Review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) by Andrewnytro — 18 Apr 2023

PROS:

-The look of this movie is beautiful - especially the Mushroom Kingdom environment - and the characters are just as great looking as they are entertaining to watch.

-Jack Black is perfectly cast in the role of Bowser.

-The story, simple as it is, is a breath of fresh air from more recent releases that seemed to rely on being incredibly convoluted at times.

-The action was incredibly fun to sit through, enhanced by the stunning visuals of course.

-The music was great to listen to throughout the whole thing; the combination of original music and Koji Kondo's themes from the video games were brought together beautifully in this film. Heck, even some of the songs they used worked well.

CONS:

-The overall casting, while not bad (see my mention of Jablinksi above), didn't really impress me all that much. Some bits of dialogue just felt awkward to me with the way they were delivered too. I can at least forgive it though, since it's in some part because...

-The script for this movie is not particularly well-written and the film moves along much quicker than it really needed to. Some lines, and scenes, are much too quick and to the point throughout the film, just giving you a Cliff Notes version of what each scene is supposed to contain when they could've been expanded on more.

-Characters like Toad and D.K. didn't really feel like they were all that necessary at times, which really hampers the movie a bit. It doesn't help that Keegan-Michael Key as Toad is annoying at times, and Seth Rogan is just playing himself but as a giant gorilla with a tie.

-Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong...is just there.

-Mario and Luigi, despite being the film’s titular main characters, don’t get to really do a lot together before they’re separated or even after they’ve reunited. This movie was just a Mario movie with Luigi as a side character (though that’s not all too surprising).

-The use of some songs (like A-Ha’s “Take on Me”) didn’t really feel like they needed to be there, and it didn’t help that an original composition from Brian Tyler was cut from the final film to be replaced with that. “D.K. Rap” also didn’t really feel like it belonged there, at least not to me.

Overall, it's not the greatest movie I've seen, but it's not the worst either (despite what Grace Randolph or other stuck-up critics would tell you).