Rating: PG | Runtime: 92 minutes
Release Date: April 5th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Illumination Entertainment / Universal Pictures
Director(s): Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic / Pierre Leduc & Fabien Polack (co-director)
Writer(s): Matthew Fogel / Shigeru Miyamoto (character)

In an insane world, it is the sane who are called crazy.

You can’t really blame the filmmakers for going full fan service with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I would have liked a story, but loosely connected action set-pieces within Nintendo’s sprawling Mario-adjacent universe is still fun. And that’s what the young kids in its target PG-rated demo want anyway. Because this isn’t for nostalgic Millennials and Gen-Xers. This is an advertisement for new generations to board the bandwagon.

So, we get a Mushroom Kingdom obstacle course complete with every power-up imaginable. A battle royale with Donkey Kong, Mario Kart race on the Rainbow Road, dungeons, water boards, and even Brooklyn with varying camera shifts to make the screen look like a side-scrolling platformer. Add a decent classic rock soundtrack, some interesting remixes of the original score, and a mostly passable voice cast and this low stakes romp excels at superficial entertainment.

Does it also disappoint? You bet. Especially on the level of being a real movie rather than episodic introduction with more loose ends (Is Peach human?) then concrete mythology. The whole multiverse angle has been played out too, but … whatever. That’s the easiest way to juggle multiple “stages.”

The real head-scratcher, though, is an end stinger that epitomizes this mixed result’s weirdness by teasing a character (Yoshi) whose world they literally showed an hour beforehand.

And the MVP? Juliet Jelenic’s Lumalee. Perfection.

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(from left) Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), Mario (Chris Pratt), Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) in Nintendo and Illumination’s THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. © 2023 Nintendo and Universal Studios.