The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Definitely not the 1993 one.
By Quinn McClurg
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I’ll start with two truths and a lie:
1.) A character has the GameCube start-up jingle as a ringtone.
2.) Bowser belts out multiple lusty jazz piano ditties.
3.) Untold thousands perish near the film’s climax.
Cast your vote and…I fooled you; all of these options were correct. Honorable mention: a recklessly nihilistic character quotes Kurt Vonnegut while accepting dying in prison. Ahem.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released on April 5, being the first collaboration between the video game company Nintendo and the animation studio Illumination to grace the silver screen.
The runtime is a standard hour-and-a-half, but it does not overstay its welcome, featuring flashy, platformer-inspired fight scenes, gorgeous landscapes and scenery, and enough deep cuts and references toward Nintendo franchises to keep even the most knowledgeable fans surprised.
The first of my minor gripes with this film is that the choices for voice acting were confusing at first but easy to get used to, and my second is that Luigi gets little to no screen time. I believe that Luigi has always been the stronger character of the two, but that is also because I, a little brother, was conditioned to believe so.
Having grown up playing Mario games, I found this film to be a wonderful little romp through the Mushroom Kingdom; however, it was clear that the target audience was intended to be younger children, especially with Illumination in the copilot’s seat. There is little to no character development, and the plot is nothing outside the ordinary in regards to most Mario media, but I didn’t mind; seeing some classic Mario hijinx and a training montage overlaid with Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” was enough for me, and I hope it will be enough for your inner child too.