The Super Mario Bros. Movie

★★☆☆

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

Runtime: 92 minutes

MPAA: Rated PG for action and mild violence.

Early on in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, we get a glimpse into the commercial that Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) have spent their entire life savings on. "That is not a commercial. That is cinema," Luigi claims, which naturally reflects what the film itself aspires to be. It succeeds more in the former than the latter.

It's easier to get cynical at the movies these days than one would like to admit. Regardless, I always approach projects, franchises and experimental films with an optimistic mind, which explains why a significantly tinier portion of movies land below the halfway mark than most profiles of professional critics or analytical moviegoers would. Movies like these have, time and again, split audiences and critics into two different worlds, with audiences finding the thrill of the spectacle when the film leans into nostalgia and references enough, while critics hold it up against the ceiling of cinema. My position in this argument is as follows: a film can simultaneously exist as commercial and cinema, but it needs to have a meaningful story or perspective to tell. There's nothing wrong with callbacks to the source material we all love. But cinema also has the responsibility to engage audiences while moving something forward.

In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, directors Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic have created a film that, under the most optimal conditions, will satisfy longtime fans, children and families on the most basic level. It even reaches for substance, embedding it in a story of Mario and Luigi being outcast by society, labelled as failures and looked down upon. Despite working from a generic template of good versus evil without adding anything insightful, the visual design is spectacular, even if the voice cast is unevenly utilised and the worldbuilding doesn't rise up to that level. Sadly, it's largely offset by the burden of having to cram legacy characters, game references and lore into an extremely compressed 90-minute runtime, rushing through storytelling that all its potentially good elements get abandoned. The heart of the story is there, and I'm tempted to give this a marginal pass. But it ultimately doesn't feel satisfying when all is said and done, racing past everything way too quickly.

A short prologue sees Bowser (Jack Black) obtaining the Super Star and intending to invade Mushroom Kingdom, with the intention of marrying Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). In Brooklyn, Italian-American brothers Mario and Luigi are struggling with their self-owned plumbing business, something their former employer Spike (Sebastian Maniscalco) derides them for. At home, things aren't better. With the exception of their mother, all family members disapprove with the direction they're headed too, leading to a moment where Mario doubts his self-worth, contemplating whether he's dragging Luigi down for that. While familiar, it's one of the most thoughtful aspects of the film, where you can tell the filmmakers are desperately trying to be earnest in their approach. A pipe bursts downtown, and they decide that despite everyone hating on them, they'll redeem themselves and prove their detractors wrong.

Spoiler: it doesn't go as planned. But the series of chaotic events leads them to an unexplored area underground, where Luigi and Mario get sucked into a green-coloured metal pipe, bringing them into the world of once peace, now in devastation. Luigi gets separated from Mario, both landing in different locations, revealing a corner that the film writes itself into. The title is The Super Mario BROS. Movie. Notice how I'm capitalising the word BROS. From the construction of the narrative, it becomes glaringly apparent that Mario becomes the centerpiece of the story, while Luigi is mostly reduced to a damsel in distress, which makes their brotherhood not fully convincing, given that it speeds through flashbacks and moments spent together. The world was cruel to them. How did they endure, resolve conflicts and move forward together? To its credit, the film occasionally tries to grapple with this question.

The breakneck pace also affects other aspects. Peach's backstory involves her not knowing about her origins, being discovered by toads and becoming the princess of the kingdom. It goes through these so quickly that it never considers to strengthen the idea of how Peach emotionally connects to her newfound community and home. Likewise, as Peach, Mario and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) embark on an adventure to ally with the Kong army, it careens through a multitude of visually spectacular sights, but rarely settles down for us to immerse into the world they're attempting to build. A later scene also reinforces this issue. Mario and Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) are trapped inside a creature, both arguing and berating each other, but eventually, their problems reveal similar struggles that could connect them together. This conflict is resolved in a mere minute, before they find a way to escape from the creature. I'm getting the impression that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is more of a speedrun than an actual movie. As a funny point of comparison, Mark Fischbach's Iron Lung is pretty sluggish in its pacing, and for a minute development that his character takes five to ten minutes completing, this movie has already completed a checklist of items.

I've been rambling for six paragraphs, but I haven't even addressed the turtle in the room. Bowser wants total control of all kingdoms, and has a borderline severe infatuation with Princess Peach, hence he forcefully steals the Super Star and invades kingdoms. He even threatens Peach with the destruction of hers and the torturing of her allies if she doesn't comply, and is exceptionally furious at Mario as he sees him as an obstacle to winning Princess Peach's love. His thought process is warped and delusional, but the absurdity of it all becomes unintentionally funny when viewing from a distance. You're obviously not going to make someone love you if you threaten the destruction of their home and execution of friends as you officiate a forced wedding with them. Has he ever reconsidered his attitudes and values? Voiced by Jack Black, he also sings a song titled "Peaches" halfway in, which made me never want to hear him sing again. Maybe at least until the actually decent Lava Chicken song in A Minecraft Movie. While not great itself, the movie would go on to be at least slightly more functional with some personality that this one relatively lacks.

The climax is also something else to be discussed, as Mario redirects a missile to the tunnel instead of somewhere more meaningful like Bowser's castle or an empty patch of land. He transports their kingdom to Brooklyn, while they desperately fight to get their hands on the Super Star. Bear in mind that Bowser has had the item in his hands the entire film and could have used it anytime during one of his meltdowns. Strangely enough, the people cheer and finally accept them for containing the chaos that they willingly brought to the place, disregarding the actual damage that the fighting has caused. Still, it somewhat wraps up Mario's story and journey.

"You're no fun to be around!" would probably be something I'd be told. Truth is, a movie can be fun and does what it sets out to do, but it needs to be - first and foremost - focused, efficient and satisfying. Despite this essentially full-fledged essay dissecting structural inconsistencies and underdevelopments, I'll admit that I enjoyed the experience more than this review would suggest. I didn't grow up playing the games, but am familiar with the gameplay, items and did sometimes hop on Mario Kart in the arcades during weekends. The movie aggressively throws references at you, making blurry memories crystal clear after it ends, and it's at least comforting to long-time devotees. It even has the ingredients to do something ambitious or creative. Unfortunately, the execution barely lets them breathe, leaving one hoping that they'll get it right next time.