What an absolute joy the Super Mario Bros Movie is. And no, I don’t mean the live action Bob Hoskins film from the 1990s…although I do have a soft spot for that as well.
This new animated Mario Bros movie from Illumination who are responsible for Minions is exactly what a Mario movie needed to be. There a few interesting choices which we’ll get to, but this is as near to perfect an adaptation as a fan could want.
The movie starts by showing Bowser who is voiced by Jack Black destroying a kingdom of cute penguins and gaining the power star. It’s weird how this opening was similar to Thanos turning up at the start of the Avengers Infinity War and causing havoc.
From here we join Mario and Luigi and it’s quickly established that their ott Italian accents are just put on for a commercial. The voices in the film are about the only major point of contention from any area of the fan base and that’s because Mario sounded more like Chris Pratt being Chris Pratt than Chris Pratt being Mario. We get a short cameo from Charles Martinet who is the real voice of Mario in the games and he plays a character with Mario’s exact game voice but designed closer to the original Donkey Kong Jumpman version of Mario…from the arcade cabinet and box art.
Certainly it’s always been the case that Mario’s origin has dotted about from him being from Brooklyn, him being full out Italian and him just being a being that exists in the world of the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s fun that they ground Mario and Luigi in a version of the real world and that we get to see the extended Mario family.
It’s probably not intended as a callback to the Bob Hoskins film that them being plumbers in Brooklyn and getting sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom, but a sign that this was and still is the best approach to start a Mario Bros Movie adaptation. In this respect this acts as a form of vindication that the old live action film didn’t literally get everything wrong.
Mario and Luigi are soon sucked through a sewer pipe and warped into the world of Bowser and Peach. Mario sets on a quest to rescue his brother whilst Luigi ventures through some nice callbacks to Luigi’s Mansion and the haunted house levels from the Mario games.
From here we’re introduced to Peach who fears a war with Bowser and plans to form an alliance with the army of Kongs to take on Bowser. It’s great how the movie has connected dots and bridges gaps to make a world and story which is more coherent than the games usually. We know that Donkey Kong and Mario exist in the same universe, but we’ve never really had a sense of them being from two different kingdoms before.
Cranky Kong is upgraded to leader of the Kongs and Donkey is the Thor to Cranky’s Odin. Mario has to defeat Donkey in order to get the help for the Kongs and we get all manner of references and power ups from the games. It’s a nice touch that in the audience we see Diddy, Dixie and Chunky Kong and certainly I’m sure a lot of people are expecting that we’ll get a Donkey Kong Country spinoff sooner rather than later.
It’s fun to see that they address Mario being small and that his grabbing a mushroom makes him grow bigger. It’s also a neat touch that they establish that Mario doesn’t like mushrooms when obviously he eats them for power ups and is in the mushroom kingdom.
Jack Black as Bowser is loss of fun and his vocal work sounds just like you’d expect for Bowser other than when he sings. I love that Bowser sings and just reverts to pure Jack Black and that they used the singing talents of Black to great effect.
This is a film which it’s been funny to see movie critics blast and fans and general audiences absolutely love. It’s a simple film in that it knows exactly what it’s trying to be and does that perfectly. Mario fans will love all the fan service and non Mario fans are sure to still have a blast too. Let’s face it, most people in the world will know who Mario is so anyone who doesn’t get why a giant turtle dragon wants to marry a human Princess who rules over mushrooms and is rescued by plumbers…well they can blame themselves for not playing a Mario game in the last 35 years.
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