Let’s start immediately by saying that if in 1993 the Super Mario live film was a failure, this one from 2023 “Super Mario Bros.” in animation is not a masterpiece.
The cinematographic work directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic is trivial, with an under 8 screenplay, throughout the film one gets the feeling that sooner or later something stratospheric will have to happen but in reality it never happens.
With the exception of a few funny jokes or scenes, which are limited to two or three, for the rest of the film we live on flatness and above all on the already seen and overseen, immediately making the viewer aware of being in front of a character who is probably better that he continues to live his adventures in video games and not devote himself to cinema.
The plot could be reduced like this: Mario and Luigi, two plumbers who have started working on their own in Brooklyn, are sucked into a dimension in which the tremendous Bowser wants to marry Princess Peach even by force. To deal with Bowser and his army, Mario who decides to help the princess, go to ask for help from the Sovereign Cranky Kong….
Lots of action, bright colors, music that accompanies the events, many details that lead to the video game but all this does not raise the quality level, “Super Mario Bros.” it was probably made for the most ardent fans of this game, for all the others it is a useless ticket expense.
The various characters that appear in the film have an elementary psychology that we can easily distinguish between good guys and bad guys, in which everything is limited to a simple one: you have to save the princess, overcoming some difficulties, after a moment in which Bowser seems to have won, the reversal of the situation takes place through an already announced twist that leads to Mario victory.
What to save from this work? Perhaps the moment in which the characters drive the Go Karts which immediately brings us back to one of the best chapters made by Nintendo for the console but then, in this hour and a half, one gets the impression that the plot is dragging on with difficulty to the final battle. The biggest trivia comes after the end credits when you see a white egg with green dots, hear it hatch and then the screen goes black and you hear: Yoshi!
Such an iconic character who, however, has not received due credit, saved in some cases by the sympathy of Donkey Kong who has added a little verve to the plot in a fluid animation, well-assorted drawings but it is as if I had to say that in the main dish the the best part is the sauce, provided that the product was not made for children.