The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Film, Computer Animation): Reviews, Ratings, Cast and Crew (2024)

jweber14 Oct 20 2023

Okay so this movie was one that the gaming World had been waiting years for anxiously because in all honestly, video game movies have been in an awful state, with the terrible Assassin's Creed and Tomb Raider movie, to the boring Uncharted movies, to the bad Doom and original Mario Bros movies back in the 90s. Video game movies really have never been good, even the better ones like the Silent Hill movie, original Tomb Raider with Jolie and Mortal Kombat have been pretty bad for the most part. So this was looking like a huge improvement, no live action, bright colors and many references to the games and an all star cast of voice actors that was ridiculed when it first leaked, well except for Charlie Day and Jack Black.

Then it launched and it caused a massive outlast, the critics hated the movie and considered it bland, while the audiences praised it and called it the best video game movie and started a backlash against movie critics and further creating a disparity on Rotten Tomatoes with the critics vs audience, which to be honest is a massive problem. But this movie is pretty bland and feels like a safe, generic animated kids movie, yeah maybe I don't have enough nostalgia to Mario, I was more a Sega/Sony kid and didn't play most of the Mario games until the last 5 years, but I just found this to be so safe and by the book.

Yeah I get its aimed towards kids but I would have liked something a little more relaxed and less well like every other kind of movie like this. I liked best when this movie explored the town and did, well Mario stuff. We didn't really need the whole Peach is now some badass warrior Queen who is a master fighter and trains Mario, that trope is just so overdone and just feels out of place for Peach. I get they didn't want to make her the typical damsel in distress because now apparently doing that is non-PC which is funny because the games still have Peach in this role but Japan doesn't care about that stuff where this is from an American studio. I mean if they wanted a Peach that is more than that they could have looked at Paper Mario where Peach is an important character who helps Mario while still being a damsel. But it just feels out of place.

They had an entire segment dedicated to Donkey Kong and Mario trying to recruit the help to defeat Bowser, and this segment just felt a little dragged out. Plus Seth Rogan did not make a great Donkey Kong, he just sounded like Rogan, they should have just had Kong do the Monkey noises and subtitled him, that would have been more funny. And Pratt as Mario is kind of odd, like I'm not a Pratt hater but he just didn't have the right voice, like I get they didn't want Mario to be high pitched and more realistic but I just didn't think of Mario when I heard the voice. They did have Martinet do some cameos which is kind of sad now that he retired as Mario's voice.

I guess it was cools seeing the references to Mario and other games throughout the movie and you can tell the people that made this do play and enjoy the games, unlike most video game movies, and I will say with a very very very unclose victory this is the best video game movie so far, well I mean movie directly based on a video game franchise, it blows the newer Sonic movies completely out of the water, but I mean I hope video game movies take more risks in the future. I'd love to see a Metal Gear Solid, Witcher or God of War movie if they are done right, so many games have incredibly well done stories that would translate well to movies, but the problem is they just do a terrible job translating them or like the Resident Evil movies they just take too many creative movies where they barely even resemble the games. I hope this movies huge success ends up opening the possibility for more game movies but I also hope it makes the movies higher quality instead of sh*tty cash grabs they had been for the past 30 or so years. I want Oscar worthy video game movies, so if Mario opens to doors to more studios greenlighting game based movies I will forever praise this, even if the movie itself isn't that great. Also this movie will get a ton of sequels and Illumination will milk this sh*t out of this, but hopefully they can improve and have a better plot for the sequel.

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davidbowiegirl Sep 19 2023

Princess and Toad were slightly annoying but otherwise this was wonderfully colourful, childish and honestly entertaining movie for the whole family. All the little details were nice, like when Bowser plays, for a while, that ominous cellar music with his piano. I missed many Mario references because I haven’t played Mario much. As a child (long time ago) I only played the first one and didn’t get far. Once (about 10 years ago) I tried in a supermarket some cart and since I’ve wanted to play Mario again, more or less. This was possibly the best video game movie I’ve seen.

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Kaos94 Sep 13 2023

Like one of those "All the references in" YouTube videos of a movie, but the entire movie. A supercut of itself.

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simonblub Aug 13 2023

i dont hate this movie. its enjoyable, but i feel like i just dont care when watching something like this. the movie feels like watching an illumination movie more so than a mario movie, most noteable caused by the use of music, being some 80s bangers playlist instead of pulling from the wide catalogue of great mario music (which they of course also did, but i dont get why they didnt take full advantage of it)

yeah the humour is of course pretty basic and inoffensive. but i dont really care. i watched this on opening day, but i barely remember anything about it. the story was ok, i feel like some moments were there just so they could be used in the trailer to make it feel grander. its cool i guess. i dont care.

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Rhinestone_Eyes Jul 23 2023

I'm just going to be brief with this one.

the writing is an absolute mess and poorly thought out, the acting ranges from okay to bad, whenever they use varied colors it looks good but a lot of scenes are way too bright.

i get that this is supposed to be a "dumb fun" movie but there is nothing really fun about it. it's just a boring, cringe inducing mess of a nintendo advertisem*nt. only watch it if you're a fan of the mario brand because you are going to be really bored by this movie if you aren't.

2/10

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dod Jul 22 2023

Goodish

I like the old Mario Bros movie more because that one has a lot more character and no qualms about what it is. Underrated cult film, that.

This one is actually not half-bad. I think it will age somewhat well with kids who watch it growing up, but for adults watching it it's probably going to be a bit of passing entertainment.

This isn't your Shrek or your Toy Story level animated film. Sadly. The visuals are pretty great at times, and some of the inside gamer references are great if you actually love Mario games - that's a fact.

As a fairly avid gamer I really loved the Star thing from Super Mario Galaxy. I love that they dug into the Mario Galaxy lore. But I didn't see anything from Sunshine, which shows that there is a lack of seriousness to the production.

The whole thing feels very "cobbled-together." Like they were crunched for time and just had to go with things, rather than taking it seriously and thinking it through.

That said, I did enjoy it. It's well worth watching for adults who love Super Mario games and animated films with creative visuals.

The Mario Kart scene was my favorite part, probably.

The writing was terrible honestly, particularly the Princess Peach character being a "girl boss" was disappointing in this movie. But this isn't a movie you watch again, it's a rental you have a few beers while watching and never think about it again. It's a 7 for that role but could probably have been a lot more than that

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MyMusicTasteHasAIDS Jun 29 2023

The only praise I can give this movie is it's animation. The rest is just cookie cutter kids movie sh*t that feels like it written in such a way as to cram as many references in as possible.

spoiler: click to read

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Kalil9898 Jun 15 2023

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Super Mario Bros. games were part of every kids' childhood, no matter the age and time, so, watching this film is like changing a way of having fun to another one, I mean, if you play a Mario game and watch this movie, you certainly will have the feeling that it's a game turning to the audio-visual.
The animation is really beautiful, a lot of bright and vibrant colors and traces, that suits so damn well this franchise, its visual is one of its best things.
If you think it sucks, or think it's a weak film, I'm sorry to tell you that you're such a soulless peel, it's obvious that it's not perfect, but its problems are really relevant and unexpected? No, they were already there on Mario games, it was obvious that the characters are not charismatic and well written enough and the screenplay would be predictable and conventional, but if you can't realize its qualities, and you think it's just a kids' movie and you're the most mature person in the world, you're just a pathetic fussy.
A LOT of Easter Eggs, really a lot, and a lot of references that everyone who played the games will go crazy.
Like every Mario game, it's geriatric infant, appropriate and recommended for all the ages.

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The closing credits are the best I've ever seen, I never got excited for any closing credit as I got here.

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