“The Super Mario Bros Movie” is an animated retelling of the classic battle between Mario, the superpowered plumber and Bowser, the fire breathing lizard, from the ever-popular Super Mario Bros video games. To put it short, this movie was a lot better than I thought it would be. Movies that are based off of video games are typically not very good, and often seem like they are trying too hard to make a good movie rather than a good adaptation of the source material. Luckily, this adaptation seems to have been pretty well received, and I thought it was overall a pretty fun movie.
One thing to know about this movie is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and if you expect it to be a serious movie going into it, then I don’t think you’ll have as good of a time with it. The casting reflects this very well. I remember watching the reveal for the Mario movie live in a Nintendo Direct presentation, and when they went from talking about who was going to voice-act for Mario, to putting a picture of Chris Pratt up on the screen, I started dying laughing. The rest of the cast only had me descend further into madness: Charlie Day as Luigi, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Jack Black as Bowser, among some other big names. I just didn’t expect it to be such a stacked cast, and some of the choices, especially Chris Pratt as Mario, seemed like strange choices, but very funny ones at that.
I was also a little worried about the plot of the movie, seeing as many adaptations have gotten video game plots very messed up. However, I was pleasantly surprised in this case, as the plot was rather well done. The number of homages to previous Mario games, and even some other classic Nintendo titles made the plot a little hard to understand for anyone who wasn’t a Mario fan before this, but it was a very worthwhile experience for me personally. Even if you haven’t been a Mario fan before now, it is still a fun film for the whole family to enjoy. I think my favorite deviation from the typical Mario game plot was the fact that Princess Peach wasn’t entirely helpless. Traditionally, the Mario games revolve around Bowser stealing away Princess Peach to take as his bride, and she has nothing to say about it. However, she actually shows a lot more resilience in the movie, allowing her to stand up in combat even against the fearsome Bowser. Mario is the one that beats him in the end, as it usually ends in the games, but the battle between Peach and Bowser really showed that she could stand up for herself very well.
The animation was rather good as well. Illumination, the film’s animation studio, is very well known for animating films such as the “Despicable Me” series, “The Lorax”, and the most recent “Puss in Boots” movie. Their animation style is a little more childish than I was hoping for when it came to this movie, however, I think it worked quite well. Special effects such as magic, fire, and the many acrobatics the characters perform were all animated incredibly well, and looked almost real if not for the stylized art style. At the very least, their actions and movements seemed very natural.
Overall, I think this was a very good movie, and I look forward to a potential sequel in the future, should Nintendo wish to continue these movies. This movie is currently only in theaters, but I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves Mario or Nintendo as a whole, and anyone who enjoys good clean family fun.
