Hey everyone Dan here and today I'll be reviewing the very much hyped and anticipated Super Mario Bros. Movie!

Warning!: may contain spoilers!

This movie has been hyped to hell and back as everyone thinks this is the second coming of Jesus, that may sound like an exaggeration but people were extremely excited to see this film thinking this would be like movie of the year, to which I say "cool your jets" because this movie might be great but it's definitely got its flaws. I'll be going over the Mario movies strengths and weaknesses and how they can improve if they go through with a sequel.

I want to start off by giving props to Nintendo, specifically Shigeru Miyamoto who made sure the movie was of good quality rather than a shameless cash grab. Let's be real, if Illumination was left to their own devices, they would have made this movie like the Lorax or the Minions which would have sucked for the brand. I'm glad the Nintendo team worked directly with Illumination to make sure we get the best Mario movie experience we can get. Nintendo seems to have learned from the old Mario movie from the 90's making sure this one is fully animated which I think looks great and has kept faithful to the source material the best they can in this medium. Miyamoto has been busy these last couple years in collaboration with Universal bringing Nintendo to the theme parks and to the big screen. I understand because of this he hasn't been involved with the Nintendo games as much but honestly that's not too bad considering the new products we've gotten now. I'm glad he was directly involved with this movie making it as great as it is and I do hope this leads to future Nintendo movie endeavors for stuff like Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Captain Falcon, etc. Who knows? maybe this is the start of the Super Smash Bros. Cinematic Universe.

Now this is the biggest criticism I've seen about this movie and that is, the plot. Now the plot isn't anything complex or story driven to the max, it's a simple story about two bros discovering a new world and fighting an evil threat. This movie is taking the Sonic Movie approach where they're not trying to make it exactly like the games in terms of story, they're just treading the waters and seeing how it goes. Sonic did this and did this well enough to get a sequel where they were able to expand on the lore and bring out more characters from the Sonic universe. Mario has its atmosphere, but hasn't gone deep into its stories and lore just yet. I think the story is good for what it is, though it does seem messy at times like its about rescuing Luigi then its about rescuing the Mushroom Kingdom/Peach, it's like they couldn't decide on a plot so they merge two plots together. It's not even done like a plot A and plot B, it is done like merging two plots as one which can get messy at times. Now my major complaint with the story/plot is its pacing. Everything happens so fast that I can't really take it all in or process what's happening. I felt the movie was (much like the games) rushed to meet a deadline and the pacing is barely done well enough to make it comprehendible. Now I see why the movie came out so soon, the pacing is just too fast like this was made for kids with ADHD (though I also have that too but even I could barely follow). I felt they should have made the movie at least a solid 2 hours so that the pacing would be better and we can take it all in better.

The cast was another concern for this film was the cast, specifically Chris Pratt as Mario. I was also concerned about it and after seeing his performance, he actually didn't do too bad of a job. His Mario reminds me of the Super Mario show accent where they sound like they're Italians from Brooklyn rather than just straight up Italians like in the games. I was afraid it would be Chris Pratt being himself as a character but he did manage to give his Mario personality which is good. the weakest performance came from Seth Rogens Donkey Kong. That one was just Seth phoning it in and did not give enough personality to Donkey Kong which is a shame since I love Donkey Kong. Everyone else did a good job at playing the characters especially Jack Black as Bowser. Jack Black killed it as Bowser and I'm here for it! Peaches is a hilarious song and I expected no less for the Tenacious one himself.

I will say, the Mario movie did one thing well above all and that's the references/cameos. The movie did an excellent job paying homage to the Mario games as well as other beloved Nintendo games such as Donkey Kong and even the Jump Man game that Mario originated from. My personal favorite is the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64, I played that game all the time when I was little on my cousins N 64 back in the day and I couldn't help but sing along a bit. I know Nintendo tries to tap in on your nostalgia, but there is a reason it works. Nintendo is a powerful brand and even though I'm not a fan of the current stuff they're doing in the gaming industry, but I still enjoy the Nintendo history especially as someone who has owned the SNES, N64, GameCube, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS/DSi, Nintendo Wii and even the Switch (that I rarely use). I've had a lot of good memories with their games and systems and I felt all those memories when I saw the references and cameos in this film.

Overall it was a fun movie and definitely a great video game adaptation of our favorite plumbing duo. I will say that I do think this is one of the better video game movies in recent memory. I hope we get more animated video game movies like this from Nintendo and this can be another gold standard when adapting a video game into a movie or even a television show.

Rating this I'd give it:

8/10

I do think this is better than the first sonic movie or detective pikachu, but not quite up there with something like Sonic 2 and that's only because Sonic 2 had a chance to explore the lore of the Sonic universe. Hopefully the Mario movie gets a sequel to do the same thing which may be even better than Sonic 2 along with ironing out the kinks in terms of pacing and story telling. That's all I got for you guys.

See ya!