The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review
Nintendo and Illumination Studios released the Super Mario Bros. Movie on April 5, 2023, directed by Arron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri. This film follows Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), two brothers working as Plummers in Brooklyn who are sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom. Here he meets Princess Peach (Anya Joy Taylor) Toad (Keegan Michael Keele) and Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and together they must stop Bowser (Jack Black) from destroying Mushroom Kingdom and taking over the world. This movie is a lot of fun and proves that it is possible to adapt a videogame into a movie and make it a hit.
Illumination is famous for their animated films such as Despicable Me, Secret Life of Pets, and Sing franchises and they do a phenomenal job bringing the world of Mario to life. Whether it's from the use of visual effects or from its soundtrack. Many important landmarks, like peaches castle, are taken straight from the source material. To accompany the visual depiction of Peaches castle, Donkey Kong Country and the basement; their music themes are included. Illumination did a great job at grabbing references from not just the mainline Mario titles. This movie features old 2D titles, spinoff titles, and other Nintendo games as well. This movie is packed with visual easter eggs that do not make it feel as if they are being shoved down your throat. With many characters and items being shown in the backgrounds of Toad Town and Bowser’s Castle.
The plot of this film is quite simple but that does not hold it back. This film shows that a movie's plot can be light if that space gets filled elsewhere. The Super Mario Bros. Movie does this with how good of a dialogue this movie has. No matter which character is speaking, you are drawn into what they are saying because their lines are written as if they were things, they would say in video games. Also, each character is quite funny lines that are not out of place like in man
