Film Review: THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (2023): A Fun, Kid-Friendly Animated Adventure That Will Appeal to Fans of the Video Games

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, written by Matthew Fogel and starring Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Armisen, Kevin Michael Richardson, Khary Payton, Charles Martinet, Sebastian Maniscalco, Rino Romano, John DiMaggio, Jessica DiCicco, Eric Bauza, Scott Menville and Carlos Alazraqui.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is an enormously entertaining experience for fans of the Nintendo video games that were launched at least several decades back. Over the years, plumbers Mario and Luigi have won over many fans and supplementary characters such as Toad and Princess Peach developed and now have big parts in the new animated feature film that will appeal to audiences of all ages. It’s a hysterical good time with wild scenes designed to make people familiar with the “Mario Bros.” video games smile.

The story is centered on Mario (voice of Chris Pratt) and Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day) who are two New York brothers/plumbers with mustaches who take out a television ad to promote their business as the new picture opens. They’re a couple of underdogs but they have what it takes to succeed. It’s just not completely evident that they do as the picture’s plot kicks in. Mario and Luigi get a job to fix a leaky sink but a pesky dog ends up ruining their ability to do a professional job. An alternate universe ends up sucking Mario and Luigi into it and the brothers unwillingly separate from one another.

Mario immediately befriends a little character with a mushroom hat called Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) in the other realm. Toad informs Mario that Luigi probably isn’t in the best situation and is going to be scooped up by the evil Bowser (Jack Black). Toad insists on taking Mario to Princess Peach (voice of Anya Taylor-Joy) who could be able to help Mario defeat Bowser in order to save his brother. Princess Peach puts Mario into basic training while “Holding Out for a Hero” is quite hilariously the song blasting on the soundtrack. This basic training is designed to get Mario familiar with the “Power Ups” and traps the new world features.

Princess Peach takes Mario to an ape named Donkey Kong to try to get the gorilla to help defeat Bowser. Meanwhile, Bowser is planning on trying to marry Princess Peach and take over the world for his own wicked schemes. Peach would never go for an evil monster like Bowser but a guy’s gotta try, right? Mario, Toad, and Peach soon get vehicles that improve upon those showcased in the Mario Kart games.

This movie is appealing for people who loved both the older and newer “Mario” games as the film frequently references the situations surrounding the games which have been played for decades. The funniest has to be when one of the “toad” characters tells another to just blow into something and everything will be OK. Fans will fondly remember blowing into their video cartridges to make them work when they were not working properly. It’s a clever piece of dialogue to have in the film, for certain.

The casting is just fine. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day provide nice voice-over work that helps define the two brothers. They don’t have Italian accents although they occasionally fake them when necessary. Pratt is a little more memorable than Day but both are solid. Anya Taylor-Joy is the quintessential Princess Peach. It’s so enjoyable to compare the facial expressions of the cartoon character to the real actress and one can almost see Taylor-Joy’s mannerisms as she was voicing the character. Seth Rogen has some hilarious lines as Donkey Kong and keeps the movie light. Jack Black has his moments to shine as Bowser especially when he plays the piano and envisions himself living a perfect life with Princess Peach. That’s not going to happen for him, though.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is definitely not perfect. More could have been done at the end when the action moves back to Brooklyn. This film’s conclusion feels a bit rushed and some of the action is too speedy for its own good. When Mario and Donkey Kong are swallowed by a big fish, they must escape and the way they get out is clever but the movie misses the opportunity to really cash in on the fun this scene could have showcased.

Still, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a blast, overall. Anya Taylor-Joy’s work as Princess Peach really stands out while the theme of the movie featuring the brothers trying to work together as a team (and as a family) to defeat the bad guys is spot on. The movie adequately brings the video games to life as Mario powers up and wears different powerful outfits and gets certain abilities to go after Bowser and his crew of baddies. Mario stomps enough turtles to please any fan of the video games.

Kids will see this film in a completely different way than adults and should love just about every minute of it. They’ll root for Mario, Luigi, Toad, Donkey Kong and Princess Peach, all almost equally. The Super Mario Bros. Movie takes advantage of the chance to truly merge all the different video games featuring these characters that have come out over the years. Credit writer Matthew Fogel for piecing together all these elements nicely and the direction by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic keeps the movie upbeat even when the positive sounding literal “star” in the picture seems to think there’s no way out of doom and gloom for some of the film’s characters. You’ll have a good time with Mario and company by seeing this film.

Rating: 7.5/10

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