[Warning: mild spoilers throughout]
I wasn't going to write a review of the new Super Mario Bros movie, which I'll refer to simply as SMB. Not because the movie was awful (it wasn't). Not because I'm mad that they ruined my childhood nostalgia (they definitely didn't). Not even because the movie was boring (the movie is for young children so I won't hold that against it). I wasn't going to write a review because I felt the movie was too far outside of my usual tastes in film. It's just an OK children's film. The type of film I'd avoid if I didn't have a child myself. However, I did see the movie and I do have some clear opinions on it. So here we go.
I said the movie is boring. For a lot of people a boring movie is a bad movie. Allow me define what boring means to me. Boring to me is when a film lingers too long on unnecessary things (like pointless scenes of characters driving places) or contains repetitive scenes that add nothing (pointless flashbacks or exposition). There is another level of boring, however, which is more applicable to SMB: unused potential. This is when a film has interesting elements, say charismatic characters or unique world-building details, that aren't used to their full potential.
SMB's central sin is unused potential. In my opinion, the film lingers too long on aspects of the world I don't have an interest in and skips over the stuff that actually is interesting. When I was a child playing the various Mario Bros games on NES and Gameboy, I enjoyed acclimating and in some sense inhabiting these otherworldly and strange 8-bit environments.
SMB opens by hitting you over the head with some awful Italian-American caricatures of two Brooklyn brothers with daddy issues. Instead of discovering the motivations and personalities of the characters organically over the course of the film, the beginning of SMB feels artificially shoehorned in right before the brothers get sucked into a giant green pipe. There are infinite ways to setup Mario and Luigi and I'm not going to pretend I know the best way. However, this way felt extraneous and was made worse by being too reliant on throw-away gimmicks and immature ethnic stereotypes.
There's more. Not only do we start in a big way in Brooklyn, but we also end the film in a big way in Brooklyn. This made the other worlds seem diminished and small. Further adding to this fleeting feeling is the number of worlds we visit. We go quickly from the Mushroom Kingdom, to underwater, the desert, Donkey Kong country, the rainbow road complete with Karts, and Bowser's fortress. All the while, classic in-game mechanics seem to appear primarily as plot devices or comic relief. There is so much unused potential here. It would have benefitted greatly from a more measured and focused approach.
I found that the video game world I know so well was only partially developed and far too quickly explored in favor of more typical action-adventure style themes and story beats. The story is very basic and has the central issue of being super clichéd to the point of parts of it being unnecessary (for example, as I already pointed out with the brothers' Brooklyn backstory). However, this is a common theme I find in contemporary children's movies: they seem to be overfilled with unnecessary distractions as if the point of the whole movie is to be a mere distraction. Maybe that is the point and, of course, that's OK.
Let's consider a couple of comparisons. First, the film Moana comes to mind because the story is pretty simple, yet develops some interesting layers as it goes. As a movie it is focused on a few key characters and exploring their history, abilities and emotional states within a series of story-dependent locations. I found Super Mario Bros to fundamentally lack clarity on locations, what was possible in the different worlds as well as the mental states of the characters.
The better comparison is with the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. In my opinion, the Sonic movies share two issues with SMB: lack of in-game world-building (in Sonic's case, too much time spent in the "real world") and lack of clarity on the rules/logic of the world in which they exist. However, the Sonic movies are re-watchable to me, because they have very charismatic and likable actors and give space to character development. Additionally, Sonic, his otherworldly pals, and Dr. Robotnik all more-or-less exhibit well-known in-game abilities at all times, even in the real world. In SMB the characters are far more cartoonish and the different worlds, even the real world, seem to have almost no rules or logic.
Finally, we get to the last miscalculation I want to talk about: the blue star character. When you watch the movie you'll know which character I'm talking about. It's the cutest, maybe funniest character, a glowing blue gossamer wisp of whimsical personality in the shape of a star, which also happens to be literally suicidal. As an adult who enjoys dark humor and has never encountered this character within the Mario canon, it is unexpected and funny (despite immediately becoming predictable in its over-the-top comedic reversal). However, as a parent I'm not comfortable with my child encountering apparent hopelessness and active thoughts of wanting to die which are in no way explained in the movie. I'm all for pointed references to the extended canon of the Marioverse. I'm all for radical acceptance even. But for people who don't know the reference let's not start with an unexplained yearning for one's own imminent death.
To summarize, the new Super Mario Bros movie is a superficial, but expansive fantasia on Mario themes. It is a bit of a mess and falls flat for me. I don't want to rewatch it, but it really wouldn't be bad if I did. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it. It moves quickly and has a few laughs and interesting ideas. Who knows, you might get more out of it than I did.
I wasn't going to write a review of the new Super Mario Bros movie, which I'll refer to simply as SMB. Not because the movie was awful (it wasn't). Not because I'm mad that they ruined my childhood nostalgia (they definitely didn't). Not even because the movie was boring (the movie is for young children so I won't hold that against it). I wasn't going to write a review because I felt the movie was too far outside of my usual tastes in film. It's just an OK children's film. The type of film I'd avoid if I didn't have a child myself. However, I did see the movie and I do have some clear opinions on it. So here we go.
I said the movie is boring. For a lot of people a boring movie is a bad movie. Allow me define what boring means to me. Boring to me is when a film lingers too long on unnecessary things (like pointless scenes of characters driving places) or contains repetitive scenes that add nothing (pointless flashbacks or exposition). There is another level of boring, however, which is more applicable to SMB: unused potential. This is when a film has interesting elements, say charismatic characters or unique world-building details, that aren't used to their full potential.
SMB's central sin is unused potential. In my opinion, the film lingers too long on aspects of the world I don't have an interest in and skips over the stuff that actually is interesting. When I was a child playing the various Mario Bros games on NES and Gameboy, I enjoyed acclimating and in some sense inhabiting these otherworldly and strange 8-bit environments.
SMB opens by hitting you over the head with some awful Italian-American caricatures of two Brooklyn brothers with daddy issues. Instead of discovering the motivations and personalities of the characters organically over the course of the film, the beginning of SMB feels artificially shoehorned in right before the brothers get sucked into a giant green pipe. There are infinite ways to setup Mario and Luigi and I'm not going to pretend I know the best way. However, this way felt extraneous and was made worse by being too reliant on throw-away gimmicks and immature ethnic stereotypes.
There's more. Not only do we start in a big way in Brooklyn, but we also end the film in a big way in Brooklyn. This made the other worlds seem diminished and small. Further adding to this fleeting feeling is the number of worlds we visit. We go quickly from the Mushroom Kingdom, to underwater, the desert, Donkey Kong country, the rainbow road complete with Karts, and Bowser's fortress. All the while, classic in-game mechanics seem to appear primarily as plot devices or comic relief. There is so much unused potential here. It would have benefitted greatly from a more measured and focused approach.
I found that the video game world I know so well was only partially developed and far too quickly explored in favor of more typical action-adventure style themes and story beats. The story is very basic and has the central issue of being super clichéd to the point of parts of it being unnecessary (for example, as I already pointed out with the brothers' Brooklyn backstory). However, this is a common theme I find in contemporary children's movies: they seem to be overfilled with unnecessary distractions as if the point of the whole movie is to be a mere distraction. Maybe that is the point and, of course, that's OK.
Let's consider a couple of comparisons. First, the film Moana comes to mind because the story is pretty simple, yet develops some interesting layers as it goes. As a movie it is focused on a few key characters and exploring their history, abilities and emotional states within a series of story-dependent locations. I found Super Mario Bros to fundamentally lack clarity on locations, what was possible in the different worlds as well as the mental states of the characters.
The better comparison is with the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. In my opinion, the Sonic movies share two issues with SMB: lack of in-game world-building (in Sonic's case, too much time spent in the "real world") and lack of clarity on the rules/logic of the world in which they exist. However, the Sonic movies are re-watchable to me, because they have very charismatic and likable actors and give space to character development. Additionally, Sonic, his otherworldly pals, and Dr. Robotnik all more-or-less exhibit well-known in-game abilities at all times, even in the real world. In SMB the characters are far more cartoonish and the different worlds, even the real world, seem to have almost no rules or logic.
Finally, we get to the last miscalculation I want to talk about: the blue star character. When you watch the movie you'll know which character I'm talking about. It's the cutest, maybe funniest character, a glowing blue gossamer wisp of whimsical personality in the shape of a star, which also happens to be literally suicidal. As an adult who enjoys dark humor and has never encountered this character within the Mario canon, it is unexpected and funny (despite immediately becoming predictable in its over-the-top comedic reversal). However, as a parent I'm not comfortable with my child encountering apparent hopelessness and active thoughts of wanting to die which are in no way explained in the movie. I'm all for pointed references to the extended canon of the Marioverse. I'm all for radical acceptance even. But for people who don't know the reference let's not start with an unexplained yearning for one's own imminent death.
To summarize, the new Super Mario Bros movie is a superficial, but expansive fantasia on Mario themes. It is a bit of a mess and falls flat for me. I don't want to rewatch it, but it really wouldn't be bad if I did. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it. It moves quickly and has a few laughs and interesting ideas. Who knows, you might get more out of it than I did.