Super Mario Bros. – The movie, review: do you still remember how to play?

Super Mario Bros. – The movie, review

Since the first announcements, the film about Super Mario Bros. has been received with suspicion, thanks to the unsuccessful (albeit later cult trash ) experiment of 1993 which led to an irremediable flop in the history of cinema (you can retrieve it on Prime Video ). At the same time, however, the aesthetic appearance of the first images gave a lot of hope to both fans and insiders. In cinemas from April 5, 2023 and directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic , we are talking about an animated feature film which, instead of reworking the protagonists and their world to his liking (as happened with the previous adaptation) takes extreme consideration their aesthetic and cultural origins.

All accompanied by a story that knows both how to pamper the fans of all time, while trying to surprise with unexpected creative choices and an endless series of quotes and easter eggs from the video games of the mustachioed plumber. This film should be rewarded even if only for the care in trying to represent a lively, varied and infinitely nuanced world, offering the spectators in the theater a show with a thousand details, thanks to an obsessive attention in terms of CGI and general graphic rendering.

So what to expect from Super Mario Bros. – The Movie ? Definitely an adventure that knows its own potential perfectly and, above all, that of the video games from which it was based (you can find them on Amazon), translating them through the cinematographic language in an extremely creative path, in which the classic styles of the hero and of the princess are reinterpreted and transformed assuming a more modern value in terms of narration. In all of this, a transposition from the world of video games emerges which breaks, as happened with other products of this period (The Last of Us is an example), the curse according to which products from the gaming context cannot obtain worthy film or television adaptations, further demonstrating the particular closeness between these two creative fields.

Super Mario Bros. – The movie: a work done with the heart of those who love video games

--> At the center of the story of Super Mario Bros. – The film we find Mario and Luigi, two plumbers from Brooklyn who are trying in every way to make a career. They have recently opened their own business and have to deal with the classic initial difficulties that a choice of this kind entails. Thus we see them trying to make a name for themselves in the city chaos, without much luck and too many incentives from the family who mock them for some choices made in terms of visibility. One day, however, here is the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance through which these two brothers can finally prove that they are worth something, that they are the professionals so praised in the television commercials that they have recently filmed and published everywhere. A large underground water leak is putting a part of their hometown at risk, so they decide to take action and try to fix a seemingly irreparable situation. It is precisely in this circumstance that they come across a curious and unknown green tube never seen before which will suck them into a magical world divided into various kingdoms (Luigi ends up in the Dark Land while Mario ends up in the Mushroom Kingdom).

From this moment on, Super Mario Bros. – The film demonstrates its potential by outlining a story that, although apparently simple, will be characterized by a series of narrative choices that will make the events dynamic in an original way. In this lies one of the greatest values ​​of the film, in the fact that it knows perfectly the context in which it moves, exploiting elements of the many video games released to date to enrich the narrative, and continuously and creatively transform everything that happens on the screen ( the easter eggs and quotes are not ends in themselves, becoming real central narrative elements of the world around the various protagonists).



--> Super Mario Bros The Movie In the various magical realms the situation is not the easiest, given that Bowser, the king of the Dark Land, has decided to conquer everything with violence with a precise objective, driven by his own war power to make their way without any mercy. So that of the Mushrooms, led by Princess Peach, becomes the last bastion of resistance, and when Mario accidentally lands on the spot, he finds himself entangled in this war enterprise, driven by the fact that Bowser has most likely captured his brother Luigi.

A real feast for the eyes

Super Mario Bros. – The film is a real feast for the eyes . The obsessive care in modeling every single element on the screen (including the embroideries on the protagonists' hats and on their clothes) is a huge added value to the entire narrative.

Not a complex adventure with deep themes, but a real videogame experience in which the direction and creative choices feed the general fun, soon becoming central in this sense. Thus we see the protagonist moving in a world full of both visual and audio stimuli and quotations, continually quoting his own context, and trying to transpose the sensations into an extremely dynamic journey in which the action becomes central from the very first minutes.

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Super Mario Bros. The Movie

Inspiration at the center of a world of a thousand possibilities

It is precisely in the way Super Mario Bros. – The Movie chooses to outline its adventure that stands out from its past, aiming, this time, at a product for families which, at the same time, speaks an extremely detailed language and specifically aimed at the fans of all time. The linearity of its story, therefore, is enlivened both by the elements present on the big screen and by a series of narrative choices (first of all the characterization of Princess Peach ) which modernize the action, transposing a journey that perfectly knows its potential , and exploits them by choosing to wrap with images rather than with the script.



Super Mario Bros. The Movie In all this the frenzy of the moment, the set of details that you can grasp only if you have played video games, an extremely unpredictable journey in which anything could happen, and those shivers that run down your spine from the beginning to the end of the screening, memories of the child you were and that you have now unconsciously found again.