For 40 years, intrepid plumber Mario and his brother Luigi have captivated gamers of all ages, taking them on whirlwind adventures in which they teleport through pipes, stomp evil mushrooms and rescue princesses. Why do they do this? Dozens of games, several television shows and a truly terrible 1993 movie have failed to give an answer … the plumbers just warp from our reality to the next, shooting fireballs and competing in go-kart races without any deeper mythology.
There’s no real answer provided in the new Super Mario Bros. Movie, either, so don’t get your hopes up. Mario and Luigi are swooped from Brooklyn to a mystical world for reasons never really explained and embark on a quest that makes little sense but accurately captures the games’ color, energy and humor. As cinema, it’s a mess. As simulation, it works.
Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are trying to make their bones as plumbers, but constantly dealing with the disapproval of their competitors and disappointment of their parents. When they attempt to repair a massive sewer leak, they’re pulled into a portal that sends Luigi to a haunted forest and Mario to the Mushroom Kingdom, where he joins Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her bodyguard Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) to save his brother and defeat the evil Bowser (Jack Black), who wants a star that can give him all-encompassing power.
The latest animated effort from Illumination, The Super Mario Bros. Movie isn’t a subversive, Lego Movie-esque dig at video game cliches. And it’s not a Pixar-inspired tug at the heartstrings. It’s a 90-minute, straight-down the middle kids’ movie, more interested in capturing the fast-paced look and feel of playing Super Mario Bros. and keeping the kids laughing than anything else.
And at that, it’s a success. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic co-direct with longtime Illumination animator Pierre Leduc and create a bright and colorful world ripped right from the Nintendo games. Long gone is the 1993 movie’s goo-covered, dystopian aesthetic. This time, anyone who played the original Super Mario Bros. in 1985 will recognize the giant mushrooms, boxes festooned with question marks, mushroom power-ups, and Piranha Plants. Mario and Luigi have their iconic jumpsuits and mustaches, and all the characters feel pulled right from the game cartridge. It’s quite possible this is the first film to be powered solely by Easter eggs – every visual gag, audio cue and line of dialogue is pulled from some corner of Mario lore, so much so that anyone who hasn’t ever picked up a Nintendo controller at least once will probably be entirely lost. But then again, how many people aren’t familiar with Mario?
The film moves quickly, and Matthew Fogel’s script makes sure the story is constantly darting in and out of different video game setups. An early scene where Princess Peach coaches Mario through an obstacle course complete with chomping venus flytraps and rotating bars of doom captures the anxiety-inducing fever of the original side-scroller, while an extended chase sequence should please fans of Mario Kart. Luigi dashes through a haunted castle, Princess Peach floats to safety, mushrooms turn Mario big and leads turn him into a flying raccoon – something that will make no sense to anyone who was never a 10-year-old playing Super Mario Brothers 3. Even Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) shows up to rumble.
Charlie Day and Chris Pratt in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” Photo: Universal/Illumination.
Kids will likely love the fast pace and slapstick energy. The cast is fine but, aside from Jack Black as a smitten Bowser, no one really stands out enough to overpower the IP, although Rogen does get to pull out his famous guffaw. Some of the jokes are worth a chuckle – a nihilistic blob of cuteness trapped with Luigi is a highlight – but the film lacks the anarchic edge that Horvath and Jelenic brought to Teen Titans Go! But that’s okay; that’s not what this film is. The movie is simply a Mario delivery system, designed to pack the screen full of Thwomps, Koopas, and “mama mias” – and there are a lot of “mama mias,” including at least two delivered in slow motion.
Whether any of this is good or not will depend on the viewer. I’m sure there are some 30 or 40-something gamers who will be upset this isn’t a cohesive, coherent deep dive into the Mario mythology, but the truth is that this source material was always going to best fit as an animated kid’s movie. There will be those to whom the movie is just a barrage of loud noises, episodic game callbacks, and flashing lights – and I can’t say they’re wrong. But there will be many kids and parents just wanting 90 minutes immersed in the Mario world, recapturing the frenzied joy they got from mashing buttons, smashing mushrooms, and discovering their princess was in another castle. And to those people, I say: “It’s-a this movie.”
