The Super Mario Bros. Movie
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
A Brooklyn plumber named Mario travels through the Mushroom Kingdom with a princess named Peach and an anthropomorphic mushroom named Toad to find Mario's brother, Luigi, and to save the world from a ruthless fire-breathing Koopa named Bowser.
Rowan Krzysiak reviewedFebruary 13, 2025
Okay....now the kids have left the room 😉
I didn't think this movie was good. I actually thought it pretty bad. You could go and see any of the other Illumination films and be greeted with better, funnier, more entertaining lines, characters and set-pieces than this had to offer. Actually the loudest laugh from my kids came from the opening Illumination ident that featured a minion being funny (that's generally what they do). It turned out to be a cruel last pat on the back before being sent onward into the actual film.
And off we go, into the world of relentless winks and nods which, if you're invested in Mario can become quite overwhelming, especially the musical cues. Perhaps this is slightly unfair for most and actually seeing the power-ups, the side characters and the Karts is half the point but it seems to end up as the only point of the film.
The story thread is super weak with little to no questioning of the completely bizarre situations and motivations of anything. People just turn-up, slot in and stand in place for their 'bit of meme'. The desperation to cram stuff into this thing like it's filling cells in a spreadsheet makes Spiderman 3 look like Citizen Kain. Dare I say it but there's elements of the Bob Hoskins attempt that does things better.
The use of licenced music, a stalwart for Illumination here comes off as crass and heavy-handed. As does the whole Italian American thing that Nintendo had seemly slowly ditched elsewhere but here we have 'the family', the vests, the pizza/pasta and more "mamma-mias" than you ever thought possible.
For something so stuffed with references and detail, the whole thing seemed to lack any sort of love and care. The obvious talent of the film studio was perhaps hamstrung by the demands of a game studio that albeit 30 years ago, still had the scars of their last ventures into Hollywood deeply embedded in their minds. No one here has any freedom. There was no independent creativity. Most of the enjoyment was lifted from other content to end up as a mish-mash, roller-coaster of forgettable, templated one-liners of blandness and confusion.
The kids said they enjoyed it which I don't doubt but I've seen them really have a good time with film and that's not what was going on here.
And I think that's the crux of the issue. I started by saying that this isn't a good film. I think that was wrong because as a commercial product that's not true. Everything was there. There's a difference between something being good and enjoyable though and enjoyable this was not.
Disappointing.