I have always been skeptical of video game to movie adaptations. After the atrocities of the Tomb Raider movies and the Assassin’s Creed film, I didn’t have high hopes for the Italian plumbers. However, I was dead wrong. The interesting plot choices combined with the excellent animation definitely surprised me as I’m sure it did for many other people as well who went to go see The Super Mario Bros Movie in theaters.
The film stars Chris Pratt as the plumber in red, Charlie Day as his brother Luigi and Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach. There was a lot of controversy and speculation over the casting choices. I was intrigued to see how it would pan out but wasn’t overly excited by any means. After watching the movie, the cast choices didn’t bother me at all.
Off the bat, it was clear that this movie’s target audience was definitely aimed at the younger generation. That doesn’t stop me from watching or enjoying the movie, however. The Super Mario Bros Movie incorporated childish themes in addition to multiple nostalgia callbacks from the video games and the Mario World. I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of Mario lore they instilled into the film. I think it’s actions like that where you can get a variety of the fanbase from. We saw this in Star Wars, Marvel and DC. The fans want to see the producers bring in cameos and minute details about certain lore. There was plenty of that in this film and I loved it.
The beautiful animation also helped greatly to the film’s success. From the action sequences to the landscape shots, everything looked amazing. One of the studios that worked on this movie was Illumination, which also worked on projects such as Despicable Me, Minions and The Secret Life of Pets. Now in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, they prove themselves once again why they are so sought after as one of the best in the industry.
The only real issue I had with the film was its predictability and pacing. It seemed like they crammed a whole lot of content in a short 1hr and 32min. It was also super predictable with certain plot points. You knew exactly what was going to happen. Contrary to that, I do understand that this is a movie aimed at the younger generation but a good plot twist never hurts anyone. There is so much to expand on in the Mario realm that I would have been perfectly fine if they made this a film series and introduced new and more of the characters that Mario interacts with.
Final Thoughts
Despite being a super content-heavy, yet relatively short, film, The Super Mario Bros Movie proved that animated kid’s movies can still bring joy to any generation. Whether you grew up playing Mario Bros on the original Nintendo or want this movie to introduce the Italian plumber to your kids, I highly recommend this movie if nothing more than as a feel-good, happy watch.
