On April 5, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was released, and critics didn’t really like it – but many Nintendo fans loved it. 

Critics didn’t like the movie because they felt it was soulless and just there to sell merchandise. “Mario” fans praised the movie for the fanservice.

The “Mario” movie is a film made by Illumination, and is a collaboration with Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri. 

The movie begins with Bowser and his army reaching the Penguin Kingdom, with the Penguin Kingdom failing to fight against Bowser and his minions. Then, Bowser gets the Super Star with plans to marry Peach. 

Two brothers, Mario and Luigi, are struggling plumbers who have just made a commercial to promote their plumbing business. Then Mario and Luigi encounter a man named Spike, and say that they are the “lame” brothers. Mario and Luigi then get their first customer, and they rush to their house. 

Once the brothers arrive, they go upstairs, and Luigi accidentally steps on the family dog’s bone, angering the dog. Mario and Luigi ignore this and go to the bathroom to repair the leak, but then the dog enters and causes the Mario brothers to run around, destroying the bathroom in the process before going home to return to their parents. 

They have dinner with their family, and Mario goes to his room, followed by Luigi. They see on the TV that Brooklyn is flooding, and they decide to repair it. They go into the sewers, and they try to repair it, though the pipe breaks. They then go down to this odd area that hasn’t been touched in years, with a green pipe at the bottom.

The two brothers investigate it, but quickly get sucked in. They get separated, as Luigi goes to the dreaded Bowser Kingdom while Mario goes to the Mushroom Kingdom. 

Here, Mario meets Toad; and Toad takes him to Princess Peach to hopefully rescue Luigi. Peach and Mario meet, and she takes Mario to a training ground, showing him what to do. Mario attempts to complete the training, failing multiple times – but towards the morning, he almost had it down. 

Toad, Peach, and Mario then set on an adventure to go to the Donkey Kong Kingdom. They go through different worlds until they finally get to the Donkey Kong Kingdom, and Mario agrees to fight Cranky Kong’s son, Donkey Kong. 

The movie then jumps to Luigi, who is exploring Bowser’s Kingdom. He is quickly attacked by Dry Bones, fighting them off and jumping to reach a castle door. He enters, though gets caught by Shy Guys and is taken to Bowser’s castle, where he is presented to Bowser. 

Bowser is seen on his piano, where he sings about Peach, because he loves her. Kamek interrupts, and tells him about Luigi. Luigi is asked if he is Mario’s brother, though he plays dumb and says there are many people in the world with a mustache. Luigi is put in prison just like the Penguins, along with a crazy Luma, who talks about how death is the best thing.

Mario goes to the colosseum and has a huge audience watching his fight with Donkey Kong. Mario tries to fight, but continues to fail before taking advantage of the power-up boxes, taking a mini mushroom by mistake. 

He gets knocked down, but continues to try and utilize his mobility, getting the cat power up. With this, he beats up Donkey Kong, and Peach gets the army from Cranky Kong. Then, they get karts, and go onto the Rainbow Road to go to Bowser in an attempt to  stop him. 

They go through the track, but Bowser oversees their plan, and releases his minions onto the track, where they cause a ruckus. The heroes continue to go through the road, and Mario gets stopped by a certain Koopa, losing his kart. 

He fights another Koopa off and steals their kart, and continues to try to escape, which is unsuccessful. Donkey Kong comes to the rescue, and the two get away. Despite this, the Koopa doesn’t give up, becoming a blue shell and crashing down on the road, causing Mario and Donkey Kong to drop into the ocean. 

The Donkey Kong Kingdom army gets kidnapped by Bowser’s minions. They are put in prison along with the Penguins, the crazy Luma, and Luigi.

Peach rushes to the Mushroom Kingdom to warn the Toads to go into hiding from Bowser. She meets up with Bowser, and Bowser shows her the star, claiming he won’t use it if she agrees to marry him. She doesn’t want to marry him, but does it so Bowser won’t hurt her Toads. 

We then cut to a scene where Mario and Donkey Kong are in an eel’s stomach. Some arguing happens, but they find some karts and come up with a solution to save the Kong army and Peach, and successfully escape from the eel’s stomach. 

They go to the Mushroom Kingdom, and Donkey Kong gets a fire flower while Mario gets a Tanooki Suit. They fight against Bowser’s Minions on the way to stop the wedding. During that fight, Donkey Kong loses his fire power.

The movie then cuts to Peach, who is getting ready for the wedding, collecting bouquet of flowers with a secret power within them. She approaches a mural, and Kamek asks if they will get married. Peach refuses, and uses an ice flower, stopping the events with its freezing ability. 

There is a fight, and the victims’ chains are free from the ice and are lowered down into the lava. Donkey Kong and Mario arrive at the scene via a kart and plan to stop Bowser. Bowser uses a giant bullet bill, which will destroy the Mushroom Kingdom. In an attempt to stop it, Mario uses his Tanooki Suit.

The scene then shifts to Mario, who is attempting to stop the bullet bill. He pushes as hard as he can, but the bullet bill is not budging – and then he realizes that bullet bills constantly follow their targets. To avoid it, Mario sees the green pipe, and decides to go towards it. 

Mario enters the green pipe, and there is a massive explosion which brings Bowser and the others to Brooklyn, New York. Mario tries to fight Bowser, but is unsuccessful, and realizes he and Luigi can use the super star to take him out. 

They obtain it and fight Bowser, eventually winning the fight. The people of Brooklyn congratulate Mario and Luigi, and Bowser is given a mini mushroom, being kept in a jar. The movie ends with Mario and Luigi going into the Mushroom Kingdom to have another adventure.

My Review:

I really liked the voice acting from Bowser, which was done by Jack Black. It really gave Bowser a ton of personality. Luigi’s voice actor, Charlie Day, really captured Luigi’s timid nature. I really liked Donkey Kong’s voice acting.  Everyone else though had serviceable voice acting, so overall the voice acting gets an 8/10. 

I think the plot was alright, though it felt like an average kid’s movie plot. It was quite fast paced though, and definitely needed to flesh out the story more – and Bowser should have had more screen time. 

I felt like the ending fight scene where Mario and Luigi together grab the super star seems like a forced scene; since Mario and Luigi never get to bond throughout the adventure or improve together, it felt like this scene should have just been won by Mario. 

We also never really get a good enough bond with Peach, Mario, and Toad throughout the adventure, which definitely would have improved the plot. Luigi should have gone on the adventure with Mario, and the whole goal of the story is to defeat Bowser and stop him from destroying the Mushroom Kingdom – and that would make for the victory with Luigi and Mario defeating Bowser make more sense and feel less forced. 

Enough with the negatives, let’s get to the positives. 

I really liked the beginning scene where we are introduced to Mario and Luigi in Brooklyn, New York. I really like that it sets up their dynamic. I think that this movie looks great even if it looks a little generic for an Illumination movie. I liked the easter eggs in the movie with all the different power ups displayed along with the different Nintendo references. Overall, the plot gets a 6/10.

This movie was not bad, and at the same time, was not good. It was just mediocre and felt like a generic adventure kids movie, but it was still a fun movie; and if your kids haven’t seen Mario, then you should show it to them – they’ll probably like it! The movie gets a 6/10 from me.