The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

57% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 219 reviews)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Aaron Horvath/Michael Jelenic/Pierre Leduc

Starring: Various famous voices, including the controversial inclusion of Chris Pratt

From: Universal/Illumination/Nintendo

Yes, this gets brownie points for having a lead henchman sound exactly like Peter Lorre.

To be frank, going to see a movie like this theatrically is incredibly rare. There are a few reasons why I made this decision yesterday. Yes, I am old so my Super Mario fandom is only reserved for the games made in the 80’s and 90’s, although at least that includes the ones they had for the Game Boy. Yes, I’ve seen the 1993 live action film more than once in my lifetime; it is at least a fascinating and funny disaster. I hadn’t used my AMC A-List pass in more than a month so I shouldn’t let that monthly fee go to waste. And, for a few months now one of the AMC’s in the area has had a new laser projector for their IMAX screen yet this was just my first visit checking it out.

Most Illumination works I’ve managed to avoid. Due to general reputation and my viewing of The Grinch a few months ago, I’m happy to have avoided almost all of that noise, especially the F’ing Minions. Thank heavens then that this managed to be fine overall. The story is incredibly safe and not all of the humor worked for me; be that as it may, it was not an agonizing sit full of awkward, painful attempts at “humor” or “intrigue” that caused me to run out of the room as if my hair was on fire.

It was a standard tale where Mario & Luigi are down on their luck plumber brothers who go through a pipe and end up in another dimension where all those familiar characters are present and Bowser is the villain looking to take over Princess Peach’s Mushroom Kingdom. Yes, plenty of familiar moments are present for fans of the game… even those like me who didn’t pay much attention to the property in the 21st century. Already I don’t remember all the details of the plot-the fact that it wasn’t a film I hated was a win.

This did have too many needle drops (to be fair, this has been an industry-wide problem for many years by this point) including a tune I understand was in another recent theatrical release and another I know appeared in another Chris Pratt picture; other than that, the only pop culture moments revolve around the franchise itself and thank heavens there was no scatological humor. The score had various leitmotifs from the games, some of which were instantly recognizable to me.

Definitely, the movie was a gigantic hit with my audience yesterday. It was a crowd-pleasing picture where one character’s motivations were a bit surprising but otherwise this didn’t try to “subvert expectations” or push any political messages. This is appropriate for all kids; as an adult, I appreciated the bright, colorful animation, not to mention how breathtaking it was on a laser projector. The Super Mario Bros. Movie proving to be a massive success already-let’s not even bring up the white-hot controversy concerning the critical consensus-is not a shocking revelation after my theatrical experience yesterday.