The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review: One Of The Best Movie Adaptations Ever From A Video Game
Cast: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, Sebastian Maniscalco, Kevin Michael Richardson, Charles Martinet
Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Where to Watch: In theaters
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The Super Mario Bros. Movie opens with this text, which represents a concrete testimony of the paternity of this cinematographic operation and sounds like a peremptory declaration of intent. The creator of Super Mario Bros, the video game, and the creative director of Illumination and Dreamworks, perhaps the main protagonist of the revival of animation in the West. And indeed, the film directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic embodies both souls of this adaptation: a great family film and, forgive us for the somewhat inflated slogan, a love letter to video game fans. We needed it because, in the collective imagination of those over thirty who grew up with Super Mario, there was still that horrendous 1993 adaptation, which had become cult trash that is destined to remain so.
We needed it, because Mario – as well as Sonic – has experienced a new spring in recent years in the eyes of the little ones, able to rediscover facets of the Italian plumber that we thirty-year-olds who watched it in 8bit had not been able to grasp, nor love. We needed it because video games on the big and small screens are experiencing a thriving moment, destined – we hope – to last. And That’s why we are satisfied to have been able to appreciate Super Mario Bros. The Movie, but with the necessary clarifications. The basis of The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the story of Mario (voice is by Chris Pratt) and Luigi, inseparable brothers seeking success as plumbers in Brooklyn. The two, despite themselves, however, do not find fame, but a portal that sucks them into a magical world, populated by talking mushrooms, anthropomorphic gorillas, and ruthless turtles. Just the leader of the latter, the mighty Bowser (who originally has the voice of Jack Black) aspires to conquer that world and the heart of the beautiful princess Peach (whose English voice is that of Anya Taylor Joy).
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review: The Story Plot
Awareness is the main value of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which arrives at the cinema between the releases in theaters in April 2023, because it is made with technical expertise and written by those who have managed to grasp the essence of the mustachioed plumber more famous in the world, knowing at the same time how to package it for an audience that is as transversal as possible. The sympathy of the protagonists, the subtle irony of an ambivalent comic vein, and an incalculable number of references to the source material make this film a playful and essential product for the little ones and hilarious for the older ones, who will find it the most classic elements of the franchise in a narrative dough that expertly mixes Mario’s “mythology” with original elements. Mario and Luigi are two inseparable brothers who, after years of sacrifices, have fulfilled their dream: starting their own business and opening a plumbing agency called Super Mario Bros., with which they impose the mission to help the citizens of Brooklyn with water leaks.
But they are also two reckless characters and prone to getting into trouble, most of the time ending up causing problems and even being laughed at by their own family. When a major sewer emergency threatens their neighborhood, the two decide to fix the situation but are sucked into a mysterious green pipe that catapults them into an interdimensional world populated by the most bizarre creatures. Unfortunately, the misadventures are by no means over for the two brothers: while the fearless and determined Mario wakes up in the colorful Mushroom Kingdom, the insecure and frightened Luigi finds himself in the dark lands, in the presence of a threat that he is preparing to put in knee all surrounding worlds: Bowser, the evil tyrant intent on subjugating the Mushroom Kingdom and conquering the heart of the beautiful Princess Peach.
To save his brother, Mario embarks on an adventure together with the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom to find allies with whom to fight the war against Bowser, a hero’s journey in which he will learn to have more confidence in himself and to use the many magical tools offered by the fantastic Mushroom Kingdom. This is perhaps the most beautiful and precious theme of the film: Mario is a fallible hero who embodies, with a humorous but tireless spirit, the tenacity of those who have lost hundreds of hours between impossible levels, burning game overs and an incalculable number of lives lost in an attempt to dominate the asperities of Nintendo’s platform. The metatextual value of learning to be Super Mario is the most moving and nostalgic aspect of a protagonist who sheds sweat and blood to leap between platforms, smash bricks and master the arcane powers of the Mushroom Kingdom.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review and Analysis
As we already told in the Sonic 2 The Movie review, transposing an Amarcord-flavored video game for the big screen means understanding the target audience and updating its formula, and in this Super Mario Bros even manages to overcome the good qualities of the adventure-based duality of the blue hedgehog. Nintendo’s love for its franchisees and the quality of Illumination gives life to an operation that, in this sense, has very few flaws: a very simple but functional plot, which gets to the point without too many frills in its dry but very dense 92 minutes of duration. But also, a story that under the shell of a classic family film hides the soul of a choral adventure with hints of superhero action that remain very consistent with the spirit of the work. The Illumination team, therefore, deserves credit for having created a superfine product on the technical side, precise and lively on the animation front, spectacular on the visual and direct level with an attitude halfway between the epic and the nostalgic.
Because if it is true that the action scenes feature incredibly dynamic direction and action of pure superhuman power, on the other hand, how the rules adhering to the history and videogame evolution of Mario are managed will make the eyes of the most attentive and experienced public towards the brand. The film is studded with references and visual citations to the most varied playful incarnations of the franchise, from the classic levels to the most modern 3D iterations, Mario Kart and Luigi’s Mansion. And between mushrooms, cubes to break, power-ups jump and obstacles, some of the most iconic sequences of the feature film are nothing short of impressive for the fidelity and respect with which they recreate the most memorable situations that gamers have experienced over and over again in the past Thirty years of the honorable career of the plumber in dungarees.
Detective Pikachu, Sonic and The Last of Us, to cite only the most recent examples, it seems that the cliché of the video game as an inevitable source of disappointing adaptations is now a thing of the past, and even if in Mario’s case there is still some way to go in the clash between the fan service and the needs of switching from one medium to another, the fun is guaranteed. Thanks, above all to a visual apparatus that shows the maturation of Illumination, so far admired above all for its taste for visual gags and now grappling with an entire universe of possibilities, from chromatic games to the use of water passing through the deformation of the figures anthropomorphic, exploiting the many potentialities of a world where microcosms and ups and downs have always taken precedence over the plot in the strict sense.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie, therefore, renounces (and it is a very welcome renunciation) to propose particularly new or forcibly brilliant stories, as instead attempted questionably by other animated adaptations of video games or toys. He does so because he is aware that the plot has never fascinated the gamers of the series, but the ever-new game dynamics, and the need to learn new rules to move forward and experience that indispensable sense of satisfaction. The sense of the game, therefore, returns as a great protagonist, proving once again to be an indispensable element for this type of cinematographic operation. Because as also demonstrated by Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves, if the film plays and is fun and the spectator can do the same with it, both are the winners.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie, however, in addition to the colorful entertainment, the lively and funny situations, and the jokes, also offers something more. Not a princess to save, which indeed helps to break down this stereotype, but a touching foray into brotherly love. Mario and Luigi, characters with a real heart as well as their iconic appearance, are two brothers who love each other, look after each other, and defend themselves in front of everything and everyone, even in the face of the greatest of dangers. Theirs is a relationship that does not often find space in the cinema, and which instead reminds us, once again, of the inalienable importance of this type of bond. Next to them, therefore, level after level, you have fun, get excited and leave the vision with eyes full of wonder.
From a director’s point of view, the attention paid to recreating, in the more action phases, accurate 2D scenes always in CGI, to recall the early days of Super Mario: it takes place both in the human world and in the mushrooms, leaving us at this point longing for a Nintendo video game that can immerse us in a real context as well as the film made us taste. An excellent directorial cue, combined with excellent CGI, allowed us to visually and technically appreciate the entire product. Among other things, we add a duration that is completely accessible even for the little ones, who are undoubtedly the primary audience of this product.
We launch this statement precisely because of Super Mario Bros. The film does not stand out for its originality in the plot, much less wants to propose an Academy plot, but we justify it because the video game itself did not claim to be written by Neil Gaiman. Sonic – staying on the subject of adaptations for the big screen – has been able to create a much more compelling context, but by making compromises that have completely stripped the SEGA mascot of her universe of his. Mario needed to make us feel at home in the Mushroom Kingdom and experience the fight with Bowser in familiar territory. Although some choices in the final may not convince us and that leaves us a little dumbfounded from a narrative point of view, the world-building works and allows us to see the entire realm of Peach pulsate. Not least also the successful will tell an origin story of the Mario family, as well as of the two brothers, which provides us with a narrative context that is perhaps too caricatured, but valid.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review: The Last Words
The Super Mario Bros. Movie intelligently renounces an elaborate plot to give space to pure visual entertainment, composed of bright colors, funny situations, and exciting themes, but above all proves to be perfectly capable of adapting the dynamics of the series for the cinema video games dedicated to Super Mario. In doing so, it invites the viewer to play actively, providing a memorable experience. Super Mario Bros. – The Movie is one of the best movie adaptations ever from a video game. Nintendo and Illumination have perfectly understood how to combine the need to speak to a very young audience without betraying the feelings of older viewers, in a faithful but above all respectful transposition of everything that the original franchise has represented in recent decades. A fun pastime for families but also a spectacular and superfine animation product, which amuses and excites with a surprising mix of intelligence and simplicity. Just like the mustachioed plumber of our hearts always did.
