Title:
The Super Mario Bros Movie
What Year?:
2023
Classification:
Mashup
Rating:
It’s Okay! (3/4)
As I write this, it’s the middle of what I had planned as an off-week, but it just happens I’m at the limit of my time frame for a review of a movie I actually saw in the theater, something I have been doing a lot more often lately. It’s another film that simply blew up my usual channels (see M3GAN and Puss In Boots 2), and once I saw it, I knew I would have to review it now or wait for it on home video. I present The Super Mario Bros Movie, and what really settled this was hearing someone sing the “Peaches” song in church.
Our story begins with a ca 1990s alleged rap about a certain pair of plumbers, which does prove to be intended as a joke. We then follow Mario and Luigi on a job that leads to a mysterious sewer pipe that opens into a universe of colorful mushroom people, war-like turtles and other wacky creatures. Mario meets up with a Princess named Peach from Earth who has become leader of the shrooms, while Luigi is taken prisoner by a dragon-like mega-turtle named Bowser. It turns out that the leader of the Koopas is out to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom and have Peach for his bride, because there really was a time when forced marriage was on the board for a kids’ movie. Mario must seal an alliance with a kingdom of gorillas to fight the Koopas. But will he be in time when the Princess is dragged to the altar?
The Super Mario Bros Movie is a 2023 CGI animated film by Illumination in collaboration with Nintendo, based on the Nintendo game series first released in 1985. It was the first theatrically-released film based on a Nintendo property since the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. The film reportedly entered pre-production in 2018. The voice cast was led by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day as Mario and Luigi, with Anna Taylor-Joy as Peach and Jack Black as Bowser. The soundtrack was composed by Bryan Tyler based on music composed for the NES games by Koji Kondo. The film received mixed to negative reviews on release, but saw strong box office returns and favorable reviews from animation critics and fans of the franchise. The in-film ballad “Peaches” performed by Black was reported as a Top 100 Billboard success. As of mid-April 2023, it has earned a box office of over $700 million against a $100M budget. Several press releases have confirmed development of a possible sequel and other Nintendo adaptations.
For my experiences, Super Mario Bros and NES games in general were one more thing I got to fairly late. What stands out looking back is that the franchise and fandom weren’t initially “kids’ stuff” even to us Eighties/ Nineties kids. The original NES titles were genuinely hard games we took seriously. The pixelated early 8-bit graphics of the original in particular actually gave a more realistic feel than the openly cartoony imagery of the later entries. The lasting effect on me has been a certain dissonance, between the “mature” franchise that might have been and the colorful, kid-friendly whimsies now taken for granted. With that frame of reference, I can at least comprehend what the people behind the legendary live-action film were trying to do. (Yeah, I was working up to it…) Once I saw arguments brewing over the present film, I decided to take a look. What I found was very much a reverse of the ‘90s film, freely celebrating the “cartoon” side of the franchise. What intrigued me is that it still shows the dark edges that were there all along. For that, I was willing to dive in, and I definitely count the damn song.
Moving forward, the obvious thing to say is that this movie is the definition of playing it safe, and a textbook case of the merits of that approach. The characters, the creatures, the traps and the music are all here, in forms easily harmonized with their earliest counterparts in the games. The result is just the right balance of matter-of-fact familiarity and a renewed sense of wonder. On that vein, I must point out that Princess herself as a playable and capable character by Super Mario 2, which is very clearly referenced here. (Even for what it was, that one was weird…) What’s of interest is that the sequences that most closely follow the games are contextualized as training exercises within this assumed universe. The intriguing result is that the actual action scenes come across as much higher stakes, especially a surreal showdown at the wedding. By implication, this is not a “game” that can be won or lost, but a fight where neither side is obligated to play fair.
That brings me straight to what I definitely wanted to talk about, the depiction of Bowser. In my head canon, Bowser per the games was always courtly “lawful evil” (which figured in my more-misbegotten-than-usual fan fic). Here, he is a flat-out, unambiguous, completely contextualized bad guy, which after a decade of twist villains and “misunderstood” tragic figures is refreshingly old-school. This already shows in his fixation on the Princess, which I have already been ranting is in no way redeeming, let alone “romantic”. Where his nature really comes out is his quite casual mistreatment of his own men (?), who always take it in stride. What is truly intriguing is that he clearly does have a legitimate bond with the troops, who only start to lose their enthusiasm when he goes on too long about his yearning for the Princess. Here, at least, one might draw a picture of a flawed tragic hero, to the extent that he could surely find a more or less willing female somewhere in the ranks (assuming that’s even how their biology works…), but that is a small thing indeed. One more curious twist is that the “romance” between Mario and the Princess is simply left out. That, too, is an honest choice that fits the story. To me, however, it represents the greatest compromise. Making Mario as obsessed with the Princess as Bowser (by now fairly routine in fan fiction including mine) would force the viewer to consider the darker side of the character and the rescue-fantasy convention as a whole. But, of course, that kind of fridge-horror deconstruction is the one thing we didn’t need with actual children in the audience.
Now for the “one scene”, I really couldn’t avoid the in-film rendition of the song. Now, I’m having to go by memory, so I might get a little of this wrong. This actually starts with Bowser discussing his plans to propose to the Princess, which at this point could still be kindly interpreted as misguided and overconfident rather than actively malevolent. That is when Bowser breaks out his love song for Peach. It’s nothing more or less than a hilarious send-up of the 1980s/ ‘90s power ballad, with all the cringey subtexts that were already there. The minion (I know, Kamek) politely questions the plan, while unwisely playing a few notes himself. Bowser responds by slamming the piano cover down on his hands before getting up to leave… and specifically denying him permission to remove it. I have to say to the film’s credit that the implications are in no way minimized: This isn’t villainy watered down or ramped over the top; this is just plain evil. It’s unfortunately telling that even with this clear context, the meaning is already losing out to memes.
In closing, what I come
back to is how I feel about the movie. For me, this can’t bring out any special
sentimentality. Even back in the old days, there was too much I missed or got
to very late for me to be nostalgic about the franchise the way others might
be. The flip side is that a film like this doesn’t lose anything by doing
something new, which this one certainly succeeds at. It was never going to be
great, and it might not be remembered long, but it is good fun with just the
right amount of thoughtfulness. For me, that’s enough for a shout-out on an off
week. Onward and upward…
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