Movie Thoughts: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

• Released: April 1, 2023
  
• Directed by: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Pierre Leduc, Fabien Polack
  
• Running time: 1 h 32 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

Two plumber brothers end up in a magical realm, where one of them, Luigi, gets captured by the evil Bowser. The older brother, Mario, joins up with Princess Peach and Toad in order to gather an army and put a stop to Bowser.

My Thoughts

This movie has been pretty hyped before it came out, but certainly not by me. I'm not big into video games anyways, and honestly I never really saw the appeal of any of the Mario games. The only one I remember playing was Mario Kart on DS, but that's only because it was the only karting game I had at the time and not because of any attachment to the Mario brand. Not saying I hate the Mario games or anything (I've briefly played a few others, such as Galaxy, Party and New Super Mario Bros. for Wii), I just never really saw the appeal of the characters, world or storyline.

I didn't go in with the intention of disliking this film, though. The trailers did look pretty promising, so I went in cautiously optimistic. I'm not a huge fan of Illumination as a studio, but they've produced decent to good films in the past, so why not here? 

Unfortunately the final product is a bit of a mixed bag. I wouldn't call it outright bad or anything, just...not very good. I think it is a fun movie and kids and diehard Mario-fans will probably get a kick out of it, but for me it was just a kind of sub-par family film. 

So let's start with the positives. First of all, it looks very good. I haven't seen all of Illumination's movies, but I have seen a large chunk of them and I think this is definitely one of their better-looking films. The animation is great, the environments look creative and stellar and the character designs, while sticking close enough to the original game counterparts, also do have that neat extra polish that movie adaptation designs often have. I also thought that some of the comedy (keyword being some) was funny, and Jack Black really stole the show as Bowser. The instrumental soundtrack was also very pleasant on the ears, being a nice balance of new music while also blending in some of the riffs we're familiar with from levels from various Mario games.

The rest is just kind of a mixed bag, however. My main gripe with the movie is just how forced and rushed it all feels, with very little attention given to the characters or their arcs. The plot just gets going once Luigi and Mario go down that pipe and it doesn't stop for a second after that. There's very brief moments of character exploration, but by far not enough for our characters to feel like anything but rather stock-y. Characters barely have arcs, and if they do they're super basic. Mario's entire deal is that he doesn't know if him never giving up is a good or a bad thing. Peach is implied to have something more to her with her ending up at the Mushroom Kingdom as a child, but they never delve into this bare bones backstory of hers, either. Heck, why is she even a princess? Never elaborated on. Also, shouldn't she be the queen of the Toads, not the princess, since she's their sole ruler?

So, yeah, don't expect any real character depth here. Everyone just meets up and instantly goes along and on with the plot we go, we barely have any time for actual character moments. Even Mario and Donkey Kong, who at first don't like one another, go through a (very basic) arc of finally learning to get along, but this again is so rushed that it doesn't leave any impact. They dislike each other, they end up in trouble, they come up with a solution, instant best buddies.

I'm not saying that the characters are godawful or anything, but they're just super bare bones. I do like some of the directions they went with the characters (such as Luigi, the brief moments he gets) and Peach. I get that they didn't want to damsel Peach in this movie (with her being pretty much the only major female character), and I like that she has more of a mentor role for Mario. But I then do not care about how Mario very soon learns to surpass her on a lot of levels. 

Seriously, I'm all for adding more strong female characters to your movies, but it kind of just really diminishes Peach's skills when Mario manages to surpass her on stuff like fighting after only being in the fantastical realm for a day or so. Remember, Peach grew up here. She's had years of experience and time to hone her skills. Now this rando plumber comes along and after one, maybe two days of being in her kingdom instantly just surpasses her. He doesn't even fully know how the world works (not until near the end of the movie, anyways), yet still he somehow manages to make things work for him.

And I get it, Mario's supposed to be our hero. But then I really don't get the point of making Peach a stronger and more proactive character if we're going to have her be pretty much instantly outdone by this newbie. I also know I shouldn't go into The Super Mario Bros. Movie expecting a super deep plot or characters or anything, but there's also such a thing as being too bare bones, especially if the plot is basic as hell with no unique twists and turns, the characters are super basic and the movie itself feels rushed. A story with a simple or familiar plot can work so long as the execution is good, but that's just not the case here.

As for Bowser: He's a neat balance between threatening and comedic, which is neat. I just...kind of wish they balanced it more. He's very much introduced as a threat early on, but then in the middle his comedic moments kind of overshadow his threatening ones, making the stakes of the film feel lower because our "big bad" doesn't seem so threatening, more so funny. And then during the climax we're once again supposed to take him more seriously. I don't mind them trying to do both with the character, this can be done excellently on some characters (think Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2). But on Bowser it just felt a bit too goofy in the middle compared to how he was introduced and how we're supposed to see him during the climax. He's still the best character of the entire movie and absolutely steals the show, I just think that if they'd balanced his comedic and threatening aspects a tad more he could've been even better.

Regarding the voices, I'll also again have to talk about Peach a bit. Her voice acting is fine, but something about the voice just didn't really fit her character for me. Maybe it's just a little too soft-spoken for the action-oriented strong-minded character she is. Again, the actress did a fine job, but I don't find her super fitting for the role of Peach. The same can especially be said for Cranky Kong, who has the most unfitting voice of all. Peach doesn't fully fit, but at least somewhat suits her character. Cranky is supposed to be this elderly somewhat kooky king, but instead he sounds like a just some guy in his early thirties. Nothing about his voice fit the character.

And to address the elephant in the room: Chris Pratt as Mario. He does...fine. I know we all memed on how bad he sounded in the trailers, and I still think that we should've gotten Charles Martinet or at least someone sounding closer to him in the role, but Pratt's Mario isn't awful. You get used to it after a while, but again like with Peach and Cranky I just don't find the voice super fitting, even disregarding the fact that he doesn't sound like the game-version of Mario. 

Mario's design is inherently just kind of goofy and to hear this rather bland every-man voice come out of him (Pratt is a fine actor, but he doesn't have a huge voice range) it just doesn't really fit. Even Charlie Day as Luigi, while not sounding like his game counterpart, still suits the role better than Chris Pratt does Mario. So I guess I just have a few issues with the voices they got. It looks like they favored celebrity actors before getting great voice actors, or fitting voices. That said, there's a few roles who do work really well (aside from Luigi). Bowser, Kamek and Donkey Kong all have rather fitting voices. It's just...not that great overall.

As a final criticism: this movie did not need this amount of licensed songs playing in the background. I get that they're usually there for recognizability, but they oftentimes didn't even fit what was going on on-screen. I'm usually not one for using music like this in films in general unless it really enhances the film, but here it just seems like they kind of went hog-wild with it because oftentimes it wasn't even necessary. I'd much rather have listened to more of the awesome instrumental soundtrack than these at times rather unfitting songs. 

So overall...I do not consider this a very good movie. Not bad, but also not very good. A perfect six out of ten. However, like I stated before, it is still a fun movie to watch, especially for younger children and Mario game fans. I guess because I fall into neither category it's just not really for me.