Between The Last of Us on TV and The Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters, 2023 may have finally broken the longstanding curse against video games being adapted to film or television. Both have been enormously popular in their respective mediums. Coincidentally (maybe?), fungus plays a major role in both stories. Are audiences finally ready to accept video games as the basis for their motion picture entertainment, or are mushrooms just having a moment?
Despite mixed reviews from critics, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was the first film based on a video game to pass $1 billion in box office revenue. As I write this, it’s also still the highest-grossing movie of 2023 (though that’s likely to change as the cultural phenomenon Barbie creeps up on it). Does it really deserve that level of success? Clearly, the Super Mario property resonated with both younger fans who actively play the games today and with nostalgic older viewers who’d waited decades for a decent movie to be made from this source material. I suppose I fall into the latter category. As far as that goes, I enjoyed the picture well enough, but can’t help wishing that a little more effort had been put into crafting a better screenplay to support it.
| Title: | The Super Mario Bros. Movie |
| Year of Release: | 2023 |
| Directors: | Aaron Horvath Michael Jelenic |
| Watched On: | Peacock |
| Also Available On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Blu-ray Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
As those older fans will no doubt recall, this wasn’t the first attempt to make a movie based on Super Mario Bros. Back in 1993, during the heyday of Nintendo mania, a live-action film starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo hit theaters and disappointed an entire generation of gaming addicts. That failure stung so badly, the company wouldn’t try again for thirty more years. With enough time now having passed, a very sensible decision was made to keep Mario in animation this time. That job fell to Illumination, the studio behind the very popular Despicable Me franchise and its adorable Minions.
The original Super Mario Bros. video games have such a crazy premise, it’s no wonder filmmakers have had trouble shaping it into a somewhat sensible narrative for viewers to follow. The 1993 film basically gave up on that and just dropped the characters into a mostly original story that had little to do with the games. This one sticks closer to the source.
To that end, the movie wastes little time plunging Brooklyn plumbers Mario Mario and Luigo Mario into a magic portal that transports them to a fantastical world called the Mushroom Kingdom, where they meet a princess, battle an army of turtle monsters, and eventually confront the evil tyrant Bowser.
Well, Mario does those things, anyway. In this version, rather than need to rescue the kidnapped princess, the brothers get separated and Mario has to rescue Luigi instead. Princess Peach is a hyper-competent badass this time and fights by his side. (Yes, heavens to betsy, Nintendo has gone “woke.” Cue the insecure man-baby outrage.)
I’m skimming over the plot here a bit, of course, but honestly, not by much. At just 92 minutes, the movie feels extremely slight and makes very little effort to flesh out this wacky nonsense into a real story with anything resembling character development. One of the film’s greatest failings is that the characters feel no sense of awe or wonder or even surprise upon arriving in a surreal land where mountains float in the air, animals talk, and swallowing special mushrooms can give you instant superpowers. To Mario, this is just a weird neighborhood he wound up in, and it takes him all of five seconds to adapt to it, learn all its rules, and step into his new role as the great hero who will save the kingdom – which he accomplishes in no time flat before the whole thing’s over and the credits start rolling.
As is required for a major animated production today, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is packed with famous names in its celebrity voice cast. Leads Mario and Luigi are played by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day. The film makes a quick joke at the beginning to explain why the brothers don’t have thick stereotypical Italian accents, and then never mentions it again. Pratt was no doubt hired based on his work in The Lego Movie and its sequel, but feels very miscast here. His Mario is way too bland and lacking in charisma. Frankly, he stinks.
Other notable credits include Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key as helpful sidekick Toad, and Seth Rogen as a goofball showboat Donkey Kong. In a pretty amusing twist, Jack Black, in signature ham mode, plays the villain Bowser as less diabolical monster than as a spoiled and lovesick jerk. He even gets in a funny musical number.
While the script may falter, what does work in The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the delightful and visually inventive animation. The cutesy Illumination house style suits this franchise perfectly well. The studio crams every scene full of both obvious references and subtler easter egg nods to all eras and iterations of Super Mario gaming, from side-scrolling platformers to kart racing and more. Most of the big action set-pieces are lots of fun.
As an old-school (if not just old) Nintendo fan who played Super Mario Bros. on the NES console when you could walk into a Kay-Bee Toys or a Babbage’s and buy a new copy right off the shelf, I got a fair amount of enjoyment from the film. This is much more what I would expect, or want, a Super Mario Bros. movie to be than the last attempt (which has its own, albeit very different, charms). All the same, the storytelling side of it feels lazy and uninspired. I wish more work could have been put into raising the writing to a level that better supports the quality of the animation.
Video Streaming
I didn’t see The Super Mario Bros. Movie when it played in theaters this spring. I debated whether to blind-buy the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray edition when it was released in June, but eventually decided that I could wait for the movie to show up on one of my subscription streaming services. Now that it’s here, I’ll be honest, I wish it had wound up somewhere better than Peacock, which usually falls toward the lower end of the spectrum for streaming video and audio quality.
If nothing else, I’ll give Peacock credit for one thing. Even though my account is on an ad-supported tier, the streamer only forced a couple minutes of commercials before the movie, with no interruptions after it started. I appreciate that.
Aside from one 16:9 TV commercial scene (windowboxed in the center of the frame in Constant Image Height form), the rest of the movie is presented in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. As for the playback, it generally looks fine, but I hoped for better. My understanding is that the film was completed on a 2K Digital Intermediate and then upconverted. The 4K streaming version is moderately sharp, but not exceptionally so. While the animation is very bright and colorful, it looks a little flat. Even with HDR, colors lack depth and vibrancy. Moreoever, the HDR on Peacock seems too hot, crushing and clipping highlights. I played around with my projector’s tone-map settings but didn’t find much improvement no matter what I chose.
Whether these issues are entirely the fault of Peacock’s encoding and compression, or are endemic to the original animation and color-grading, I can’t say. Reviews of the physical disc release are generally more flattering. If I cared about this movie more, I’d be inclined to purchase the 4K UHD disc rather than stream.
The audio on Peacock is also disappointing. Only offered in 5.1 surround (whereas the disc version has a Dolby Atmos track), sound quality is flat overall, with frustratingly inconsistent dynamic range. Some scenes have very rumbly bass for specific sound effects, while other effects that you’d expect to hit harder will falter and wimp out instead. Surround envelopment is also surprisingly restrained for a big-budget animated movie of this type.
On this front, at least, I’ve read complaints that the Atmos track on disc also underwhelms. However, I’m sure Peacock’s heavy compression no doubt exacerbates any problems or limitations of the original mix.
The Video File Blog 
Any idea WHY this one made over a billion, while the 1993 movie was a flop? In 1993, you could say (Super) Mario (Bros) was more in the zeitgeist of the youth/players of the game. By all accounts, it should have been a big moneymaker. Even ‘it was disappointing’ or ‘it wasn’t a good adaption’ are not really reasons/explanations, because a lot of disappointing movies have made a lot of dollaridoos. Quality has rarely influenced the BO.
LikeLike
I don’t think there was ever really any surprise the 1993 film bombed. It just wasn’t what anyone wanted from a Super Mario Bros. movie at that time, on any level.
LikeLike
Darn.
LikeLike