The Super Mario Bros. Movie

2023

PG

The next film review will be another one that was released recently. This is a movie that I was interested in seeing when I first saw it advertised. I didn’t watch it in theaters but opted to wait until it was released on Blu Ray. There was some controversy with the casting as Mario and Luigi are such iconic characters. I never was worried about the casting, but I wanted to see if it they did the game franchise justice. The Mario world has a lot of followers and there are a lot of people worldwide that have either grown up playing the Nintendo games or are growing up playing the games. Does the movie do a great job of entertaining and not ruining the Mario experience? Keep reading to find out. If you don’t want spoilers, skip ahead a couple paragraphs.

Two Brooklyn plumbers named Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) recently start their own business, but things don’t start off too smoothly for them. They hear of a water main break on the news and take it upon themselves to be the city’s heroes. Again, things don’t go according to plan and they are sucked into a pipe which takes them to some mysterious worlds. Mario enters the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi goes to the Dark Lands and is quickly captured by the Koopa Army. Bowser (Jack Black) already has control of the Dark Lands and is seeking control of the Mushroom Kingdom as well. His main goal is to take over the Kingdom, marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), and destroy the Kingdom in the process. Mario meets up with Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) and he takes Mario to Peach. Peach obviously doesn’t want to marry Bowser, so a Super Star will be need for Bowser to complete the task. Peach seeks the help of the Jungle Kingdom to help stop Bowser’s reign of terror, but their King, Cranky Kong (Fred Armisen) will only agree to help if Mario can defeat his son, Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) in a fight.

Mario wins, but the battle has just begun. Bowser and his Koopa Army ambush the newly formed alliance and unleash a litany of attacks. To save Luigi and many others from death and Peach from a forced marriage to Bowser, Mario must save the universe and defeat Bowser.

To start things off, let me just say that the casting was perfect. A lot of people were upset that the original voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, would not voice his own character. Understandable, but it isn't worth getting too upset over. In fact, I think it worked better this way. I don’t know if hearing Mario’s quips for 90 minutes would’ve been as good. I thought Chris Pratt did a fantastic job as Mario. I had to look and make sure that it was actually Chris Pratt, because I couldn’t even tell it was him. Charlie Day was good as Luigi, but the best casting decision, in my opinion, was Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach. She was absolutely phenomenal. Jack Black is great as Bowser and anything Jack Black is in is like an automatic 7/10 for me. He is one of my favorite actors.

This movie had everything that you could ask for a Mario movie. Perhaps the only thing missing was Yoshi, but another movie was teased with Yoshi being included. It was cool to see them have so many hidden things featured in the film. I’m not going to mention any of the hidden things, but you can look those up after you watch the movie or if you have the Blu Ray, they have a video that talks about a few things. I loved that they added the Mario Kart element to it and the fact that Mario had to train on a Mario World-esque style of course to become stronger was a nice touch. Also, they didn’t completely leave out Charles Martinet. He had a small role in the movie, so that was also cool to see and hear. Jack Black’s song, “Peaches” was phenomenal. It is a song that can easily get stuck in your head, so fair warning, if you haven’t heard it yet.

Did the film ruin the video game franchise? Of course not, in fact, it has made me want to break out my Nintendo games and play Mario more. I was surprised how good this movie was. There were mixed reviews from people, but for the most part, I would say that there more positive than negative. The only reason I would say that you would dislike this is either the fact that you didn’t like the casting, or you have been living under a rock and are clueless about Mario and the gang. I honestly don’t know what they could’ve done better to improve the movie. It was near perfect for what it was. The plot didn’t have to be layered. The story didn’t have to be complex, because in reality, they video games aren't complex. You are Mario, you save Peach from Bowser and that’s it. It followed that exactly with a few small twists and turns and incorporated some fun things from the last 40 years of the franchise’s history. It was perfect nostalgia and fun all rolled into a fun, family movie. I totally recommend this film to anyone who was a fan of the video games growing up and if you have kids, the will likely enjoy it too. I will definitely watch this movie again and I will watch the sequels when they come out too. The film is supposed to be on Peacock in the near future, so for now you can watch it on Ultra/Blu Ray/DVD, PPV, or a select few theaters that are still showing it.

GRADE: 4.6/5

Yacs

Movie Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

GRADE: 4.6/5