It’s safe to say that Movie Super Mario Bros is a stunning success. Despite a mediocre reception from critics, the animated film broke box office records in its opening weekend and is currently earning high ratings from audiences. It only guarantees that Nintendo and Illumination’s cinematic partnership will continue, bringing more sequels and spinoffs set in the Mushroom Kingdom. This is the long-in-the-making beginning of Mario’s on-screen empire.
And I can’t help but feel a little disappointed about that.
Universal Pictures / Universal Pictures
Movie Super Mario Bros not exactly the most ambitious Mario adaptation. While its visual and musical elements are top notch, faithfully recreating the feel of the games, it doesn’t quite reach the top of the proverbial flag. That’s mostly because it’s still first and foremost an Illumination film, a drag Despicable me the studio’s characteristic humor for the cult world of video games. There’s over-the-top slapstick, bizarre pop music pins, and tons of Minion-like sidekicks waiting to be turned into memes. It all makes for a fun movie for kids, but is it Mario?
In the attempt to turn Mario into a modern crowd pleaser, something gets lost in translation. Movie Super Mario Bros it looks the part, but lacks the game’s classic cartoon spirit — something that has allowed the series to remain truly timeless since its inception. It’s a good piece of entertainment by 2023 standards, but it’s one of the first Mario pieces of media that seems to have an expiration date.
Sailor Mario
Bringing Mario to the big screen is not an enviable task. Despite his decades-long adventures, the plumber is not a very deep character; he is a confident, determined do-gooder who fights villains and saves princesses. Everything in the Mushroom Kingdom universe remained similarly thin, with light narratives and character arcs that evolved only slightly over time. It stands to reason that Illumination would want to bring some depth to the series to make it work as a movie, creating a traditional hero’s journey for Mario and sparking tragic backstories for characters like Princess Peach. All of these choices work to elevate Mario above Saturday morning cartoon status.
That might be the problem: Mario is saturday morning cartoon.
There is a definite truth to this as the series has always been rooted in classic animation. Donkey Kong was famously conceived as a Popeye video game, with a sailor rescuing Olive Oyl from Bluto. The arcade game is a clear visual throwback to the 1934 Popeye short Dream walking, which has Olive Oyl sleepwalking through a construction site. When Nintendo couldn’t secure the rights to the IP, designer Shigeru Miyamoto was forced to create original characters to replace the cartoon cast — though he still drew inspiration from 1930s media, this time using King Kong as a reference point.
Popeye The Sailor – Dream walking
While we narrowly avoided Popeye becoming the world’s most recognizable mascot, the Mario series has always stuck to that DNA. His games play like classic cartoons from the 1930s, with an emphasis on transformative animation, magnificent musical cues and colorful sound effects that give his world character. Even something as new as Super Mario Odyssey is a return to the emergence of sound in cinema, creating playful interactions built around clever sound/image relationships.
Take a character as simple as Dry Bones. Undead koopas are the living (or inanimate, I guess) epitome of timeless animation: when Mario jumps on one, it collapses into a pile of bones while a xylophone-like sound effect plays. It’s something straight out of a 1929 Disney cartoon Dance of skeletons, which famously depicts a skeleton using someone else’s spine as a musical instrument. Even the way Mario speaks in recent games, communicating solely through Italian-accented grunts and mumbles, still seems in line with Popeye. All those repeated “mamma mia”s and “let’s go” are not so different from the sailor’s “why should I.”
Silly symphonies – Dance of the skeletons
It’s easy to label these games as simplistic, citing their thin narratives or lack of deep character, but that would be an understatement for the difficult task they pull off with finesse. Nintendo games are one of mainstream pop culture’s last links to the silent and early film era. Game like Kirby and the Forgotten Land plays like a Charlie Chaplin movie; you don’t need to understand a word of English to appreciate the physical comedy of Kirby inhaling giant stairs and wobbling like a pink Tyrannosaurus Rex. There is a universality that transcends language and age barriers. This is why Nintendo continues to reign supreme when it comes to creating family media that even adults love.
It’s the heart of the Mario series. Just because Nintendo doesn’t explain its backstory in detail through lengthy exposition doesn’t mean the game doesn’t communicate anything. We see the character’s joyful attitude and determination expressed in exuberant backflips and happy wahoos, just as Steamboat Willie he told us exactly who Mickey Mouse was through a 15-second toe-tapping dance. That’s the power of great animation, and it’s what made Mario such an enduring pop culture icon as others became relics of their time.
Modern Mario
Movie Super Mario Bros doesn’t completely throw that idea out the window. A lot of attention has been put into the visual and audio content, bringing those special parts of the game to life. We get quite a bit of Mario as a slapstick comedian as he bounces helplessly off the pipe. The film’s best sequence occurs early on when the brothers race through a construction site modeled after them Super Mario Bros.’ first level, wordlessly showing Mario’s confidence through movement. It will tell you almost everything you need to know about him in seconds.
Universal Pictures
Which makes it all the more disappointing when a film uses modern animation gimmicks and tropes that don’t live up to that spirit. Its humor is indistinguishable from that of Despicable Me, filled with silly one-liners that seem designed for sales potential (hearing Seth Rogen say “Listen like Donkey Kong!” gave me goosebumps in my seat). Random selections of pop songs like To be a hero and Take me weaken any “it’s a kids movie!” defense by throwing a bone to bored parents — despite the fact that many adults adore Mario’s original music. The game’s universal tone slips away as Illumination goes for a more alienated “something for the kids, something for mom and dad” approach. It all seems a bit off when you consider the wide range of age groups that love Mario games that rarely pander to a specific audience.
The elegant work of the cartoon characters also gets lost in the monocultural soup. The wordier, wittier script and A-list voice cast try to bring more depth to each character, but never overpower its more subtle source material. Charlie Day is perfectly cast as Luigi, giving him an appropriately maniacal edge, but the character is never as expressive as in Luigi’s villa 3, where he is regular Lou Costello. Chris Pratt’s take on Mario is a lot more accepting than fans feared it would be, but there’s a simplicity to it. He’s just your average reluctant hero here.
Watching it all unfold, I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite animated movies: Wall-E. The Pixar film features two main characters who can only speak their own names, which forced the filmmakers to get creative in how they told the robot love story. The result still stands as a masterclass in animation, showing just how much emotion can be expressed through physicality and vocal intonation. I respect Illumination’s decision to put their own stamp on Mario, finding a way to delve into his depths for something deeper, but I was left longing for a Mario movie that carried the same confidence that Wall-E.
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
There is a moment early Movie Super Mario Bros I’ve been guilty of that ever since I saw it. Our first introduction to Mario and Luigi is in a TV commercial for their plumbing company where they talk like they’re in a game. This is immediately followed by a tongue-in-cheek joke about how stupid Italian mumbling sounds, not unlike characters in a Marvel movie joking about how stupid a name like Ant-Man is. It’s a surprisingly rude moment that falls flat, demeaning the work of longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet (who appears in the scene).
It’s a bit ironic considering that Pratt’s version of Mario has become the butt of jokes in real life. Instead of mocking Mario’s video game voice, perhaps it’s worth asking why Martinet’s over-the-top “mama mias” is still a pop culture icon.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn