The Super Mario Bros Movie

The Super, and I mean SUPER, Mario Bros movie has been breaking records for a few weeks now and I saw it for date night last Saturday. I had positive notions going into it but wasn’t sure how they’d pull off a platforming game story. How would they develop video game characters and would this be a movie for all ages? I was surprised and very satisfied.

As far as the games go, most of them have jump here and then to there levels that involve other obstacles you must overcome. I grew up on both Super Mario and Mario 64. One being 2d the other 3d. The movie has few levels just like that in it, fact the entire city of the mushroom people is built like a giant evolving platform level.

Peach also has a platform level for training how to fight and Donkey Kong has a battle arena designed like one. The concept fits very well and natural into the rest of the movie, even better is how well they tie in the Mario Kart themes, which I think leads to Toads funniest gag in the movie. The revel of rainbow road and jokes about banana peels and turtle shells were very entertaining.

There are several characters since it covers many kinds of games from the Mario universe, my only wish is Banjo & Kazooie make an appearance in the future, but that might be rare… RARE! Anyways. Mario and Luigi themselves are the main focus, especially Mario. We get to see a failure keep his heart and push on to grow into our hero. Toad is great because he’s unpredictable and not what is expected as he makes back door sneaky deals and seems very shady and sketch at times, he’s almost a ‘bad boy pimp’ type figure. Peach was alright, she didn’t have much growth, but she was a tough fighter.

My personal favorite was Donkey Kong with his crude dance moves that embarrass his dad. He’s sarcastic, makes quick quips, and has a good arc based on personal growth. The other favorite, being most people’s, is Bowser. It isn’t until halfway through the movie that his true identity is revealed, that being he’s love drunk over Princess Peach. There is a lot of humor here with his obsession with the princess, even a few times where he role plays proposing to her.

Overall, what I like about the movie is that it was fit for all ages. There weren’t any jokes that were dirty and would go over kids heads, like Jumanji, but there were plenty of laughs and gigs to get anyone at any age to enjoy it. Mostly I think the theater came together and enjoyed it because we got to see a game first made in 1985 come to the big screen. Almost 40 years worth of childhood gaming brought together.

My other highlight is the movies time. It was only one hour and thirty minutes long. Perfect for a quick date night and perfect for kids attention span. My only complaint is there were a few slow motion scenes where Mario flips over and mouths “MMMAAA MAAAAA MIIIIAAAAA” It got the kids to laugh but slow motion doesn’t work in cgi kids movies like it does for wartime movies or Transformers, dare I say.

I enjoyed Mario and give it a 10/10. I will watch this again for funzies and with my future children.