Formula: Super Mario Bros. ^ Minions
It's funny how studios spent so many years trying to "crack the code" for video game movies. For so long, they'd take the hippest franchise and try to make it into a blockbuster or action movie. Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter were solid efforts for their day. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider had more to do with Angelina Jolie's star power than anything in the film. Silent Hill and Resident Evil enjoyed life in the genre space. The recurring principle from all these: the Princes of Persias and the Warcrafts was that they should try to be cool. All because the first effort in the video game space was the infamous live-action Super Mario Bros. movie. It turns out, the secret to it all was time. In 2020, Sonic became a hit pretty much just because now generations of people remember that silly game they played as kids or currently. Sure, we can quibble about Chris Pratt as the choice for the voice of Mario, but in hindsight, it's obvious that The Super Mario Bros. Movie was going to be a hit as long as it played all the hits.
Illumination has never been my favorite animation studio. I truly can't stand the Minions, so that doesn't help. Mainly, it's that I've never come out of one of their movies thinking they snuck something meaningful in. They are pretty surface level movies. I see the jokes for the kids. I see the jokes for the adults. There's nothing wrong with that. However, it is the reason their movies have never risen above one-time watches for me.
Super Mario Bros is a one-time watch. It succeeds in all the ways it needs to. It's packed with easter eggs and jokes for fans of the games in any era. I have no issue with the voice cast, because let's be honest, the characters from the games don't have that much personality. They are avatars for the person playing the game. So, Pratt not being a perfect mimic of the 5 Mario sound-bites we all know isn't that big of a deal. They hired Pratt to be Pratt, not Mario. Just like Charlie Day's Luigi is mostly Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy's Peach is mostly Anya Taylor-Joy, etc. The calculus here is that I'd see a live-action movie with Pratt, Day, Taylor-Joy, Jack Black (Bowser), Seth Rogen (Donkey Kong), and more. Attach those voices and personalities to animated characters I have great fondness for, and I'm happy enough.
You may notice I'm not talking much about the movie itself. That's because there really isn't much to it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Mario and Luigi are plumbers in the real world who stumble onto pipes that bring them to the Mushroom Kingdom. They fall backwards into hero roles stopping Bowser from destroying the kingdom. More than anything, watching this movie is a reminder that the mythology behind Super Mario Bros. makes no sense. It's a collection of what could be identified and animated in 8-bit graphics back in the day. The movie doesn't make any more sense out of it, although it strings together something that works well enough.
I didn't love the movie, but I had fun. They probably tackled more Mario properties than they needed to in this one. At least they saved Yoshi mostly for the inevitable sequel. The success of this movie isn't anything in the movie. The success is that Super Mario Bros. has been ubiquitous and beloved for 30 years. That's how this movie earns a billion dollars.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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