There was an uproar when Chris Pratt was announced as the voice of Mario. Personally, I don't hate Pratt (although I don't love him, by any means) but it was a disconcerting sign that The Super Mario Brothers Movie might be taking the typical Illumination Studios route of throwing a big-name cast on top of an uninspired script. Now that I've seen the movie, were those fears justified? Yes. Yes they were.
I'm not, by most definitions, a "fan". Especially by current definitions, which require you to Stan anything you even remotely like to the point of issuing death threats against anyone who dares to speak ill of it. If I like things, I like them for personal reasons, not to tie my identity to them or to take part in some screaming mob. I don't tend to get hyped for, and subsequently disappointed by, the latest big-budget movie. Worst case scenario: I'll forget about it a year from now.
But I was cautiously optimistic for the Super Mario Brothers Movie. I'm not a gamer, but like many of my generation I have a lifelong association with Mario. My first video game console was an NES. In high school I played Mario Party and Super Mario Kart for hours on end with my friends. Recently I completed Super Mario 3D World on Switch--probably the first video game I've played all the way through in at least a decade. I guess you could say the franchise is important to me.
Beyond the actual games themselves, I like the universe Nintendo has created for Mario. It's colorful and comforting and fun. I like the gentle characters, the imaginative game mechanics, the simple storylines and low-key conflicts. If I ever got an urge to write fan fiction, I'd probably set it in the Marioverse. It might not be great, but it would be sincere and nostalgic and full of the joy that the games have given me. Super Mario Bros., by contrast, feels like it was made by a team that never played a single Nintendo video game, much less understands what is appealing about them.
Everything about this is boring. The story is rote and chock full of confusing decisions. The characterizations are flat and dull. The action sequences move so fast, with so little impact, that none of them really matter. The animation is...well, fine I guess, but I'm not giving anybody credit for simply NOT ruining the visually-pleasant environment that game designers have been building upon for forty years.
The screenplay--as per usual in such cases--is the culprit. It's the standard kids-movie template with nothing in the way of heart or wonder. Just a bunch of famous people talking fast and pretending that's an inherently funny thing. Every animation studio apart from Pixar is terrified of sincerity these days, so SMB takes the typical approach of being its own episode of Cinemasins by having the characters constantly lampshade every bizarre aspect of the Marioverse that the games have simply taken for granted over the years: "Okay, so these bricks float in the air, that's normal." "Whoa, a talking mushroom, I guess that's not weird or anything." I think studio executives have this idea that they need to pander to the adults in the audience with these constant self-referential quips or else we'll spend the entire movie laughing at how little sense it makes, but guess what, Hollywood: not every adult is a detached YouTuber who cynically combs through genre movies to crow about "plot holes". Some of us just want to invest in a fantastical world without reservation. Some of us want to go on an earnest adventure without a jaded peanut gallery continually cracking wise and undercutting everything that makes a magical realm special. Can you imagine how insufferable Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy would be if every other line was Aragorn being like, "Okay, an evil wizard made a ring that turns people invisible. Random!" Then he leads a a ghost army and Galadriel shows up for no reason other than to deliver an aside like, "Well, THAT happened." Raise one eyebrow to show how unflappable and nonchalant she is. Then she does kung-fu or something because STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER (who will be completely marginalized in the third act so the men can save the day).
So yeah, all the usual criticisms. A talented cast with nothing interesting to do. A shallow story that has no meaning and serves no purpose except to link together a bunch of pre-existing things you already know you like. A sense of humor that plays into the modern "alternative" comedy tradition of standing outside of things and ironically observing them rather than participating and having genuine feelings about things. A stupid and obvious soundtrack with thirty-plus-year-old pop songs. (That's especially egregious when Mario games have amassed possibly the most iconic musical library of all time. Does the tired training montage really benefit from the made-famous-again-by-Shrek-2 Bonnie Tyler hit "I Need a Hero" when it could be using, I don't know, ANY Koji Kondo track?) A movie that chooses to keep apologizing for its own existence rather than having any fun whatsoever.
That live-action adaptation just keeps looking better and better.
I'm not, by most definitions, a "fan". Especially by current definitions, which require you to Stan anything you even remotely like to the point of issuing death threats against anyone who dares to speak ill of it. If I like things, I like them for personal reasons, not to tie my identity to them or to take part in some screaming mob. I don't tend to get hyped for, and subsequently disappointed by, the latest big-budget movie. Worst case scenario: I'll forget about it a year from now.
But I was cautiously optimistic for the Super Mario Brothers Movie. I'm not a gamer, but like many of my generation I have a lifelong association with Mario. My first video game console was an NES. In high school I played Mario Party and Super Mario Kart for hours on end with my friends. Recently I completed Super Mario 3D World on Switch--probably the first video game I've played all the way through in at least a decade. I guess you could say the franchise is important to me.
Beyond the actual games themselves, I like the universe Nintendo has created for Mario. It's colorful and comforting and fun. I like the gentle characters, the imaginative game mechanics, the simple storylines and low-key conflicts. If I ever got an urge to write fan fiction, I'd probably set it in the Marioverse. It might not be great, but it would be sincere and nostalgic and full of the joy that the games have given me. Super Mario Bros., by contrast, feels like it was made by a team that never played a single Nintendo video game, much less understands what is appealing about them.
Everything about this is boring. The story is rote and chock full of confusing decisions. The characterizations are flat and dull. The action sequences move so fast, with so little impact, that none of them really matter. The animation is...well, fine I guess, but I'm not giving anybody credit for simply NOT ruining the visually-pleasant environment that game designers have been building upon for forty years.
The screenplay--as per usual in such cases--is the culprit. It's the standard kids-movie template with nothing in the way of heart or wonder. Just a bunch of famous people talking fast and pretending that's an inherently funny thing. Every animation studio apart from Pixar is terrified of sincerity these days, so SMB takes the typical approach of being its own episode of Cinemasins by having the characters constantly lampshade every bizarre aspect of the Marioverse that the games have simply taken for granted over the years: "Okay, so these bricks float in the air, that's normal." "Whoa, a talking mushroom, I guess that's not weird or anything." I think studio executives have this idea that they need to pander to the adults in the audience with these constant self-referential quips or else we'll spend the entire movie laughing at how little sense it makes, but guess what, Hollywood: not every adult is a detached YouTuber who cynically combs through genre movies to crow about "plot holes". Some of us just want to invest in a fantastical world without reservation. Some of us want to go on an earnest adventure without a jaded peanut gallery continually cracking wise and undercutting everything that makes a magical realm special. Can you imagine how insufferable Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy would be if every other line was Aragorn being like, "Okay, an evil wizard made a ring that turns people invisible. Random!" Then he leads a a ghost army and Galadriel shows up for no reason other than to deliver an aside like, "Well, THAT happened." Raise one eyebrow to show how unflappable and nonchalant she is. Then she does kung-fu or something because STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER (who will be completely marginalized in the third act so the men can save the day).
So yeah, all the usual criticisms. A talented cast with nothing interesting to do. A shallow story that has no meaning and serves no purpose except to link together a bunch of pre-existing things you already know you like. A sense of humor that plays into the modern "alternative" comedy tradition of standing outside of things and ironically observing them rather than participating and having genuine feelings about things. A stupid and obvious soundtrack with thirty-plus-year-old pop songs. (That's especially egregious when Mario games have amassed possibly the most iconic musical library of all time. Does the tired training montage really benefit from the made-famous-again-by-Shrek-2 Bonnie Tyler hit "I Need a Hero" when it could be using, I don't know, ANY Koji Kondo track?) A movie that chooses to keep apologizing for its own existence rather than having any fun whatsoever.
That live-action adaptation just keeps looking better and better.
