Thirty years ago, Nintendo teamed with Disney-backed Hollywood Pictures to make the first film based on a video game intellectual property, Super Mario Bros. The live-action film had an amazing cast that featured established stars such as Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper and then-up-and-comers John Leguizamo and Samantha Mathis.
And then there was also the fact it featured almost no ties to the game outside of character names and Mario and Luigi wearing red and green, respectively. Instead of Toad citizens and the Mushroom Kingdom, we got a dystopian Manhattan with ties to dinosaurs, Bowser as a human mob boss, and hookers. Yes, you read that right…hookers, as in sex workers.
With an adaption that far off the rails, it’s no surprise the film was a critical and box-office failure that led to Nintendo staying out of the movie business until now. This time, Nintendo teamed up with Illumination Studios to bring a fully animated reboot called The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has an all-star cast that includes Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Seth Rogan, and Keegan-Michael Key. It tells a story similar to the game. Basically, two struggling plumbers, Mario (Pratt) and Luigi (Day), are inadvertently transported to an unknown world where they must stop Bowser (Black) and his plans to destroy it.
Unlike its predecessor, which proudly proclaimed “this ain’t no game,” this Mario Bros. film is all about the game. That commitment to staying faithful to the source material is present in numerous ways and pays off handsomely.
The easter eggs throughout the film reference everything from early Mario to the short-lived Super Mario Bros. Super Show to more recent Nintendo properties. If it’s in the game, it’s in this movie.
The beauty of what Illumination animators did in bringing the Mushroom Kingdom to the screen also stands out. Even with today’s gaming graphics standards, the world of Mario has never looked better. It’s colorful and uncompromising in terms of making sure it’s familiar to the fans who have followed the franchise from its 8-bit beginnings to now.
The animation reaches its apex when it employs gameplay. The scenes where Mario maneuvers around the Mushroom Kingdom’s landscape and utilizes the various power-ups to fight off and through the Koopas look great. However, it’s the Rainbow Road sequence that reaches spectacle levels.
Leaning so heavily into the elements of the game is also Super Mario Bros. Movie’s curse. Exploring most of what the Mario Bros. property offers works well for nostalgia and world-building, especially considering this is an origin story. At the same time, too much of anything is bad, and this is no different.
The dependency of the film on reminding viewers of what they saw/played in the Mario Bros. games leaves practically no room for anything else to move it along. Even for a family-friendly film, the writing is too safe.
At the heart of the issue is that writer Matthew Fogel’s script leaves you feeling nothing. It lacks the punch that made other family-friendly offerings like its Illumination brethren, the Despicable Me franchise, endearing.
It doesn’t strike much of a comedic cord, which is wildly disappointing considering the film has elite comedy talents in Pratt, Day, Rogen, Key, and Black. Except for some earlier jokes during our introduction to Mario and Luigi and Black’s scene-stealing power ballads, the humor is far and few between.
There’s also zero emotional weight. Fogel attempted to establish some via Luigi’s storyline, but it didn’t land, primarily due to Luigi not being around enough to make it work. It’s understandable not to have too much of it in a film meant to be light, but you have to get it right if you try it.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie didn’t have a high bar to surpass the brothers’ first foray into film, so holding it to that standard undersells the product. It’s not the most memorable film because it doesn’t live up to the full potential of a movie with the voice talent this one packs. It also lacks the edge many animated features possess that prevents them from being mundane.
What Nintendo and Illumination did get right was making a visually-stunning yet flawed family film with enough nostalgia to hold parents and older viewers’ attention and eye-catching enough for younger audiences to stay engaged.
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