The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Review)
It seems the only thing you haven't drained is my bank account
Before we begin, it is worth mentioning that The Super Mario Bros Movie shares a suspiciously high number of plot points and action beats with Thor: Ragnarok. Maybe this is an indication of the state of four quadrant tent pole blockbusters; maybe it is a glimpse into what writer Matthew Fogel was using for his vision board. Or maybe they hoped no one would notice, but if I were an enterprising YouTuber desperate for views in an endless sea of clickbait and non-content, I’d be editing together a 1:1 comparison with haste.
The Super Mario Bros Movie is a straight down the middle, no risks-all rewards sort of movie. Which is exactly what Nintendo wanted, having been scared away from attempting this for exactly thirty years. They picked an animation studio (Illumination) who can deliver a good looking product that keeps a small child’s eyeballs attached to the screen, and is more focused on hyper-adorable broad comedy than the philosophical introspection that comes from a Pixar or Laika. The Mario franchise of video games has a very straight forward narrative - Mario rescues someone kidnapped by angry turtles. And this movie delivers a story where Mario rescues someone from angry turtles.
The movie is littered with easter eggs and call backs to the franchise of games to keep the attention of anyone who has even a single game in the history of the franchise. And the story kept the myriad of under tens who filled my theatre from getting too shifty in their seats (under tens who, based on their reactions, know Mario best from Mario Kart instead of any of his jump and punch adventures, which likely explains why the entire second act puts the movie on pause in favour of a short Mario Kart movie). I warn the casual viewer who has not developed Nintendo thumb over the past decades, this movie might not be enough to keep you locked in.
A long time ago, I said to a friend that Mario is basically Beowulf: a warrior arrives in a foreign land, defeats a plaguing evil, marries the princess, and fights a dragon. At it’s core, it’s a very basic, primal, mythical story. Despite not wanting to invite comparisons with the older live-action 1993 film, this animated feature uses the exact same set-up: Mario (Chris Pratt, doing nothing special) and Luigi (Charlie Day, perfectly cast but criminally underused) are plumbers of indeterminate age who live with Joey Tribbiani’s family in Brooklyn. They fall down a pipe and find themselves in the Mushroom Kingdom, which is besieged by Bowser, king of the Koopas, who seeks to rule the world. Standing in Bowser’s path is the headstrong and interminably courageous Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy, who could literally be anyone else).
The movie is a brisk 92 minutes long, and while I am a huge advocate for a tight ninety in my run times, my biggest issue with TSMBM is that it moves too quickly. I happily would have sat for 100 minutes, if it meant that characters actually had conversations with one another, or that character development had more room to develop. Things happen in this movie because they need to, not because they want to. Toad (Keegan-Michael Key, doing his best with very little) and Mario exchange all of a half dozen lines before Toad is Mario’s best friend. Peach accepts Mario’s help despite him being an alien from another dimension with almost no hesitation. Characters are static until they need to be different. Luigi, for instance, is cowardly throughout until he suddenly needs to be brave - which is great, except the sudden swell of bravery feels unearned because he hasn’t done the work to better himself, he just decide that he is in fact brave.
In terms of plot, the film moves between major set pieces with as few character moments as they can get away with. And I get it, they want to keep things simple for the kiddos. Kiddos might not track the nuance of a heroes journey. But at the same time, I feel like someone - either Illumination or Nintendo - isn’t giving kids the credit they deserve. There are interesting moments that I wanted to be explored further - Peach’s mysterious origins, and what Mario’s existence might mean for her is a delicious existential crisis that I wish we got to see Peach go down. It would certainly add reasoning as to why she is willing to bring Mario along with her. Mario himself is presented as having both self-esteem and confidence issues, neither of which ever really seem an impediment to him, as the first scenes of the movie establish him as a parkour expert even without mushrooms. Oh, he doesn’t like mushrooms until he’s forced to eat ones that give you super powers. That’s Mario’s journey.
The best developed character in the film is Bowser (Jack Black, the movie’s MVP): he has motivation, he undergoes change when his conception of the world is challenged, he feels like he is responding to the events of the film instead of just being part of them. He also has the only relationship with another character that feels like a relationship and not just incidental proximity. He has actual back and forth conversations with Kamek (Kevin Michael Richardson), his major domo; they relate to one another on a personal level. The only other relationship that gets as much attention is, oddly, that between Mario and Donkey Kong (Seth Rogan). There is more development between Mario and DK as rivals than there is between Mario and Bowser, because Mario and DK get to share scenes and establish boundaries, and so when they overcome their prejudices it feels like it didn’t just happen.
The Illumination team has made a movie that looks absolutely fantastic. The Brooklyn scenes especially have a level of detail that is startling. The rusted pipes in the sewer, the details in the fabrics; every time a cartoon character isn’t on screen it drifts into the uncanny valley of reality emulation that cannot help but be impressive. And the fantasy world of the Mushroom Kingdom, Jungle Kingdom, Dark World, etc. are all equally impressive. The short scene of Luigi running in terror from a hoard of zombie turtles is genuinely engaging and suspenseful. There was clearly considerable though given to the substance and texture of living in these worlds, I just wish we got to see more of it.
As a final note, for a film that bend over backwards to avoid any internal introspection on behalf of it’s characters, it is a movie bizarrely obsessed with death. And it is in that obsession with death that the movie betrays a wit that isn’t present anywhere else in the script. A captured Luma has descended into bleak, hilarious nihilism. A koopa troopa is incinerated and when the fire subsides a zombie dry bones is in it’s place. It is morbid, but it is funny. Besides that though, every character is threatened with death multiple times in a way and in a volume that I don’t notice in animated movies. It is… casual. Death isn’t treated with a sense of seriousness, despite being the number one threat. There is no torture in the mushroom kingdom, it’s straight to the fire pits with you.
Don’t go into TSMBM expecting to see transformative cinema. Do go into it expecting to see a gorilla beat up an Italian-American, then race cars with him immediately afterwards. Set your expectations, and enjoy accordingly.
The Super Mario Bros Movie is in theatres now.
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Super Mario Bros.
So, let’s have a chat about the original 1993 film. One of the most infamous movies ever made. Critically derided, financially destructive, long heralded as one of the worst movies ever made. A movie so bad that it scared Nintendo off of adapting any of their properties for thirty years. Does it deserve that reputation? It is a bad Super Mario movie, there is no question, if what you were expecting was a direct adaptation of what, at that time, was seven side-scrolling games. But if it were called “Dinotropolis” or something similar, and had no connection to a video game franchise, how would it stand up?
I honestly don’t think it would be vilified as much as it is. It is no masterpiece, to be sure, but it would definitely have a place in the early nineties grunge-punk action genre alongside Tankgirl, Barb Wire, Johnny Mnemonic, and Demolition Man (a genre, it should be noted, that The Matrix firmly belongs to, it just happens that The Matrix was better than it had any right to be and thus transcended genre into general popularity). From the creators of Max Headroom, SMB is a movie filled with insane ideas but not bad ones. there is nothing here that wouldn’t be out of place in an issue of Heavy Metal or independent comics at the time.
Hoskins and Leguizamo turn in terrific performances, regardless of what production was like, and Hopper is doing what you would expect Hopper to be doing in 1993 playing a maniacal dinosaur-man. The special effects are also not to be dismissed. Are they Jurassic Park standard? Absolutely not (SMB was realed two weeks before JP), but they also aren’t the worst you’d see in 1993. Yoshi is a hyper-realistic, adorable little raptor creature, and the prosthetics and animatronics on the goombas and other denizens of Dinohattan look good.
Is it a movie that I want to throw on all the time, absolutely not. But it is an interesting time capsule of an aesthetic, and an chance. It is a reminder that some filmmakers are hired because they think about things in unique and inventive ways, and equally tend to have their careers sidelined because they don’t think of the four quadrants. I would also argue that of the video game adaptations of the time, it is nearer the top of the pile than the bottom. Certainly better than Street Fighter, and arguably better than Mortal Kombat.
Super Mario Bros is apparently not steaming anywhere.