Super Mario Bros 2023

When his brother Luigi is kidnapped, a Brooklyn plumber Mario must travel to another world to rescue hjm from the clutches of the villainous Bowser. This CG animated adventure based on the videogame series is very much aimed at young fans of the games and their parents who probably grew up on the character's early Nintendo incarnations. The animation style lends itself much better to the character and world than the misguided 90s live-action film starring Bob Hoskins, when effects where not a stage where this world could be successfully realised on the big screen. This new film does look great. But seeing as Mario is one of the most iconic characters in video game history, it would have been nice if the makers afforded him the courtesy of a script. Instead we get a movie that feels like it was directed by accountants, from a screenplay generated by an AI. Ironic that The Super Mario Bros Movie was released for Easter weekend as it's basically a film full of Easter Eggs. In a year where The Last Of Us has made a successful transition from videogame to screen, this feels like a massive step backwards. But maybe the gritty realism and narrative of something like The Last Of Us always should have been a TV show rather than a game. However, maybe games like Mario don't lend themselves to adaptation. The Mario games have endured over five decades for a reason. Along with Sonic The Hedgehog and Tetris, they are perfect games that put addictive gameplay first, whilst immersing us in surreal worlds that the player never questions. So in the movie, hearing Mario say things like, "Why are these blocks floating?" seemed to run counter to this spirit. It should be noted, Mario made a modestly successful transition to a 2D animated series in 1989, so the problem with this new film is the approach. If this new film was genuinely inventive, it should have tapped into the quirky and eccentric much more, like The Lego Movie or Inside Out. Occasionally (about three times) there are flashes of what the movie could have been, such as Bowser channelling Elton John and the nihilistic star. But as soon as these moments begin, they are over - and we return to a checklist of characters and moments from the games. Significantly worse than the average-but-fun Sonic The Hedgehog film, The Super Mario Bros Movie will still likely finish in the Top 5 highest grossing films of 2023. At best, it feels like watching someone else playing a videogame. At worst, it feels like a cynical cash grab rather than a movie made with any sort of real love.