It’s once again time to talk about the latest superhe…hold on. We’re getting another trend here. One that seems to be pouring into cinemas to join its domineering companion of the superhero film. Video game adaptations have seen a sudden influx since the success of 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog, and it’s no wonder how this single film brought this about. We’re a far cry from the days of Old, when video game movies were rife for instant failure. Now that the generation of the first gamers have grown up, we now have the chance for some genuine quality in these films. And not just a smorgasbord of base-level nods to the games that studios simply see as marketable franchises.
This brings me to this marketable property. There’s been much discourse with the opinions of this film, and I wanted to wait for the dust to settle before I could lay my own opinion down. I’ve grown up with the Mario game just as much as many others have, with Super Mario World being one of my first gaming experiences. Growing up a Nintendo fan, I’ve always had this natural attraction to the series. I’ve always felt that this franchise, however, could not possibly ever make it to the big screen. They tried in 1993 with the abysmal live action film, and for all it’s enjoyably bad content, it’s objectively a terrible film. When hearing that Illumination were going to make an animated film, I groaned at the mere mention of their name. With the first Despicable Me being the only film of theirs I have even remotely enjoyed, I couldn’t think of a worse studio to undertake this difficult task.
The Mario games have very barren stories; their not ones you play for narrative. Any studio is going to have a massive undertaking on their hands. The trailers showed a promising, entertaining romp, but I was still hesitant, given the studios lacklustre affair. Now that I can finally throw in my two coins, and have this bounty of game knowledge behind me, I can tell you exactly how I felt about this film. Without hesitation, this is Illumination’s Super Mario Bros. Movie. Let’s-a-go?
As I said before, the games aren’t known for their stories (maybe outside of the various RPGs.) This film seems to want to match that barebones plot quite closely, as there isn’t much of a story here. It starts off promisingly, with an introduction to our ferocious villain, Bowser (Jack Black) burning down an icy castle and discovering a Power Star that will allow him to rule over the Mushroom Kingdom, governed by Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy.) We then cut to the very real Brooklyn, where we are introduced to the titular brothers, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day.) The two are struggling plumbers, undermined by the community and even their own parents.
The two find themselves trying to help the city out by fixing a massive leak, but find themselves teleported through a mysterious pipe. Mario finds himself in the heart of the Mushroom Kingdom, meeting Toad (Keegan Michael-Key), an explorer, and self-appointed protector of the Princess. Luigi, meanwhile, ends up in the clutches of Bowser, and it’s up to the trio to find a way to stop Bowser and rescue Luigi. Peach leads the way, teaching Mario the ways of the world, and getting help from some familiar Kongs.
The Story is your standard “hero saves the world from the clutches of a terrible monster” cliché. This isn’t exactly a far cry from the original games, but then there lies the problem. You can excuse the very thin plot of the games, because the gameplay is what matters most. This film doesn’t really understand how to take advantage of the tools given to it. The opening gives us a little more promise, but as soon as Mario and Luigi enter the kingdom, the plot completely derails. Mario’s entire motivation is rushed through with reckless abandon. We aren’t given much time to sit on the narrative, and any conflict is resolved within a few seconds. It’s comical how lazy the writing is. Mario just accepts this quest that Toad proposes to him without so much as a thought. Toad doesn’t even spend much time questioning Mario’s appearance in the world. It’s even worse when Mario meets Peach for the first time; she throws him on the ground after it appears he’s running at her, but then just lets him join her quest with a simple exchange of words.
The whole film is rushing through the necessary story beats, but there isn’t a strong enough structure to keep it stable. Bowser’s ulterior motive of wanting to marry Peach comes quite suddenly, but could’ve easily been rectified by having a small bit of dialogue at the beginning to show his intentions. The role reversal of Luigi being the one who is captured, and Peach having to lead the charge, is a good choice. Peach, in the games, remains rather flat as this outdated stereotype of being the typical damsel in distress. With Luigi’s cowardice being a prominent feature of the modern games, it makes total sense to have him take that role. But then you run into a couple more problems. Peach doesn’t have much to her character outside of a need to accentuate her empowerment. I’m not going to act like one of those sad losers who complains about “wokeism” in a film that honestly needed it, but she isn’t exactly all that interesting. I also didn’t feel Peach needed Mario in this story at all. She seems to handle herself very well without him, even when things seem rather dire.
It’s funny that I’ve waited until this paragraph to talk about Mario. I do appreciate that Mario has any sort of personality here. In the games, he’s more of a blank slate that just yelps and “wahoos” all over the place. I do like that he has this over-protective and persistent personality. It was also nice to see him get angry or frustrated; it’s something that the games rarely ever showed. But when you look at his overall role in the film, he adds nothing more than simply being the icon we all recognise. That opening act had so much promise for what could’ve been a fun little bonding adventure for the brothers, but Luigi is caged up through most of the film, and we get such a bland, derivative story with very little direction.
I’m somebody who values story and narrative above anything else in a film, and I absolutely hate when I can see the script within the final product. When watching this film, I could visualise the screenplay, and a checklist of all the required basics of a story. When you look away from all the pretty visual and overabundance of references, there’s an absolutely atrocious structure.
There’s a lot of ‘stuff’ in this film. There’s so much ‘stuff’ to talk about, but make no mistake, this isn’t exactly the most dense content you’ll ever see. I do want to talk about the elements that I did enjoy. Probably the most enjoyable aspect was Bowser. It isn’t his motivation, per se, but more his personality. Jack Black is one of the major standouts, as he delivers this fine blend of his own personality with that of a greatly repressed incel that couldn’t have been anything other than this particular choice. Bowser being this creepy, obsessive villain, trying to force Peach into a marriage was a good direction to go, and it’s often through his constant practicing and abusive behaviour towards his minions that got the most entertainment. I really enjoyed the small moments, like him using Kamek as a practice princess, or the already infamous love ballad that refuses to leave my head. Bowser was thoroughly entertaining, but the film must remind us that this is not his film.
What I thought would be a simple diversion from the plot ended up being far more prominent. That being Donkey Kong’s inclusion. Seth Rogen plays the role of the infamous gorilla, and while many will complain that he isn’t really performing the role, I think he fit the character well. I actually found myself enjoying the Kong stuff far more than the Mario stuff. I really enjoyed DK being this showboating hero to the Kongs. And his relationship with his father was enjoyable. It’s far better than the forced conflict of Mario’s parents not respecting him, and it was so much more entertaining. When it comes to these two characters’ respective game series, I’ve always preferred the Mario games, but this movie had me wanting a standalone DK movie. We’ll most likely get that in the future, but I don’t have enough faith in Illumination that that film will be any good.
There’s so much flub in this film. The film is jampacked with content, but none of it feels very weighted. Things just happen with little to no explanation, and as a fan of the games, I hardly questioned much of it. But my mind frequently turned to the casual audience that never played these games. The film presents the iconic power-ups in a very matter-of-fact way, as if the audience should just accept that this is how it works. While it was fun seeing which power-up they would pull, some being a little more obscure than others, they aren’t given much reasoning. Question Mark Blocks simply exist and the logic of the world is simply the way it is. I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t introduce such specific elements. Things like the geography of the different lands, or even these strange obstacle courses that contribute nothing more than recreating the games’ layouts, are all fine, but they really needed to expand upon the reasoning of these items’ existence. There’s too much reliance on the audience just knowing these things, but I doubt a casual viewer would even remotely understand the logic of something like the Cat Suit existing.
I want to talk about something that many felt was going to be a worry: the voice casting. Many, including myself, were so annoyed by the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario. The entire cast was picked out based on their notoriety, there’s no doubt in that, but there wasn’t any say in whether they could deliver a good performance. I had already accepted that they weren’t going to use the games’ cast, not the least upsetting being the lack of Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario and Luigi, but the specific choice of Chris Pratt had me worried. The voice direction for all these characters is much different from the games, but after the first few minutes of Mario and Luigi’s screen time, I honestly forgot about the outrage. Everyone does a good performance, or at the very least, an adequate one. The only person I didn’t think fit their role was Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, but it’s not to the point of total disconnect with the character.
I want to circle back to that casual audience remark. If you are a fan of these games, then there’s fan service aplenty. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t giddy about the amount of deep cuts that made up the body of this film. The obvious stuff like the power-ups and world design are good, but it was the more obscure things that I enjoyed. Having Wrecking Crew‘s Foreman Spike as a minor antagonist, seeing the boxers from Punch-Out, hearing that classic rap from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show or the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64. There’s so much love put into the references and easter eggs that any Mario fan, new or old, can really enjoy. It does show that there’s more than just a factory-like corporation behind this, and so much of this is attributed to series creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, being directly involved.
These references, however, are mostly the crux of the entire film. If you want a whole ninety minutes of fan service, then you’ll get just that. The references and nods were fantastic…for a while. Around the time when the gang do arrive at the Kong Kingdom, and we hear Donkey Kong arrive to that classically bad DK Rap, I think I was all spent. The proceeding nods just became exhausting, and I realised that that was pretty much all the film had. It’s a case of style over substances, and I’m afraid that style wears thin. It’s reference after references, and it turns into something akin to watching a compilation of video game easter eggs. You can shove in a Charles Martinet cameo all you want, it doesn’t distract from the complete lack of plot.
There is much to celebrate on a presentational platform. The animation is spectacular, far greater than the ugly, dumpy look of the studio’s previous attempts. I loved the attention to detail, and the expressiveness of the characters. There’s a fine middle point between Illumination’s “style” and the visual comfortableness of the games. The original games have never had that much visual flare when looking at the characters, but the film does know how to make the most out of them. Some character designs did lean a little too close to Illumination’s usual standards. Sometimes Donkey Kong felt like something out of Sing, and then there’s that dog from early in the film that looked like he came from Secret Life of Pets. Generally speaking though, the animation was great.
The music was both brilliant and awful. That sounds very confusing to someone out of the loop, but I know others who have seen the movie will agree. We get some truly phenomenal renditions of music from the franchise’s past, and not just the iconic ones. I liked hearing the smaller surprises, like the few notes of the Luigi’s Mansion theme, or the opening melody of the original Donkey Kong game. These renditions were absolute ear candy. But then we get the time-old tradition that Illumination cannot move away from: the pop songs. These songs are horribly chosen. It’s not even because they’re out of place in a Mario movie, they just don’t fit, and aren’t used remotely well. The song choices were also overdone. Holding Out for a Hero and Mr. Blue Sky are used in scenes, and it just felt like I was listening to a stock movie soundtrack. Why would you open the Kong Kingdom on A-ha’s Take On Me? It makes no sense.
I’ve shown a very mixed opinion throughout this review. But if I am going to lean over to a particular side, I’m going to have to agree with the critics on this one. If you want a film that gets by almost entirely on references to the games and pretty visuals, then this is exactly what you’ll get. It has some really fun action scenes, and a few jokes did make me chuckle, but I also felt aggravated. I cannot get past how rushed and lazy the entire story felt. It’s downright insulting to think the audience would eat this up, deflecting criticisms with a handful of stuff we all recognise.
One counterpoint I’ve seen reiterated by fans is that ‘the games don’t have very good stories, so why should the film,’ and I absolutely hate that excuse. This is a story-telling medium; even the most basic of children’s films can tell a compelling story. And just because the games lack a tight narrative, doesn’t mean you should adapt that wholesale. That idea that the film is null from legitimate criticism because it’s ‘for kids,’ also feels like an easy deflect. Kids deserve to have enriching film experiences as well, and you can take such a basic concept and turn it into something both fun and a little nuanced. I’m not expecting a mature experience, but I do expect the film to have something more than baseless fan service and common denominator humour.
My biggest hope would be for Illumination to look at what didn’t work well, and improve upon that with the inevitable sequel. But this is a studio that has a terrible track record, and only cares about the financial success. I did have hope for this film, and I dare say that it’s one of the best Illumination films out there, but it’s so hollow. There’s no identity separate from the franchise it’s adapting, but casual audiences will eat it up because it keeps their kids quiet. I’d of hoped to see another, more talented studio handle this film, but we’re stuck with a company that think the Minions are the peak of comedy. It’s-a-bad.
Written by Conor Johnson.