The Super Mario Bros. Movie

We are in a good time for animation.

Perhaps one of the surprises of 2023 at the box office along with Barbie-Heimer.

Nothing new in the story of Mario, Luigi, Peach and the others. However, it is a delivery that has everything, heart, soul, good fan service and an animation that is off the charts.

It has a great soundtrack and Jack Black breaks it with "Peaches, Peaches" which was a meme and very viral for months. A separate fact was the non-nomination of this song at the Oscars (regrettable).

I hope that the fact that it was a box office success does not detract from the quality of the next installments.

Highly recommended for nostalgic adults and children (and not so children).

Sometimes you come across a movie that takes no risks. It's light on story, avoids character development, and focuses on getting to the next scene as easily as possible. Mario Bros. Doesn't have any inherent plot holes or issues, but it tends to leave you in a state of just being a viewer rather than participating in the movie. In the end, it's not bad per se, but comes off as flat and lifeless.

The positives are all agreed upon by anyone who likes it, because the positives stand out by not being able to be compared against anything else. People have fun with the action. They love the Easter eggs. And the composed music is good. The action is done well, but without much dramatic weight, only carry the movie so far. Easter eggs don't nor should have any bearing on how good the ovoid is. The music was well incorporated, minus the pop songs that truly don't work.

It's not good enough to play things easy, and rely on fans to spot visual Easter eggs, to call the movie good. It's average at best mostly because it was watchable and didn't have any outright flaws. It just didn't take chances that could've ended up becoming flaws. Even if you had a good time watching it, there's not enough value to see it again. If you're a fan, check it out. If not, you won't miss a thing by skipping it.

I think for what this movie sets out to do, Super Mario Bros. Movie pretty much ticks the boxes of an entertaining, reference fan-service heavy movie. A lot of the jokes are basic sure, but it's just impressive that there is some competency to a Video Game Movie. Sometimes simple and straightforward is the best way to go. Not high art or anything, but it ticks off almost everything for what Mario should be at least. Voice acting wasn't as bad as I thought, and Jack Black was the highlight as expected. Yeah, not gonna win any big awards but judge it for what it is, and yeah by Video Game Movie standards it's one of the best ones easily if you ask me.

6.5/10.

Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are struggling Brooklyn brother plumbers. When the city's sewer goes haywire, Mario sees an opportunity for heroic fame. Instead, they get sucked into an alternate world. The brothers get separated. Mario joins Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) to recruit the Kong army in their fight against the evil turtle Bowser (Jack Black). Luigi gets captured.

It's brightly colored. It's energetic. It's got the characters. There's the game play. The story is fairly simple. It's pretty much what I expected. I wish there is more heart to it. The brothers could have been that, but they get separated pretty quickly. I played some of the games over the years and this will probably appeal to the fans. It's got all the brightly colored chaos for the kids. It's less so for everybody else.

This is a movie that feels like a love letter to all the Nintendo fans out there, even if they don't necessarily play Mario anymore. The film delivers a fun and enjoyable experience for viewers by faithfully adapting every aspect of the game into the movie, including the Mario Kart and Donkey Kong franchises. The movie is packed with non-stop action and fast-paced storytelling, leaving little room for some of the more significant elements that fans might have wanted to see. It may not be able to fulfill every fan's wishes, but it's understandable and sets up for a sequel, as there is a post-credits scene.

But for general audiences who are not familiar with Mario enough, this might be a movie that is difficult to understand. There may be questions like why does it have to be like this? Why do it this way? Why is the world so strange? This is because the story hardly explains in detail for us to know how the world is. Even though the story is simple and has nothing much. But if you don't think too much, it's an easy and enjoyable movie to watch, with the lovable characters in the style of the works from the studio that made Despicable Me.