Cast: (voiced by) Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen
Directors: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Writer: Matthew Fogel
Mario is maybe the biggest video game franchise in the world, which is why despite the lack of any substantial story or characterisation it was the natural choice for Hollywood’s first stab at a video game adaptation. The result was 1993’s Super Mario Bros., a movie that did not resemble its source material in the slightest. Now, this is not a cardinal sin in my book; faithfulness to the source does not equal quality and a movie needs some room to experiment and innovate if it wishes to offer viewers something that they won’t get just from playing Super Mario 64. In this instance however, the resulting film was total garbage and for years served as a cautionary tale of just how bad a video game adaptation could be. Though there are some who have reclaimed it recently as a cult classic, I feel like this is more a reaction to the homogeneity and blind faithfulness of movies today than it is to the merits of that particular title. The experience certainly had an effect on Nintendo, who have been highly protective of their properties ever since. But now that the IP-driven pop culture zeitgeist has reached a point where a Mario movie stands to make a billion dollars in box-office revenue, Nintendo has taken the plunge again by aligning themselves with probably the safest choice of partner possible, the animation studio Illumination.
Illumination, the studio behind Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing, is in the business of making lowest common denominator movies aimed at four-year-olds. Their movies are loud and shiny and, in an age where the biggest blockbusters have embraced the PG-13 model, they are among the few big names in Hollywood who are actually trying to create a space for little kids in modern cinema. There’s a reason why Minions made a billion dollars. And that’s all well and good, I want to see more movies that wish to inspire a love for cinema in young children. I just wish that Illumination made better movies that could offer more to their easily impressed audience than a momentary distraction. I want to see the Minions performing hijinks composed with Chaplinesque inventiveness and wit rather hitting the same monotonous beats ad infinitum. I want to see adaptations of Dr. Seuss that treat children as playfully and intelligently as his books do. As a bare minimum, I’d like to see a Super Mario Bros. movie that tells an actual story. Yes, the children going with their parents to see this movie aren’t expecting much more than a bunch of cartoon characters that they recognise from the games leaping onto platforms, driving go-karts, and repeating catchphrases like “Wahoo” and “Mamma Mia”, but you can do all that and still make a good movie.
There is a plot to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a somewhat functional one, but that’s not the same as saying it has a story. The plot concerns Mario and Luigi, two Italian-American brothers in Brooklyn trying to get their new plumbing business off the ground, and leads them to a portal in a large green pipe that transports them to a magical realm. The two are separated on their course however and wind up at different destinations. Luigi ends up in the Dark Lands, the domain of the tyrannical Koopa king Bowser, while Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom, where the helpful Toad leads him to the palace where he might seek the aid of Princess Peach. The Mushroom Kingdom is in turmoil right now as Bowser has just acquired a Super Star that shall grant him unlimited power and is threatening to use it in a destructive campaign for conquest unless Peach should agree to marry him. The best hope for Mario and Peach is to venture to the Jungle Kingdom and appeal to their king for his assistance. Before they can go however, Mario needs to learn how to use the powers granted by these magic mushrooms (Illumination mercifully restrains themselves from the obvious joke lying on a silver platter) so that he might become the hero he needs to be to save his brother.
So that’s the plot, but what of the story? Is this a story about everyman heroism as shown in Mario’s growth as a character? If so, then Mario, as the movie’s protagonist, needs an arc. He needs to start from a point where he falls below the heroic ideal so that he might learn what it really is to be a hero and overcome the personal weaknesses and limitations holding him back. This is basic kid’s stuff, so that kind of arc would work great for a kid’s movie. Though the movie does indeed follow the trajectory for this arc, it only does so in superficial terms. There are beats where Mario starts to doubt himself but then is inspired to pick himself up and keep going by some reminder of what he’s fighting for, but they are not spurred by some lesson he is made to learn or met with a change in his behaviour. He is the same guy at the end that he was at the start, he’s just learnt how to jump really well and pack a punch. Luigi has something close to an arc where he’s shown to be a scaredy cat but then comes through in the end at the moment when it matters most, but he gets sidelined for most of the movie and then when his moment does come it is not prompted by any sort of emotional beat that would make the change feel impactful.
This is why the movie feels as empty as it does, because it is only an illusion of a story. It is granted no easy task to build a narrative around a video game that is so famously light on story and character, but that’s why you have to put the work in. Just because the film is for little kids doesn’t mean it can be done without effort. It’s also the reason why fidelity to the source material can be such an Achilles’ heel. A great deal of clear effort went into recreating the aesthetics of the video games as faithfully as possible, and indeed the look is absolutely spot on (Illumination has never wanted for bright and polished CGI renders). But you can appreciate those same aesthetics in the games themselves. What does The Super Mario Bros. Movie offer that you could only get from watching it as a movie? Chris Pratt? He did a good enough job in The LEGO Movie I suppose, but that was a film that actually gave him some character-driven material to work with. This movie doesn’t know what to do with him or the rest of its ensemble of A-list screen actors because the movie only values them as famous voices for their mascots. Jack Black does alright and has a couple of funny moments, but even an actress as great as Anya Taylor-Joy comes across as stiff and uninterested simply because the material and direction is not there (and also because she and most of the principal cast are not trained voice actors).
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is probably better described as a ninety-minute commercial than it is as a movie. Is it an effective advertisement for the brand? Sure, but that doesn’t make it a good movie. There are few things about it that are outright bad, and at just an hour and a half it stays shy of overstaying its welcome, but it isn’t good, and it isn’t good specifically because it doesn’t care enough to be good. The LEGO Movie is a good point of comparison. That too was a movie that existed to sell toys, but it did so by using that toy as the basis for an entertaining and compelling story that encapsulated what people love about that toy, and did it really well. It was a corporate product made with love (yes, I know, you can go ahead and roll your eyes). The Super Mario Bros. Movie is nothing more than a corporate product, one that does no justice to whatever love and passion surely went into its making. It has few interesting ideas, it dare not take any chances, and it has nothing to say except that Nintendo is great. Will the four-year-olds in the audience care? Not on your life. But is this movie one that will stay with them years from now when they become parents who want to share their childhood favourites with their own kids? Maybe, if they have bad taste in movies.
★★
Aled Warren Films 