⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dirs: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
52-film challenge, film 28
As an adult, I can see a few problems here and there that I will of course comment on momentarily — but basically your kids will probably love this, as will most teens and adults that are old enough to remember Donkey Kongand Super Mario Brothers games they played as a kid. This is the first kid‘s film I’ve seen in a long time that I think children will wear out the Blu-ray of from repeated viewings.
You can safely forget any previous attempts at bringing these characters to life in a film, especially that 1993 thing — this one gets it right for the first time. As far as current-generation Mario fans are concerned, this film is damn near perfect — and its biggest flaw, if you can call it that, is that is so busy packing in references that the story sometimes takes a back seat to other events, and that’s okay.
The movie represents a huge jump in quality from the previously third-rate Illumination animation firm, thanks to a wealth of pre-designed characters and an obviously huge software upgrade. Up till now I have pretty much loathed everything they’ve done, particularly Despicable Film (my title for it) and the introductions of the incredibly lazy (and Pixar-“inspired”) Minions. It was like their mission was to make children stupider via inducing attention-deficit disorder.
I’ve seen some reviews from adults that the movie is still too superficial and fast-paced, but in part thanks to Illumination’s previous work, that’s what kids want. Besides, the “lore” of this movie is very well-established in the video games, so there’s no need to go over all that, you just accept the situation and welcome Mario and Luigi’s extended family. Directors of Batman and/or Superman movies, pay attention.
Since I also am an adult — most of the time — I also have a few minor criticisms, but before I get to that the first thing that should be said is that this is what kids/family cartoon computer animation should look like if your name isn’t Pixar/Disney: Incredibly colourful, true-to-the-characters design, followed through for new/additional characters, gorgeous locations, and of course — very little regard for the laws of physics.
The biggest letdown for me was that Mario and Luigi didn’t retain their “fauxtalian” accents throughout the movie, but I can also see how that might offend real-world Italians if they did it through the entire film. This is explained in the film as being exaggerated for the purposes of a TV commercial the brothers make (so you do indeed get to hear Mario say “it’s-a me!”), but except for occasionally remembering to say “Mama Mia,” and of course “Woohoo” a lot, mostly it sounds like Chris Pratt being a New Yorker.
Charlie Day as Luigi does a better job, but the movie is stolen voice-wise by the far-better-cast Jack Black as Bowser, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogan and Fred Armisen as the two main Donkey Kong characters.
Considering many of these characters started off as pixelated bits, the character design is excellent, and instantly “feels” like this is the way the characters should look, even though technically they only got to this point through generations of iteration as the console game technology improved. Likewise, this is a level of background and “set” work we have never seen from Illumination previously, and even the jokes work most of the time.
The film starts off in what passes for “the real world” and, after a funny scene of the brothers failing as real-world plumbers on their first big job, they discover a pipe that leads to what we’ll call Mario World with the characters we know and love. The rest of the movie builds out from the premise of Bowser wanting to marry Princess Peach by force, threatening the peace of the various kingdoms and Mario (& Luigi, who has a much smaller role of mostly being the victim that needs rescuing) arrive just in time to help the Princess and her people fight back.
In short, this movie is one I’ve rated highly because it absolutely achieves what it sets out to do, which is to flesh out Mario World, establish the underlying lore, and defeat the enemy, and looks good doing it. The frantic pacing will perhaps annoy some adults, but there are plenty of reference-checks for us Mario veterans to appreciate, especially if you loved Mario Racing. It’s no classic film-wise, but it will absolutely take its place as a go-to kids’ movie the whole family can enjoy.
The Chasbah 