Rejoice! Video game adaptations can be good sometimes now!
The Super Mario Bros. Movie manages to succeed where so many others have failed by embracing it's video game heritage rather than being ashamed of it.
The Mario Brothers are one of the most iconic duos in pop culture, Mario has been everything from a doctor, to a baseball player to a martial artist, but one thing he's never been is a movie star.
There's been an attempt to bring him to the big screen before in the 1993 live-action film, but it's generally considered one of the worst movies ever made.
In this new animated film, plumber Mario and his brother Luigi are separated when they're mysteriously transported to the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario must team up with Princess Peach to save his brother from the grips of the evil Bowser.
The film incorporates platforming lifted directly from the long-running game series and even a visually gorgeous kart racing sequence, a reference to the Mario Kart spin-off series.
For fans of the game, everything you could possibly want in a Mario film is here (some in the form of easter eggs setting up for a sequel). For non-fans this is still an excellent family adventure, akin to something like The Lego Movie.
Speaking of the Lego Movie, there was a lot of controversy when Chris Pratt was cast as Mario. Charles Martinet has voiced Mario in almost every appearance in the games, but his dialogue is limited mostly to "yahoo" or "here we go!"
The decision to cast Pratt clearly came from a requirement that Mario feel like a fully fledged character in the film, and not just an Italian stereotype. In the film, I never found his voice distracting. He's not doing the classic Mario voice but a sort of Italian-American Brooklyn accent which worked for me.
Fear not, Charles Martinet does appear in the film, but I won't spoil how he's used.
The rest of the casting was almost unanimously beloved upon announcement and their performances in the film are every bit as good as you'd expect. Charlie Day as the frantic, constantly terrified Luigi is just inspired casting. Jack Black is having a ball as Bowser, Seth Rogen's Donkey Kong sounds like.. Seth Rogen and Anya Taylor-Joy adds more depth to the Princess Peach character who for a long time was mostly used as just a damsel in distress.
I would love to say that the animation was the best we've seen in years, but Puss in Boots: The Last Wish came out only a few months ago so I'll just say that it holds up next to the new wave of spectacular animation we've seen since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about the animation style, it's just that the Mushroom Kingdom is so beautifully brought to the big screen that every single shot in the film is extrodinarily vibrant and detailed.
For many years films based on video games have been frankly pretty bad. There's moments of greatness like the first-person sequence from Doom or the bit in The Angry Birds Movie where the flightless birds use a giant slingshot to destroy buildings occupied by pigs. Moments like this where you're reminded why you love the game are all over The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The reason I like playing Super Mario is because I love the inventive platforming or driving down the Rainbow Road (even though admittedly I much prefer Crash Team Racing as a kart racer).
I hope that The Super Mario Bros. Movie leads the charge for video game adaptations moving forward. The Sonic movies were just good enough and with Detective Pikachu I think a live action Pokémon film is going to do well regardless of quality.
For so long we've been so obsessed with games that feel like movies, give me more movies that feel like games.
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