Jonah Naplan   April 7, 2023

I love animation. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is not why.

I’m not angry about this, more so disappointed. But like last week’s “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” this is yet another film regarding a source material that I’m somewhat unfamiliar with—D&D more so than this, however. I’ve played my rounds of Mario Kart over the years, as have many other children my age and younger than me. I know the characters. I know the concept. But looking at the other side of the spectrum—adults in their thirties and forties who’ve grown up with Mario and Luigi—I cannot identify at all. I never had a Gameboy or any sort of retro Nintendo console. I did not grow up playing Mario games and Donkey Kong. I haven’t even seen the infamous 1993 movie, “Super Mario Bros.”

Yet I am still disappointed because I know of the IP’s huge cultural impact. In 2023, after numerous failed attempts at video game movies in the last twenty years, two Sonic the Hedgehog films, an excellent “The Last of Us” series, a theatrical Pokemon movie, two Angry Birds films, an “Uncharted” disaster, a dreadful parody called “Pixels,” two “Jumanji” remakes and a third one on the way, seven “Resident Evil” movies and a Netflix series, “Monster Hunter,” “Assassin’s Creed,” “Warcraft,” “Tomb Raider,” “Rampage,” a “Mortal Kombat” remake, and a movie about the creation of Tetris that came out last week on Apple TV+ (I think that should count?), we have finally gotten a new iteration of Super Mario Bros. After all of those video game projects—some disasters, some not—you’d think that this movie would have learned something, and had been a better film. That’s why I’m disappointed.

But this movie is the offspring of many things. It’s a Universal wide-release picture, and it is also an Illumination film. But most of all, it’s a Nintendo-produced flick that is supremely unfocused. The biggest problem here is that there’s barely a plot. We must channel our preconceived knowledge of Mario and Luigi and use that as a platform to piece together some resemblance of context and how that can be used to conjure the structural integrity of a story. The film opens in Brooklyn. Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are plumbers who’ve recently opened their own handy man business. Early on, there’s plenty of references to other Nintendo properties, and the Mario games themselves. I took note of one particular side-scrolling shot in the first 20 minutes that was obviously inspired by the motions and graphics of the retro games.

The “plot” is struck into motion when Mario and Luigi find an underground network of pipes underneath the city, and both get sucked into one. Mario is launched into the Mushroom Kingdom, that seems happy and jolly, but is threatened by Bowser (Jack Black). Luigi ends up in the dark lands, becoming Bowser’s prisoner. The villainous turtle has obtained a Super Star necessary for his desired domination of Mushroom Kingdom and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). But Bowser will not be completely satisfied until he simultaneously weds Peach, along with obliterating all of the kingdom’s residents including Toad (Keegan-Michael Key). Bowser performs a song about his passions a few times that feels so completely uninspired that it’s almost cloying. I cringed.

Princess Peach introduces Mario to the concept of power-ups, that soon allow him to change from his short, measly demeanor into a much bigger, and much stronger plumber. Here’s where I become slightly more confused and somewhat averse. I’m not sure what the objective is here. But in fairness, once Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and his army of gorillas showed up in the second act of the movie, I began to check out a little. I wasn’t pushing away the idea that the third act is overwhelming, and acting as if I’m too good for it. I merely wasn’t engaged anymore.

Maybe I would have stopped (literally) yawning through the final half hour of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” if it had the good mind to surprise me a little bit more. Instead, the narrative follows the most basic of basic plot beats to get the characters from point A to point B and then back to point A again. That’s what most movies do, right? But “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” should not be the average film. It should be expansive, and artistically devout. Yes, the animation itself is colorful and quite gorgeous. Admittedly, this is a very imaginative film. In fact, I spared at least half a star from my rating because of the animation.

Otherwise, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is soulless. And most unfortunate of all is the experience of watching this film trying and failing time and time again to redeem itself. All of the voice acting is fine, but it shouldn’t be. In a film that has so many big names permeating its poster, the talent should be so much more reflected through the characters. Pratt has been relentlessly teased online by Mario fans on the fact that he should not have been picked for the role. He’s fine in the movie. Not great, not bad, just fine. And truthfully, you really start to forget he’s there after a while. Brian Tyler’s booming score is decent enough, but that too becomes dreary after some time.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” simply feels restless. It should be exhausted, and maybe it actually is, but as of what we can see at first glance, it just drank twelve cans of Red Bull. If it had come out when I was seven, I probably would have loved it. Children who are currently that age will probably enjoy it a lot too. I do not hate this film, and it’s not the worst thing in the world for families to see this Easter weekend. I am simply in dismay.

Now playing in theaters.