Movie Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Rating: 2 Stars
In the year 2023, Mattel’s most famed creation had an aspirational tale to tell. The Barbie movie also managed to weave in plenty of shameless brand advertising. In a similar vein, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a shameless piece of brand advertising, although it has no qualms to tell as generic a story with the most generic milk-toast characters possible.
Mario is also in a unique position like Barbie or Legos to traverse a generation of adults and children. This rendition of the Mario movie is for families but moreso aimed toward the Nintendo Switch-playing children that will recognize Mario’s variety of power-ups added to the games over the years.
Mario Bros. lore is plentiful and the filmmakers and animation designers definitely had the YouTube creators in mind with their “HERE’S THE 1,785 EASTER EGGS YOU MISSED IN THE MARIO MOVIE” videos sure to analyze every pixel of screen.
Producing The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a major feather in the cap of Illumination Entertainment who have seen great monetary success with their other animated efforts. From a critical standpoint, I find their work to be moderately enjoyable family features but lacking a desired flair. Despicable Me was a fun concept that had its moments, but since then I don’t see their output as challenging any box office conventions.
It’s Illumination’s lack of risk-taking that must’ve made their studio the prime candidate to produce the Mario movie. Mario is unchallenging, unflappable, unassuming, and lacks a distinguishable personality. The Mario movie doesn’t aim to change that perception.
The result of Mario’s safe broad appeal led to a billion-dollar boatload of cash that will no doubt spawn sequels and spinoffs.
I can’t take issue with what the Mario movie set out to be. Many mothers and fathers need a bright and colorful animated picture to distract the kids for a couple hours. The Mario movie accomplishes that goal. It’s not a movie that should be criticized far beyond whether it will entertain your second grader.
There’s a fun kart racing scene for my fellow Mario Kart fans. I imagine the scriptwriters were toiling over how to shoehorn kart racing into the plot. There are warp pipes, item blocks with power-ups, infinite toads with annoying voices, and a parkour montage to make sure Mario hits all his paces.
Princess Peach has a notable role as she is surprisingly not captured but instead leading the charge against the evil Bowser who only wants to claim Peach’s hand in marriage. Luigi is the unfortunate soul who ends up imprisoned. One of Luigi’s cellmates is a cutesy miniature star who blurts out how they wish for the sweet release of death. A bit grim, but slightly funny considering the rest of the film seems so inconsequential.
My favorite note about the Mario movie is the music is composed by Brian Tyler deriving themes from Koji Kondo who produced the original themes for the Mario video games. Tyler has been the composer for the Call of Duty series as well as some Marvel pictures, and my personal favorite the Formula 1 theme. Talk about a present-day composer who can get your heart racing.
