The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Credit: Illumination / Nintendo
As of right now, Nintendo and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie is at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes (up from 54% when I checked earlier today). That’s a “Rotten” score by RT’s metrics, and needs to get up to the mid-60s to go “Fresh.” (See the critic reviews here).
But here’s the thing: Most of the gaming and entertainment critics seem to love the movie. Most of the negative reviews seem to be written by non-gamer critics who don’t have a baked-in affection for the games and characters. To me, that suggests that this is a video game adaptation aimed directly at its target audience. If that means some non-gamers and non-Mario fans get lost along the way . . . so be it. I’m tired of adaptations trying to appeal to everyone and losing the very thing that makes the original source material so great in the process.
Grace Randolph, discussing the film on her YouTube channel Beyond The Trailer, describes the film as “Totally inaccessible for non-fans of this Super Mario game from Nintendo. Fans might even have a hard time with the non-existent, antiquated and somewhat offensive story… Shocking misfire for Illumination, the only bad movie they’ve ever made.” She adds that “word of mouth is gonna be toxic.”
Randolph is a popular YouTuber and critic but she admits she’s not a Nintendo fan and doesn’t play the games. And I’m sorry, as entertaining as she is, she just clearly doesn’t know her Mario Bros at all. She didn’t even know about Mario turning into a cat, which is something Mario did back in the Wii U days. Being upset by Bowser kidnapping Peach and trying to marry her is also . . . pretty central to almost every Super Mario Bros game! But Randolph thinks this is inappropriate for children and outdated and offensive. This is the story of Super Mario going all the way back Grace!
Still, some critics who are fans of the games were disappointed. “It is disappointing that Super Mario has not only been reduced and molded to fit the unambitious and lackadaisical Illumination brand but is also this generic and soulless, speedrunning through as much fan service as possible,” writes Robert Kojder of Flickering Myth.
While praising the many Easter Eggs in the film, Luke Y. Thompson of SuperHeroHype laments that “the movie is just a collection of Easter eggs and references in search of a story.”
Other reviews are mostly positive but still ding the movie for a lack of story. Austin Burke in his YouTube video says: “This massive world is interesting, the score is nostalgic, and the nods are so much fun. Also, Pratt is surprisingly good as Mario. The downside comes with the pacing and inability to make the overall story interesting.”
Many reviews are absolutely glowing, however. Variety’s review by Owen Gleiberman calls it ‘the rare video-game movie that gives you a prankish video-game buzz” while IGN calls it “a fireball of animated fantasy” and The Verge trumpets: “The Super Mario Bros Movie is the new gold standard for video game films.”
Writes critic Charles Pulliam-Moore:
“Watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie, it’s impossible not to imagine what it might be like to one day play a game as visually rich running on hardware that puts current-gen Nintendo Switch to shame. That’s probably (part of) the reason the movie exists. But as big-budget commercials for video games and consoles go, The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s going to be undefeated for quite some time.”
I’m going to the movie tomorrow with my kids and seeing it on the biggest screen available, though it’s probably also quite fun in 3D. I’ll report back here on my blog and on my YouTube channel with my thoughts.
I recently saw Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and loved it. Read my review right here.
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