The Super Marios Bros. Movie Review
The Super Mario Bros avoids disaster, but doesn’t bring anything new to the tale in this all too familiar animated film.
Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are down on their luck plumbers in New York City, terming their company the Super Mario Bros. One day, they find themselves sucked into an alternate reality, but get separated from one another on the way. Luigi is deposited in Bowser’s (Jack Black) darklands, full of danger. Mario is deposited in the Mushroom Land, where he enlists the help of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) to get his brother back. Together, they must form an alliance with Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and the land of the apes, and defeat Bowser and his marauding armies.
The first thing to note about The Super Mario Bros. Movie is that Chris Pratt’s voice is fine! It obviously negates having him involved in the slightest, but after a brief introductory psyche-out in a television commercial, both him and Charlie Day return to largely their own normal voices. What a relief.
For fans of the games, there is a lot to love about this film. The movie pays homage to many elements of the various games. A personal favorite, as a fan of MarioKart, was the ape kingdom kart escape and battle along Rainbow Road.
Jack Black has a lot of fun as Bowser - flipping the script somewhat on what the villainous character. His dulcet musical tones are on full display here. Rogen is also fantastic as Donkey Kong. His appearances throughout the story are the highlights of the film.
Across the board though, the remainder of the cast makes little to no impression. Most of the characters aren’t likeable or unlikeable - just plain forgettable.
While the animation looks fantastic, narratively the film is a complete waste of time. There is nothing really funny, fun or smart on display here. It’s checkbox filmmaking - journeyman-esque, just ticking boxes long enough to desperately try and hit a runtime that justifies its in-cinema existence, and it barely scrapes by at that.
When you compare it to smarter animated fare that works for both kids and adults, it comes up short. Where’s the biting humour of something like Shrek, or more recently Puss In Boots: The Last Wish? Those movies had staying power, both in cinema and in culture, because they (a) played to more than just the young audience (b) were genuinely smart and funny and (c) had a cast of characters that were fleshed out, real and engaging. Here, we have vapid insipidness, with almost no humour outside of slow motion animated Mario hitting pipes, and side characters that make little to no impact. Try comparing Toad in this film to Donkey in Shrek, and you’ll get my meaning.
While The Super Mario Bros. Movie is undoubtedly better than the disaster many predicted, and will surely make lots of money for the studio, it is one of the most pointless, flavorless and disengaging animated films of recent memory, in a time where fantastically inventive animated films grounded in engaging plot are the norm, not the exception.
