The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) review: a vibrant, madcap, fun animated family blockbuster that was always assured to be one of the year’s biggest movies

30 years ago…directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel pressed start and loaded up the first video game adaptation feature in 1993’s Super Mario Bros. A film that lives on in infamy as either a catastrophe, an intriguing flop, a cult classic or just one hell of a weird film with little overall connection to the Nintendo game on which it is based. Depending on your point of view. 

Well, over the years, those very games and the moustachioed Italian plumber that is the face of them, have only grown in popularity, as multiple generations have grown up collecting them coins, exploring the mushroom kingdom and involuntarily shouting wa-hoo and doing their best – or rather worst – Italian accent. 

So, 3 decades later from the first video game film, and at a moment when the purported curse that seemed to plague all but a rare few films based on games seems to have lifted – in the face of HBO’s barnstorming The Last Of Us – is this now the perfect time for a new Mario flick? And not only that but one finally based more faithfully on the games? It seems like it, so as the red cap and dungaree wearing hero might say, “lets-a-go”…

This new animated film, from Illumination (the makers of Despicable Me and Sing) is not only based on the iconic Nintendo game franchise juggernaut and its many beloved characters, but is so clearly utterly adoring of them.

In this story, Mario (Chris Pratt) and brother Luigi (Charlie Day) are trying to get their plumbing business off the ground, but when one potential job transports them to fantastical new worlds. Mario must face-off against the deadly Bowser (Jack Black), to find Luigi and stop Bowser from taking over these many realms…as well as his own. With the help of some newfound super friends of course!

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was simply fun. A film made by and for Mario fans of all ages that leans unapologetically heavily into nostalgia at certain points, as well as speaking directly to its core child audience at others, with its gags and script especially. Its success was inevitable and any review of it is frankly irrelevant, other than those of the utterly absorbed kids that filled my screening. 

Beautifully animated and scored, even if the many smash hit track needle drops caught me off guard, mind you it warms my heart to think a whole new generation of kids are being introduced to the joy of blasting out AC/DC!

The film is an aesthetic explosion, marred a tad by a story that seems to sometimes frolic a bit too much rather than getting immediately to the good stuff, and the odd voice choice that doesn’t quite fit (Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong?). Though, after all the debates, Pratt was really good and it was wise to drop the accent (though they reference it)…I mean, did we want to listen to Pratt speak like that for 90+ minutes? Anya Taylor-Joy was also good as Princess Peaches, even if Jack Black is the undoubtable showstealer as Bowser, whose love song “Peaches” is surely the new “Everything is Awesome”-style animated ear worm of this decade. 

Overall, it is a film that avid fans will take the most from, offering a nostalgic, colourful and exciting cinema adventure, that gives these characters a movie they deserve and is a treasure trove of references and fun for fans! But a film which is still accessible enough to any viewer really. Sure it has flaws, but it does precisely what it needs to and ought to delight its family audiences (and has), and even some of us moody lonely adults too.

It will cross $1 billion soon, and spawn an animated Nintendo-verse quicker than it takes Donkey Kong to lob a big barrel. Mamma Mia!