REVIEW: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Some die-hard fans of the franchise may have to correct me, but I don't remember Mario having a solid backstory. Or any backstory. I'm pretty sure he just emerged fully grown from a sewer pipe one day and started chucking turtle shells at mushrooms for fun.

I remember, for example, that Mario and Luigi are canonically brothers, yet there's little opportunity in the video games to explore anything like a relationship between them. That's domain better trod by film.

And this weekend's feature film adaptation from Illumination does succeed in carving out character, personality, and history for all the players on the board. The fact that Mario and Luigi are brothers isn't just a way to excuse their nearly identical apparel. Their relationship is the foundation for Mario's quest. Even more impressive is that the film reaches its degree of texture with its characters without cramming in exposition overload. This is one area where the shorter runtime of a family film maybe helps keep the film focused, but there appears to be an equal and opposite reaction.

It feels at times that this adaptation is so intent on proving that video games can actually work as feature films that it loses itself in its desperation to be just like all the other movies already on your nephew's Netflix queue, sacrificing any identity of its own. Make no mistake--this adaptation goes out of its way to remind the viewer of Mario's specific history from his 40 years of video gaming. This is a movie dripping with homage. It's the tone and general aesthetic that keep the film in the middle lane.

In a similar vein, the film expects the viewer’s familiarity with the property to cover a lot of the story’s connective tissue. Peach is really quick to trust that this mustachioed foreigner is somehow the key to protecting her kingdom. I don’t expect Tolkien-level of worldbuilding from a 90-minute film, certainly not from a universe that already sports such delightfully sporadic elements. And I commend the writers for finding a believable reason to feature Rainbow Road in this narrative (and to honestly portray it as the warzone that it is). That said, I don’t think I’m ungrateful for asking for a more compelling tension than whether or not Bowser's prom date is going to have apocalyptic repercussions.

From the film’s all-star voice cast, about half of the players feel the need to disguise their celebrity. Some (Jack Black or Keegan-Michael Key) wouldn’t be spotted by the unknowing listener. Others (Chris Pratt, Anya-Taylor Joy, and Seth Rogen) bring their full selves to the role. Whichever method the performer chooses, the actor ultimately serves the character. I’d single out Charlie Day as Luigi as our MVP here for always keeping this little brother's duress at the forefront without ever making him come off as snivelly or shrill.

Similarly, the character animators deserve special recognition for grounding this skittle-colored odyssey in recognizable pathos. It can’t be easy articulating complex thought from such cartoonish designs, even if (especially if?) they're some of the most iconic, but the animation affords the characters a whole new dimension of emotion beyond the range of 16 squares.

For all the hero's enduring popularity, it's easy to forget that Mario has always been an underdog. An honest, working-class champion of the little guy who happens to get thrown into an explosively colorful world that is so much larger than him. That's not something this film overlooks. For how conventional this film sometimes likes to play itself, this is a film that remembers where it came from.

--The Professor

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