Movie Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie
I saw The Super Mario Bros. Movie a few weeks ago and since then the movie has become a box office sensation. It will crack $1 billion at the global box office, and it continues to dominate the domestic box office, children everywhere are seeing it and loving it and some adults are too.
The critical response to the film, however, was less enthusiastic. Sitting currently at 59% on Rotten Tomatoes (meaning 59% of the 252 critics who reviewed the film gave the film a positive rating), certifying the film as “rotten”. The biggest complaint amongst critics that I talked to and whose reviews I read was that the film was made specifically for kids and that there is nothing in the movie remotely for adults aside from seeing Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Bowser on screen, which might ignite a little nostalgia bug for some.
It is true that The Super Mario Bros. Movie doesn’t offer up much for adults. It is very thin on plot and character development, the themes are very basic, and there isn’t a moment of suspense in the entire film. The voice performances are hit-and-miss. On the one hand, you have Jack Black voicing Bowser and you can tell he is having a blast and giving it his all. On the other hand, you have Anya Taylor-Joy voicing Princess Peach, whose performance sounds like either she just woke up from a deep sleep or they had a gun pointed at her head forcing her to read the script. And then you have Chris Pratt landing somewhere in the middle with a performance that is totally fine and acceptable and not nearly worthy of the negative internet backlash it received.
But if I was a kid, probably somewhere between the age of six and twelve, I would absolutely love this movie. It is very bright and colorful. It has a bunch of familiar characters that kids are familiar with and features easy humor. The action, which is actually pretty cool in general, happens quite often in the ninety-minute film and features scenes like Mario fighting Donkey Kong in the Donkey Kong arena and a Mario Kart race on a rainbow bridge. Kids don’t care about plot, themes, and voice acting. They care about entertainment and that is exactly what The Super Mario Bros. Movie brings.
So then the question becomes about movies strictly for children: is this a good thing? Is it okay to have a movie that offers hardly anything to an adult audience and is geared solely toward kids? Personally, if the movie isn’t acting like the kids are stupid and dumbing everything down to them, I don’t see an issue with it. There are R-rated adult dramas that offer nothing to kids, so why can’t we have the opposite? There are animated movies from Pixar, Dreamworks, and Studio Ghibli that offer something for both kids and adults, so if there is a studio like Illumination Entertainment, the studio that produced The Super Mario Bros. Movie, along with Sing, The Grinch, and The Despicable Me/Minions franchise, that makes animated movies geared specifically for kids, a thing they have been doing for years and have seen great success with, what’s the problem with that?
As an adult movie critic, The Super Mario Bros. Movie isn’t going in the pantheon of great animated movies or even great video game movies. But as a fun piece of entertainment for kids, it does the job and I’m sure parents everywhere are happy that there is something their kid can watch that will keep them still and entertained for almost two hours.
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