Strap your tool belt on, kid. We’re going in.
If there was ever a time for Nintendo to expand beyond games and enter the film industry, it’s right now. With the smashing success of the Nintendo Switch and a continuous stream of titles that easily eclipse the ten million mark in sales, this is arguably the most popular the company has been in its 100+ year history.
And that popularity can only grow as the millennials who have been with the brand since the early days of little gray boxes are starting to have families of their own, introducing their kids to the plumbers, the princesses, and the piranha plants that have defined their lives. This is a prime time for Nintendo to get out there with a product that’ll appeal to the original generation of Nintendo fans and those who will carry the torch in the future, and releasing a bright and beautiful animated film is a perfect way to do that.
I just wish it would have picked a better company than Illumination to do it with.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic
Written by Matthew Fogel
Produced by Universal Pictures, Illumination, Nintendo
Released: April 5, 2023
For all the bluster and brouhaha that we had to endure in the months following the revelation that Chris Pratt would voice Mario, that should have been what people focused on. Despite its astounding success at the box office, Illumination doesn’t really make good films. Its first picture, Despicable Me, is the only movie from the company with a Rotten Tomatoes score over 80% and a Metacritic score over 70. I know The Super Mario Bros. Movie has sparked yet another tired debate about whether or not reviewers matter anymore, but let’s not pretend this company isn’t out there just coasting on the popularity of its Minions. Illumination isn’t a studio that’s going to take chances or attempt to subvert expectations. It has a dog-eared playbook it sticks to with every one of its films, The Super Mario Bros. Movie included.
That doesn’t mean there’s no love for the property here. The animation team did an incredible job in bringing every inch of the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond to the big screen. The art direction may be overly clean and without a unique personality, but it looks good enough. And great attention was paid to implementing many different elements from the games into the world, telling the audience the filmmakers have more than just cursory knowledge and appreciation of the series they’re adapting.
The same can be said of the film’s music. Composer Brian Tyler did a fantastic job seamlessly incorporating so many Koji Kondo works into his original score. It’s arguably the best part of the film, which is why it’s so disappointing several sequences were injected with predictable pop songs rather than letting Tyler work his magic. And when I say predictable pop songs, I mean predictable. Nobody should be using “Holding Out for a Hero” after Jennifer Saunders’s mic drop in Shrek 2, “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” has been done to death, and going with a-ha’s “Take On Me” for a brief karting sequence was enough to pull me right out of the film. Surprisingly, it was the voice acting that was able to pull me back in.
It’s clear Jack Black is reveling in his role as Bowser, but he’s not the only one going all out with his performance. Keegan-Michael Key, who plays the central Toad of the film, is outstanding, as are Kevin Michael Richardson (Kamek) and Fred Armisen (Cranky Kong), who seems to be channeling about six of his different SNL characters for the role. Despite the endless arguments and social media posts, Chris Pratt (Mario) is okay with a Brooklyn-adjacent accent layered on top of his regular voice. Charlie Day (Luigi) takes the same approach, and the two do come off sounding like brothers. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Anna-Taylor Joy (Princess Peach) sounds like Anna-Taylor Joy, while Seth Rogen (Donkey Kong) decided to attempt a cocky teenage version of himself, complete with “the Seth Rogen laugh.”
The voice acting gets the job done, even if the story they’re telling doesn’t. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is hurriedly paced following its opening sequence in Brooklyn, allowing no time for original ideas or character development. Mario comes into this movie fully formed, already a tenacious go-getter who can handle himself well on a platform stage. Princess Peach also doesn’t stray far from when we first meet her. If I were being generous with the term, I’d argue the only character here that does exhibit some growth is Luigi. But because he’s sidelined for most of the film, his big moment doesn’t have the impact it should.
It’s surprising how many moments of this movie did not land with the audience at my screening. While a few points elicited laughter from the entire crowd, this reviewer included, many of its more obvious jokes failed to generate any reaction at all. Nearly all of its action sequences fell similarly flat. The only thing in this film that received any type of sustained response was the Mario Kart sequence. Once the first kart popped up on the screen, every kid around me started chirping “Mario Kart 8” like they were the seagulls from Finding Nemo.
Beyond that scene, I didn’t really get the sense any of the kids in the theater were engaging with the film. It could be that I couldn’t hear them over the child next to me who would NOT SHUT UP, or it could be they just weren’t connecting with a movie that seems to be trying to speedrun itself.
At just 92 minutes, The Super Mario Bros. Movie doesn’t have a lot of time to work with. And the filmmakers did themselves no favors by trying to pack in as much as they could into such a brief runtime. From Mario Kart to Smash Bros. to a Bowser ballad the filmmakers probably should have just let Jack Black write himself, there isn’t one moment of respite throughout this film. Even when characters find themselves in peril, it’s resolved so quickly I wonder why that sequence was included at all, outside of using it as an opportunity to pop in a few more references from the games.
To be clear, I’m not anti-reference. I don’t necessarily have an issue with the filmmakers including details that connect this movie to the games. In fact, I enjoyed quite a few of them, particularly how they weren’t afraid of using elements from the more recent titles in the series (Cat Suit, Ice Flower) rather than just sticking to the classics. However, many of the references here are so inconsequential that they were clearly included, Chekov’s gun be damned, with the expectation they’ll find their way into 50 different YouTube videos about “Things You Missed in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The backgrounds of the early scenes in Brooklyn are littered with early Nintendo references, the type designed to turn the adults in the audience into the Pointing Rick Dalton meme.
Again, the references here would be fine if they were in a movie attempting to tell an interesting story. But Illumination films don’t tell interesting stories. Maybe they will in the future with Mike White (School of Rock, The White Lotus) on tap to pen the next two films from the studio. For now, they’re settling with an experience designed to shuffle audiences from set piece to set piece as quickly as possible, never once asking you to think about what it is you’re seeing on the screen.
The end result is The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a rather torpid piece of entertainment. I’ve seen many people online trying to deflect criticism of this film by stating it’s a kid’s movie, but that’s a rather lousy line of defense. Just because something is made for kids doesn’t mean it has to be superficial. Children are far more capable and cognizant than adults are willing to give them credit for, and we should be offering them more than literal eye candy, something beautiful to look at that provides zero sustenance.
Or, just make a Mario Kart movie because that seemed to be the only thing the kids at my screening actually cared about.
