The Super Mario Bros. Movie is Average at Best and its Discourse is Inconsistent and Horrid

The Super Mario Bros. movie has had more than its fair share of discourse online prior to release for quite a few reasons. But it would probably be best to explain it from the beginning to make it easier to understand. General consensus around the film when it was first revealed was mixed at best, as memes of the voice cast's performances were spread online, leading to a heated discussion about how it would turn out.

More often than not, there was a question of why Nintendo and Illumination went with the voice cast they did, particularly in the case of Chris Pratt as the star of the film Mario. Overall, impressions weren’t exactly great at this time. After some time, Illumination shared the first trailer for the movie since the reveal of the voice cast, and suddenly impressions were improving as the visuals were very good and most of the jokes in the trailers worked. Even the voice cast was filling in their shoes rather nicely - Pratt’s unenthused first take notwithstanding.

The general vibe surrounding the Super Mario Bros. movie continued to get better as it inched closer to its theatrical release. Unfortunately, this is where the drama begins and will likely continue. Here’s the deal, critics’ reviews weren’t exactly favorable, with the popular movie aggregator Rotten Tomatoes ranking the film at just 49% at the time of writing. For many fans of Mario, however, this was purely insane, and all of the critics didn’t understand what they were talking about. In some cases, that criticism was indeed warranted, only adding more fuel to the fire.

This ushered in another phase of the Super Mario Bros. Movie discourse. To put it simply, many fans of Mario would defend the movie to a point where it may have been physically concerning, while those who looked at it with a critical lens would be lambasted for daring to expect a movie to be, well, a good movie.

Many used the trite excuse that “It’s just for children.” Still, multiple animated movies have shown that animation is not mutually exclusive to providing proper entertainment for everyone, even as far back as the Incredibles. It’s almost unbelievable that the best quote to respond to this criticism is one given by Caddicarus many years ago since it bears repeating that while kids are easy to entertain, they are not stupid. And yes, this very line applies to all media in general, not just video games.

I watched the movie as it premiered in Mexico (which was a day after the US premiere), and I felt like the writers had just been checking boxes off a list rather than trying to put any effort into its plot. I didn’t expect it to have writing on the level of some of the titans of the film industry. Still, they could have at least ensured some sort of development for characters like Donkey Kong or Princess Peach, who barely had anything going on for her except being just dropped into the Mushroom Kingdom and then inexplicably becoming the patriarch of the Toads because they said so.

The Sonic movie has tried to at least do more with its plot that doesn’t just make quirky references to other Sonic stuff. While yes, the movie still has its references and unfunny jokes like the Olive Garden one; at least it was attempting to do something out of the norm while developing a new iteration of the blue hedgehog. The sequel went further beyond and removed the stuff that didn't work, bringing back the central conflict between Eggman and Sonic and building it up further with the addition of Tails and Knuckles.

Even Detective Pikachu, another film from Nintendo, did a better job at showing more effort placed into it compared to the Mario movie. While yes, the film very loosely follows the plot of the game itself, it did bring a decent mystery to solve with subtle cues that would allow adults to pick up who the real bad guy was while also offering children the funny lines and other quirky bits that would add to the movie’s charm.

Do I think that the Super Mario Bros. Movie is bad? Not at all, I believe it is quite mediocre and way too by the book, but I certainly didn’t feel like I was being actively insulted while watching it. I recognized many of the references, such as the cameo from Jump Man (who weirdly doesn’t have any stand-in considering that Donkey Kong is running off the Country continuity… Or something like that), and I did get a snicker while watching Mario play Kid Icarus.

But what does all of that mean when I see things such as the painfully average “Mario gets into a training montage” bit or the odd musical transitions? I’m not just talking about Holding Out for a Hero; inclusions such as Take on Me and Thunderstruck, alongside other songs from the 90s which are used as transitions from one subplot to another, feel awkward and make me question why the songs were chosen outside of being cool music that would make some guy go “Oh yeah! I know that one!”

Here’s the thing. I could point out all the easter eggs and references dispersed throughout the Super Mario Bros. Movie. I’m fairly certain that if this were a quiz on how many references to gaming history there are, I would ace it without an issue. The thing is that this isn’t a quiz. This is supposed to be a movie that would celebrate the Mario franchise in several ways. Instead, it plays itself safe and goes by its motions quickly, leading to awkward pacing issues that cannot be ignored.

Again, I’m not expecting writing on the level of Citizen Kane, Thanks for Smoking, or some other film that supposedly is for adults. But films like Kung Fu Panda, Ratatouille, and the aforementioned films have done a fantastic job at giving children a very entertaining story while allowing adults to also partake in mature conversations about their deeper themes. It’s almost hilarious to see the same crowd that says “What would you expect?” about the Super Mario Bros. Movie screech when the Animation category is screwed out of the Oscars.

So, where are we left with this editorial? I believe that we need to have standards for all our pieces of media. After all, we have grown up around some strong films and shows that respected our intelligence as audiences while also providing adequately thought-provoking plots. Look at the recently released Puss in Boots film, which has given everyone a lot of existential dread and stylish visuals. This is just accentuated when you realize the film came out not even four months ago.

Video game films and animated movies in general deserve to have a deeply critical lens put into them. This is the way we’ll shake off the bad adaptations that have become stigmatized even within the community itself, like the Persona 5 anime or the horror that is the Monster Hunter film. If mediocrity like this is rewarded, we’ll continue on a vicious cycle where people wonder why critics cannot take game films seriously.

Written by Ule Lopez