Film Review - Super Mario Brothers (2023)

Super Mario Bros is the new Illumination Animation film and Nintendo is now much more involved with this movie which they weren’t with the 1993 live action film that starred Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, this time Chris Pratt and Charlie Day voice the Mario Brothers who get sucked into the Mushroom kingdom via the pipe warp tunnels and while Luigi encounters the villainous Bowser (Jack Black) Mario comes across Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Keegan Michael-Key) who work together to stop Bowser’s goal of conquest.

Super Mario Brothers is an okay film but it was certainly much better than I thought it would be for as much as I’m a fan of the Despicable Me series from this studio their work outside of it has either done very little for me or I’ve had no real desire to sit down and watch it and this is alongside the first Secret Life of Pets film from 2016 in being a near sole exception to that rule and that film is easily the better of those 2.

But this film like I said isn’t horrible its just perfectly fine and enjoyable and the main reason for that is Black’s voice work as Bowser he is clearly having a great time voicing this character and when he was on screen I had a big smile on my face, as for the rest of the voice cast their okay Pratt is much better than I thought he would be as Mario and he and Day have some good chemistry.

Anya Taylor-Joy is okay as Peach but her vocal work didn’t really rise above the stuff she was given to say sadly, Michael-Key as Toad is fun but isn’t in the film a huge deal while Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong is fine but nothing special.

As for the visuals well they are bright and colourful and look perfectly good on a big cinema screen but only the Mario Kart segment which is glimpsed in the previews for the film really worked for me, I had a great time with this part as it felt like this weird mix of Mad Max and James Bond but the rest of the visual set piece moments did little for me apart from being fun If forgettable to watch.

And so that was Super Mario Brothers and its fine but forgettable, fun but disposable, fans will enjoy themselves and I had some fun but I don’t think I’ll watch it again, 3 out of 5.