The Super Mario Bros. Movie

 

I actually really enjoyed this movie! It is such a good movie to go see with friends and family. It's light, fun, and a little silly. 

The characters were all done very well, my favourite character was Luigi voiced by Charlie Day. He was the perfect choice to voice the character and I wish there was more of him. I was worried about Chris Pratt voicing Mario since that just seemed so wrong. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be though and after a while you forget that it's Chris Pratt’s voice. I loved Toad and I thought the village of Toads was adorable. I also really liked Princess Peach voiced by Anya Taylor Joy. I kind of expected her to be the damsel in distress like she was in the Super Mario games I played growing up. I was pleasantly surprised that she actually had an integral role in the movie and I liked that she was the one teaching Mario everything and holding her own. I did find it funny that Luigi kind of became the damsel of the movie which fit well with his character.



The one character that made no sense to me and was completely unnecessary is the weird depressed and suicidal blue star. It was not that funny and was very out of place, especially when they broke the fourth wall towards the end of the film. There is also a weird saxophone bit that I also can not explain. 



I really liked the relationship between Mario and Luigi and thought it was easy to relate to if you have siblings. I also liked the incorporation of the real world (Brooklyn, New York) vs the game world. I thought that Bowser being in love with Peach added another layer to the movie, instead of him just wanting to take over. I also love Jack Black in this movie and his song “Peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches”. I also like that the film took from multiple different iterations of the game including Mario Kart. 



The animation was actually pretty good and was a lot better than I was expecting. I find that a lot of Illumination films are not technological marvels and are typically very basic in terms of animation and quality. But this was definitely an exception and was very fun to watch. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the film’s soundtrack is. The licensed music that they used included songs like Mr. Blue Sky, Take on Me, and Thunderstruck, which were paired nicely with the reinterpreted Mario songs. 



The story was okay, it didn’t blow me away and was very predictable given I have played many of the games and understand the general concepts. The film also doesn’t have a very concise conclusion and just kind of ends. The game world gets sucked into Brooklyn somehow and it is unclear how it just returns to normal after they defeat Bowser.



Overall, it is a pretty good movie that met my expectations for the film. I had a good time and the movie is a lot of fun. I like that it's a movie you can watch and enjoy even if you aren’t a big Super Mario Bros. fan. It is great movie to go out and see in the theatre.