By Amy Ta,
Staff Writer
“The Super Mario Bros.” movie racked in a mind-boggling $500 million nine days after release, making it one of the biggest movies of the year thus far. Critics gave the movie harsh reviews, but audience members gave it overwhelmingly positive reviews. Many see the movie as the best video game adaptation by far.
The movie follows the Mario brothers as they try to save their failing plumbing business in Boston. After some hijinks, Mario and Luigi become separated, with Luigi landing in Bowser’s kingdom and Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom. From there, it becomes a mashup of montages as Mario, now paired up with Peach and a red Toad, travel around the different kingdoms to reach the Kong Kingdom and save Luigi. It mostly follows the same plot as the Mario games, just with some of the roles now reversed.
There were a lot of good call-backs to past games, like Mario Kart, Mario Odyssey and even Smash Ultimate, which definitely made me enjoy the movie more. The movie soundtrack was a remake of the original soundtracks from the games, but this time with an orchestral arrangement, adding this sense of awe every time it played.
The movie also made extensive use of one-liners. These would be hit-or-miss, but most of the jokes landed. I definitely chuckled a lot while watching the movie, and I know that many of the adults in the theater found it funny.
However, I did find the plot very lacking. It was incredibly rushed, with characters barely getting any time to bond with each other except in montages. Mario and Luigi just didn’t feel that close, which made it hard for me to get emotional towards the end of the movie. I also felt that with the rushed plot, it was hard to actually see any kind of character development in Mario, who just started as a really stubborn man and ended as a really stubborn man.
Another gripe I had with the movie was Peach’s new characterization. The movie writers wanted to make her into a powerful female lead, which is good, but when they executed it, she just became the outgoing, tomboyish Princess Daisy. There are different ways to make Peach strong, which can be seen in other games, like in Super Paper Mario or Mario Odyssey. Instead, the movie wanted Peach to be incredibly athletic, which greatly encroaches into Daisy’s characterization.
Overall, the movie is pretty okay. I highly recommend watching it if you have a lot of nostalgia for Mario games or if you just want to sit down and laugh. The movie has good comedic beats and is very stimulating to watch, making it the perfect stress-relief watch or if you want to hangout with friends.