The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

While working underground to fix a water main, Brooklyn plumbers—and brothers—Mario and Luigi are transported down a mysterious pipe and wander into a magical new world. But when the brothers are separated, Mario embarks on an epic quest to find Luigi.

If there is one thing that my username gives away is that I am a huge Mario fan, and you would be right. I love Mario and have been attached to the series for more than 15 years, having played many of the mainline games and spinoffs (both old and new), and growing up with the DVD release of the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon series.

However, while I have consumed massive chunks of the pieces of media the iconic Italian plumber has put his mark on, one piece of Mario media that I have not consumed much of are his motion pictures, and there is a very good reason why: they range from either average at best animated productions to terrible trainwrecks, and it seemed that the most recent installment in this piece of Mario media, 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, seemed like it could end up being in either boat, if not then perhaps an in-between area of quality.

Surprisingly, however, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, while not the most majestic piece of art ever conceived, is an enjoyable, if flawed, film, and is a good step in the right direction for the entire mustachioed man franchise.

The first thing to grab my attention about the film is the stunning animation. On the surface, it may not seem too different from other Illumination movies, but on a closer look, it’s much more unique than its peers, utilizing a unique form of 3D animation that is essentially normal CGI, but with live-action/more realistic textures (a style that I don’t really see often used in current animated movies), while also still staying true to the fantastical and cartoony essence of the games.

Speaking of which, the film, unlike its infamous live-action counterpart, is also greatly loyal to the original source material, using a lot of elements, characters and set pieces from the original games, but also not over relying on them and also slightly reworking some of these past elements and set pieces a bit to make them fit more naturally with the context of a movie version of the Mushroom Kingdom. For example, the coin blocks from the original games being reworked into blocks that allow Toad citizens to withdraw coins for them to spend on things in the kingdom, with the coin blocks themselves working nearly similarly to their game counterparts (jump and punch up and a coin will pop out for you to collect), but this time with a slightly different purpose.

The movie itself also has a decent story, that, while does suffer from being a tad bit too simple (though to give it some credit, Mario has always been rather simple), doesn’t rely on overused kids film clichés (minus I guess the general concept of a human being transported to a fantastical world in search of a family member) and, for the Mario series, surprisingly subverts some expectations in its execution, such as Luigi this time being the one in need of rescuing as opposed to Princess Peach, which, depending on your view, is a noteworthy change.

The acting from the lead cast was also really great, with Chris Pratt and Charlie Day doing a decent job as their respective Mario brother (though I will agree with the popular consensus that Chris could’ve perhaps sounded more Italian when voicing Mario, but for a more stereotypically-Brooklyn interpretation of the character, he does a much better job than most who have attempted such an interpretation, such as Marc Graue in Hotel Mario for instance), Keegan Michael Key being a fairly funny Toad (even if his character is the most underdeveloped one and the one with the weakest chemistry amongst the cast), and Jack Black just steals the show as Bowser, with him portraying both the threatening monstrous tyrant from the main line series and the dumb and soft yet lovable comedic villain from the Mario RPGs (a portrayal I love, by the way). I even kind of liked Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong, whose performance I found to be much more different compared to some of Rogen’s other roles, as in most of the other movies he has starred in, his acting mostly consists of him acting like the “funny normal and relaxed guy”, whereas in here, he plays a much more distinct “buff and confident tough guy” (on the topic of the portrayal of DK, I also liked his brief rivalry with Chris’s Mario around the end of the second act).

Lastly, I really adored the film’s score, with its use of classic Mario tunes, and while I do think they shouldn’t really be there, I didn’t really hate the pop culture songs present here (although moments like playing “Take On Me” during the “Entrance to the Kong Kingdom” sequence are stuff where I did wish some other song (whether it’d be from pop culture or more original) was playing during the scene).

However, while The Super Mario Bros. Movie might be good, it does have several issues. For starters, the movie’s pacing is perhaps a bit too fast, with the film often rushing one scene to get to the next one at a majorly quick pace. This is especially noticeable in the middle of the second act, where Mario, Peach, and Toad head to the Kong Kingdom, and journey through several other worlds and kingdoms (most of which are obviously from other Mario games, such as Rock-Candy Mines from New Super Mario Bros. U or Cascade Kingdom from Mario Odyssey), however, instead of showing them arriving in these kingdoms, completing levels, defeating enemies and interacting with the worlds’ locals, they instead just skip all of this journey by showing the trio just walking around and journeying these locales in a montage that lasts only a few minutes.

Scenes such as the aforementioned montage and a few others go by far too quickly, which makes the story, characters, and overall writing seem much more basic and underdeveloped than it really should be, which isn’t the worst thing in the world and most certainly not a dealbreaker (like I said before), but it does make the writing feel a lot more lacking, especially in comparison to other animated films.

Another thing that I did not really enjoy while watching the film was the humor. While there were a few jokes here and there that made me laugh, such as the quirky dialogue exchanges between the villains Bowser and his second-in-command Kamek (excellently portrayed by Kevin Michael Richardson) and some lines from the character of King Penguin (a new character from the movie voiced by Khary Payton), the majority of the humor is rather weak, consisting of cheap quip-based comedic bits, tiring running gags, and dragged-out slapstick, which failed to make me chortle on several occasions.

Overall, though, while The Super Mario Bros. Movie may have some flaws, which keep it from standing as strong as its video game roots or even other adaptations of the source material, remains a decent time, with a fun, if very rushed and incomplete, story, great grasp of the source material, stellar animation, good score, and solid voice acting. For my recommendation, I would personally recommend it to Mario fans, first and foremost, as it is clearly made for them, though if you do find yourself in a more casual audience, but do not mind films with boatload of references to past moments of its franchise, dull humor, or rushed storylines, then I’d personally recommend this movie to you too.