Super Mario Bros. Movie Review

Introduction

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has a heavy burden on its shoulders.

On one hand, it needs to finally answer the question that Hollywood has been asking for decades—can we finally make a good video game movie?

2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog aside, the industry’s track record on producing this type of content is remarkably poor. From Mortal Kombat (1995) to Assassin’s Creed (2016) to Mortal Kombat (2021), let’s just say that the console-to-cinema experience has been less than rosy for as long as anyone can remember.

And it’s not like there isn’t a ton of good potential here. Studies show that Mario and Pikachu are now at least as recognizable worldwide than Mickey Mouse, and there’s simply no reason to believe that these characters can’t cross over to star in successful movies too. Video games these days are full or colorful worldbuilding, fun characters, and often have rich in-game stories that any screenwriter would be foolish to miss out on.

But alas, for whatever reason, that vision has never really panned out. 1993’s Super Mario Bros., anyone?

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Then, perhaps more importantly, there’s the question of what our favorite Italian plumber means to his parent company.

Nintendo is notoriously strict with their IP. There have been countless tales of YouTubers getting banned for everything from playing Mario soundtracks in their videos, to even simply talking about their games in public. The fact that they would license out their most valuable character at all is frankly mind-blowing.

So how was the movie?

It was… OK.

No no, I need to be honest. It was actually pretty bad. But I had fun!

As someone who actually got 90% of the Easter Eggs in the movie, it was probably much more enjoyable for me than it would have been for most other people. I actually went to see the movie with my 27-year-old Russian immigrant boss, who gave it a 6/10 despite not having that same in-depth knowledge. I think he was being overly generous.

I went in with high expectations, since the trailers looked so good. This is going to be the first good video game movie, I thought to myself, and Nintendo’s about to take over the industry!

The movie begins with a shot that was already in the trailers, where Bowser takes over the penguins’ ice kingdom. OK, I thought, let’s get to the real stuff already.

Then we cut to the Mario Bros.’ plumbing business in Brooklyn. They did a really cool thing where they added the theme song from the old Super Mario Bros. Super Show as the background music for their plumbing ad, which was kinda neat. We actually see their extended family as well, and how Mario’s father doesn’t support his dreams of quitting his day job and setting up his own plumbing business. It was nice to see a new side of Mario, even if the story is painfully generic.

…and then everything after that is a mess. The pacing is terrible, the references feel cheap, and I only counted two moments of character development in the entire film. There are moments when I genuinely felt insulted at how much I was being expected to take for granted, or how many valuable scenes were wasted by unfunny jokes and felt way too rushed. This is a movie meant for goldfish, not for humans.

Just a few things I noticed:

Peach goes from not knowing Mario to becoming his personal trainer in like, 5 seconds
Cranky Kong offers to let Mario fight his son in order to borrow his army, seemingly out of nowhere
Donkey Kong and Mario start to have a heartfelt conversation about how their dads don’t accept them for who they are… which lasts for 10 seconds before some MacGuffin literally catapults them to the next scene
Peach’s secret plan apparently gets thwarted by a spy, who we never see
The whole third act makes no sense

The standout here is Jack Black’s Bowser. He’s actually the most likable character of the bunch, and gets this whole romantic subplot where he fawns over Peach and hates Mario because he’s jealous that he gets to spend time with her. This is a side of Bowser that we’ve never really seen before. Sure, he tries to marry Peach in a few of the games, but it’s never implied that he actually a secret romantic that has a genuine and heartfelt desire to be with her. It’s actually really neat, and I never thought I would be saying any of this but here we are.

The one interesting thing that the movie does, in my opinion, is to give Princess Peach a half-interesting backstory. I say “half-interesting” because it only lasted for two minutes in the movie, but I think more than a few people have wondered ove rthe years why she was the only “human” in the Mushroom Kingdom. Well, this movie explains that she’s actually from the human world too, but came to the Mushroom Kingdom as a baby through those same pipes that Mario and Luigi fall into at the beginning of the movie. Not the most interesting story, to be sure, but I found it interesting that they actually took the time to explain that (because they sure don’t explain anything else in the movie lol).

So in conclusion: 3/10. I enjoyed the inside jokes, but I was expecting more.

Nintendo’s Gambit

So what’s Nintendo’s plan here?

Well, they recently acquired an animation studio in Japan and renamed it to Nintendo Pictures. It looks they’re actually getting serious about this whole movies thing,

And good for them, too. Nintendo has some of the most valuable IP in the world, with iconic characters like Zelda and Pokemon just waiting in the wing to be adapted as major film franchises. Many people have already brought up the idea of an eventual Super Smash Bros. film, kind of like what Marvel did with the Avengers. Talks of a Nintendo Cinematic Universe have been heating up.

In terms of the business side, this is absolutely genius. While that “other” IP behemoth has been building their media empire and buying franchises left and right, it makes no sense for the creators of Mario to stand on the sidelines and watch the Mouse House take all the dough in an industry that they could obviously thrive in.

Nintendo knows they can dominate 80% of Hollywood just in terms of brand equity alone. They’re making a fundamental bet that audiences will resonate with their vision of a gaming-cinema empire, and that now is the perfect time to do that.

In a world where more and more studios are relying on big brand names to sell their movies, now’s a better time than ever for Nintendo to capitalize on the enormous pile of cash they might be sitting on.

This is the era of the mega-franchise. Nintendo, welcome to the fray.

You know what? I’m rooting for them. This first movie is a bit disappointing, but damned if I’m not still waiting eagerly for that Zelda movie.

- Heewon