangement of the main theme in the first trailer, but the real gems are how Tyler manipulates short patterns in the score at all times, from instantly recognizable element sounds to excerpts from the Luigi’s Mansion theme.
Of course, providing opportunities to roll out Nintendo’s most famous earworms is the film’s huge (perhaps too huge) cast of characters. Rounding out the main team we mentioned above, Seth Rogan’s Donkey Kong lends an enemy-turned-friend trope to the film, while nothing could have prepared us for how long on screen Fred Armisen’s Cranky Kong would receive. All vocals are, for the most part, perfectly fine. Black certainly enjoys the role more than most, and we were pleased to find that Pratt’s vocal talents don’t necessarily make or break the film after he quickly slips away Martinet’s legacy voice in the opening minutes.
With such a large cast of main characters and multiple screams (musical or otherwise) hitting you every minute, the Super Mario Bros. suffers from some pacing issues. Squeezing everything possible in a brisk hour and a half, while refreshing, means more nurturing principles like setup and gain fade into the background at breakneck speed. Matthew Fogel’s screenplay is jam-packed with jokes and amusing asides, but the level of grip gets tiresome as the film enters the final act and we always find characters explaining what’s going on. on screen instead of trusting us to work it out.
The opening act is arguably the best, taking its time to introduce us to our heroes before plunging them into peril; but as time passes and more and more pieces are added to the puzzle, the action becomes a cycle of “characters get into a sticky situation, they get out of it immediately”. We imagine future sequels (which seem almost certain) will get the chance to sit down with their characters a bit, eliminating the need to discard some in favor of others.
None of this is to say that The Super Mario Movie necessarily bites off more than it can chew, more than it struggles to spit out coherent sentences through its bites of Nintendo history and decades of Mario jokes.
Conclusion
With more references than we needed and less plot than we deserved, the Super Mario Bros. is perhaps everything you expect it to be. Directors Horvath and Jelenic have managed to bring the Mushroom Kingdom to life in a way that 8-bit Super Mario veterans could never have imagined, even if the vision gets a bit overloaded in the process. That being said, the cast of familiar faces, Tyler’s score, and the sheer amount of stuff going on in each frame was enough to keep us engaged from start to finish and we’re curious to see what round two inevitably brings.
