It’s been no secret that my most anticipated animated film of the year was The Super Mario Bros. Movie! While I’m no scholar of the Mario universe, I, like most people, am familiar enough with the characters due to playing multiple Mario-related games. So, I decided to treat myself to watch this one not only in the theaters, but in 3D as well! What did I think? Read on to find out!
(Caution, there will be mild spoilers!)
Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, The Super Mario Bros. Movie serves as a sort of origin story for our favorite New York plumbers, Mario and Luigi, voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day, respectively. The brothers try to make a successful career for themselves with their own plumbing company, but struggle to do so.
While exploring the New York sewers one day, they accidentally get sucked into a pipe that transports them to another world. Luigi lands in the Dark Lands and is captured by their ruler, Bowser, voiced by Jack Black. Mario winds up in the Mushroom Kingdom and with the help of a creature with a mushroom-like head, Toad, voiced by Keegan-Michael Key, and the kingdom’s sovereign, Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, they set out on a journey to rescue Luigi and prevent Bowser from attacking the Mushroom Kingdom.
The film is very fun, colorful, and…fun! What it’s not is possessing an amazingly deep and complex storyline. But like Chris Stuckmann said, you don’t play the Mario games for the story. If you’re expecting something groundbreaking or pleasantly surprising like The Lego Movie or Ron’s Gone Wrong, you’ll be disappointed. If you go in expecting to spend some time with the characters you love and the creative, colorful realms they visit, you’re gonna have a good time! And that was exactly what I was expecting!
The voice acting is very good, to be honest! I was worried that Chris Pratt would come across as sounding too similar to other animated characters that he’s voiced, but he manages to make his Mario voice very unique. And all the other voice actors are great as well. We even get a cameo with the original Mario voice actor, Charles Martinet, voicing Mario’s father.
This film became the 10th animated film to cross the billion dollar mark in the global box office and I’m very happy for it! Hopefully, this success can lead to multiple “Mario-verse” animated films or even just multiple video game adaptation films that don’t suck!
All that’s left for me to say is “Wa-hoo!”
The Animation Commendation 
I have no history with the Mario Franchise, so when I find this at the library I am interested in how it will appeal to a guy who knows nothing about the characters except a few names (and I think I have heard Bullet Bill is very hard to beat).
I don’t even know who Bullet Bill is, lol, so you’re one up on me there.