Film Review - The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures.
After years of fear and anticipation since its announcement, it’s a relief to write that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the video game adaptation that hardcore Mario fans always wanted.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie stars Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) as plumbers with amazing moustaches trying to be taken seriously in their neighbourhood of Brooklyn. They stumble into the lands of the Mushroom Kingdom populated by Koopas, Goombas and mushroom people, which they get used to weirdly quickly. Separated early on, Luigi is captured by Bowser (Jack Black), hellbent on ruling the kingdom, so Mario teams up with Toad (Keegan Michael-Key) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) to save his brother and the kingdom.
Story comes second and spectacle takes centre stage in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Once the Mushroom Kingdom comes on screen, you feel transported by the colours and incredible animation that you expect from the filmmakers at Illumination. Each aspect of every scene, down to Brian Tyler’s nostalgic score, has details and easter eggs that fans of different levels can notice. The Mario Kart sequence is a particular standout of what the film is trying to deliver. Pure nostalgic visuals, fun action and humour delivered on an epic scale far beyond any kids’ film.
The film saves itself from being one long cutscene by the vocal performances of the cast. The actors do their jobs well, especially Charlie Day as Luigi, but you could replace any of these top Hollywood actors with professional voice actors and it wouldn’t make a difference. The actor who’s clearly perfect for his role is Jack Black as Bowser, the true MVP of the film. He's putting 111% into the role, using his own wild humour to give Bowser actual character. But there’s one question everyone wants the answer to. How is Chris Pratt as Mario? He’s surprisingly not bad. Pratt brings a lot of respect in his performance. It’s evident he wanted to stay true to the character but also make it sound more tolerable. While iconic, it would be tough hearing that original Mario voice trying to deliver serious dialogue for 90 minutes.
However, even though the film is called The Super Mario Bros. Movie, it doesn’t seem interested in showing the titular brothers on screen together much. It spends a lot of the first act establishing their strong bond as brothers but once Luigi gets kidnapped, he’s essentially out of the movie until the last 20 minutes - sorry Luigi fans. The film’s humour also doesn’t work for half the time and while the score is truly amazing, it gets sidelined at times by a cliche 80’s soundtrack that should have no place being in this kind of film.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is better than you’d initially think. It’s surprisingly epic and well made by people who know this world inside and out, and that will make even the most lifelong fans enjoy at least some aspects of it, even if it’s just the easter eggs.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is screening in cinemas from Wednesday 5th April. For tickets and more info, click here.