One should have been warned about the tight schedule of the press screenings, which only took place on the evening before the theatrical opening day. Such a short window of opportunity usually does not bode well, indicating that the rental company is afraid of being panned. Whatever the reason in this case – after the colossal failure of the live-action version Super Mario Bros. from 1993 there is once again no reason for great leaps of enthusiasm.
Dressed in animation, the latest attempt to (further) capitalize on the Nintendo brand is much closer to the game’s aesthetic, with brightly colored visuals and plenty of classic elements – from the question mark blocks to building blocks from the original scores. The nostalgia of the fans is served non-stop. Sometimes in a charming way, but more often the goodies are placed very randomly. For example, when the wheels are out of the blue Mario Kart come into use.
What the makers around the producers Chris Meledandri (Despicable Me) and Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of the Mario series) came up with the content reads as follows: After jumping into self-employment, the plumber brothers Mario and Luigi learn the hard way. Orders are a long time coming. And if the two of them are needed, their work ends in chaos – as with their mission in a luxurious bathroom, which they turn into a battlefield in a successful slapstick passage with the support of an angry dog.
When major damage threatens to flood their Brooklyn neighborhood, the sanitation experts take heroic action. It’s just stupid that they are transported underground through a mysterious green tube into a magical world and end up in different places there. Mario immediately searches for Luigi and meets Toad the mushroom head and Princess Peach in the Mushroom Kingdom, who fears an attack by the evil turtle Bowser, ruler of the Darklands. Although he pushes dark plans of conquest, he has something else in mind: Peach should be his wife.
From a work like There Super Mario Bros. Movie we can’t demand that it conjures up spectacularly multi-dimensional characters from rather simple video game characters. A bit of profile wouldn’t have been bad though. Tentative attempts to make the protagonists a little more plastic are there. Alone: They are not seriously persecuted. A flashback and flat protestations of “Together we are strong” claim an intimate brotherly relationship that is never actually felt. Worse still: screenwriter Matthew Fogel (Minions – In search of the mini boss) has no real use for Luigi, who almost completely leaves the stage in the middle part as Bowser’s prisoner. The “Bros.” in the title could just as easily be deleted. Also in the generic and boring category is the antagonist, who clings to the usual ideas of world domination. That he wants to force the princess’ love is potentially appealing. Once again, however, no juice is pressed from it. After all, Peach proves to be a small ray of hope, who can grab and fight and thus discard the passive role from the video games.
The pace is fast, some gags work, and some jump-and-run choreography is really amusing. The lack of an emotionally compelling plot, even halfway, jumps out at you. The thin plot is ultimately just a hook for level-like challenges that underline the origin of the game. Significantly, the last half hour sinks into a firework of action that makes arbitrariness even more the top priority. At this point at the latest, one would like to exclaim “Mamma mia!”, to quote a phrase constantly used by the main characters. What was feared in advance is largely true: the new Super Mario roller coaster ride is less a film with exciting characters and a gripping story, but a gigantic advertising clip that, despite all the beautiful nostalgic jewelry, remains hollow at its core.
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