Every once in a while, a film comes along with such lights and colors and sound and energy that it forgets to be good. The Avatar franchise is a classic case; James Cameron put so much work into the look and feel of the picture that he even fooled audiences into believing it was a story worth telling. And now with yet another addition to the hit-and-miss world of video game adaptations, No-friend-o, er, Nintendo has given us The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a film I will never chastise for its lack of energy, just what it brought to the table.
Mario and Luigi (voices of Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) are Brooklyn plumbers. They have decided to go into business for themselves which, honesty, doesn’t seem like a bad idea if you’ve got a plumbing skill set. I mean, hey, you don’t need a home office, and your initial capital outlay can’t be much more than a set of decent tools and a pair of used overalls. If you’re in NYC, you don’t even need a car to make housecalls.
Of course, you have to be able to do your job, which is where the plot starts. Mario & Luigi blow their initial wad
on a terrible commercial, then botch their first job as indies. Good going, Bros. Eager to show Brooklyn what they’re made of, they call themselves to a city sewer main break only to find the secret underground pipes leading to a land of mushroom people ruled by Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) adjacent to another land ruled by a giant super-powered evil turtle. Of course, NYC is no stranger to anthroporphic aggressive fighting turtles, but that’s a different movie.
Turtle-king Bowser (Jack Black) immediately arrests and imprisons Luigi, who crash landed in his territory rather than mushroom land. This all coincides with Bowser’s current attempt to either 1) woo and marry Princess Peach or 2) invade and take over mushroom land. To stop the invasion, Mario will need help from the adjacent Jungle Kingdom, home to several fictional great apes, including, but not limited to: Donkey Kong, Cranky Kong, Diddy Kong, and Lao Tzu Kong, who wrote the The Arcade of War.
Have you played Super Mario or Donkey Kong or any of this Nintendo crap? It will look familiar. I didn’t see Paper Mario anywhere, but Mario Kart was front and center on the road to Bowserville 
or wherever. I guess my main question with The Super Mario Bros. Movie is, “OK, you brought a video game to the big screen … so what?” I don’t even ask that question to be mean; I simply ask because I am struggling to care. Nintendo, Universal Pictures, Illumination … the four directors for this film – how were you planning on distinguishing this production from a video game other than there’s no actual player here? I’m left learning next-to-nothing about any of the characters you’ve presented; I feel like if Bowser takes over the Mushroom Kingdom, well, wasn’t that gonna happen anyway? Why don’t you get Luigi and go back to plumbing? I mean, geez, Mario, not your circus, not your monkeys. Literally.
It’s not that I disliked The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but it just kept me waiting, waiting, waiting, for that big laugh, that big conflict, that big insight, that big emotion. It never happened. Crappy Pixar films have big moments … even Minions films have bigger moments. I cannot help but summon Macbeth at a time like this. Shakespeare got it right; he just attributed it to the wrong thing. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is “ a tale old by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.” Of course in this case it was four idiots, five if you count the writer.
There once was toon named Donkey Kong
Who slung barrels at girders all day long
With one snarled greeting
And morality fleeting
A mere quarter decided right from wrong
Rated PG, 92 Minutes
Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Pierre Leduc, Fabien Polack (four directors and one writer, really?)
Writer: Matthew Fogel
Genre: Lights! Colors! Sounds!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Your Nintendo child
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “I’m still waiting for the fun”
