directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic
written by Matthew Fogel
As a direct result of the disastrous 1993 live-action adaptation of the Super Mario Brothers game, it would be nearly thirty years before Nintendo ever let Hollywood near any of its properties, let alone the jewel in its crown. That has finally changed with the release of The Super Mario Brothers, a new animated film produced by the money-printing juggernaut that is Illumination Studios.
Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are Brooklyn-based plumbers who have just quit their jobs with Spike (Sebastian Maniscalco) much to the disapproval of their father Giuseppe (Charles Martinent) and the derision of other family members. When their first gig as self-employed plumbers goes awry, Mario is downcast, but when he sees a plumbing crisis on the news, he rushes Luigi there in the hopes of fixing it and boosting their business, only to find themselves sucked into a mysterious portal down in the sewers all the way to a whole new world, a magical but terrifying world in which the evil King of the Koopas, Bowser (Jack Black) wishes to marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) of the Mushroom Kingdom and is willing to destroy her kingdom and a whole bunch of others in the world if she doesn't consent. Mario and Luigi are separated on the way here, with Mario ending up in the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi ending up Bowser's territory. Mario asks for help from Peach, who in turn needs to enlist the Kong army if she hopes to defeat Bowser.
The movie is very much a love letter to the wildly popular video game series that started back in the 1980s, with references galore to them, so many that even I, who have barely played the games, got more than one reference. It's also, with its bright colors, broad humor and fast-paced (90 minutes) storytelling that really doesn't stand up to any measure of scrutiny, the perfect example of Illumination's tried-and-tested kid-bait. It's a fun movie that sets very simple goals for itself and accomplishes them with a little bit of flourish but really, nothing more than that. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day are well cast as the title characters, and even though the script gives them next to nothing to work with they really give it their best. The same can be said for supporting players like Jack Black, Anya-Taylor Joy, Keegan Michael Key who plays Toad and Seth Rogen who plays Donkey Kong. To be fair, nobody is phoning it in here, but with a script as devoid of any substance as this, how could they have screwed it up?
While this was a fun movie in its own right, people really shouldn't wonder why critics and awards giving bodies continue to keep animation as a medium of cinematic storytelling stuck in a ghetto considering how Illumination studios has dominated the box office in the post-pandemic era with stories like this which barely even bother with basic things like character development or even a meaningful story. I mean, this is a studio that built its fortune on tiny people who speak gibberish so I guess this is the most we can expect from them.
People cheering for the success of this movie and the box-office failure of outfits like Disney may not realize it but when the market is later flooded with brain-dead video game adaptations, they may come to miss the kind of movies that Pixar or even Dreamworks used to offer like Inside Out or How to Train Your Dragon. Granted, Disney has only itself to blame for losing its way recently, but really, audiences should demand better than this.
By now, the film has made over a billion dollars at the global box-office so we should really expect more of the same of this in three years or so and another two or three years after that...at least until the audience gets tired of consuming what is essentially the equivalent of cinematic cotton candy.
7/10
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