I wanted to do a more proper review, but I couldn't find an angle that hasn't already been done. I would have been spouting the same lines. The movie is cute but the plot feels barebones to where the whole movie could use an additional thirty minutes. The casting was expectedly miscasted except for Jack Black. But overall, this is Illumination's finest work, and it didn't want me to pull my hair out. 3/5 stars.
But upon thinking about the movie more, I get an almost uncanny feeling, and it taps into why generally movie adaptations of video games haven't worked.
I picture what it would be like if my life was made into a movie, and I think my general feeling would be uncomfortable. Even if the film was excellent, with five sex scenes and a cameo from Weird Al, I still feel something would be off. I feel my relationship with the Super Mario series is like that. Because in a corny way, Super Mario has been my life. They were some of the first games I ever played. It was my first obsession to the point where I got made fun of by my classmates.
My image of Super Mario is set in stone as the image of myself. A cinematic mirror would have to be precise. This is theoretically possible. Mario surprisingly has had a number of successful adaptations outside of movies. There was Super Mario Adventures that ran in Nintendo Power. And if count video games, the Super Mario RPGs have been amazing narratives that use the Mario characters. Super Paper Mario specifically is so good I would unironically call it one of the best narratives I've seen from a game. Yeah I fucking mean it. I should do a favorite game retrospect on it. Adding that to the list.
The Mario movie though doesn't have the comedic chops of Super Mario Adventures or the depth of something like Super Paper Mario. Instead, it's a slideshow of various fanservice, which admittedly I love. You got the Gamecube jingle, the DK crew, and Mayor Pauline. And best of all, all of this is animated and not some degenerate live action movie starring Neil Patrick Harris. After almost thirty years of these crappy and mediocre video game movies, they finally caved into doing a fully animated project, and it was worth it. Now if they can just break the bigger habit of hiring celebrities who have no business voice acting just to have a bunch of names to broadly net name appeal.
You would think these executives would guess by now that name recognition doesn't have the pull compared to brand names. No one comes to see the Mario movie to see Anya Taylor Joy. They came to see Mario! This is why we should eat the rich.
But as I was saying, this movie is an amusement part ride. I don't want to be the guy that says I expected more from a premise about a cartoon plumber that fights a dragon turtle. But going back, I've seen what Mario has been capable of. The backstory of Rosalina, the relationship of Count Bleck and his lover, the bosses that have literally compared to Dark Souls and Final Fantasy. and the irreverent sense of humor of the RPG lines have also been attached the so called cartoon plumber.
It reminds me of a thing the YouTube channel Extra Credits once said. That ideas in a vacuum are meaningless. It's how we iterate and refined them that they become something worthwhile. (Side note: was this the first time someone referenced Extra Credits in a while? Ah who cares.)
I feel that is the tragedy behind Hollywood adaptions of established source material. Thanks to fear of innovation, and also because fans can be viciously closeminded to new ideas, source material rarely tries something new. Gone are the days Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles going from mature graphic novels to awesome children's cartoons. Unless there is a trend to chase, like how Suicide Squad reedited itself to be more like Guardians of the Galaxy, you will rarely see ideas being treated less than sacred. And now, we live in a false idol society where people hog IPs and do nothing interesting with them out of some irrational fear that they will somehow lose the copyright.
If I wrote a letter to the folks at Illumination and Nintendo with the certainty that they would read, the first and foremost thing I want to do is the really take Mario on something never done before. It's clear Illumination are creative folks that can break out of bad habits. Compare this Mario movie to their Grinch movie, which may contain every single Illumination sin they've made since their debut, and it becomes painfully clear. Of course, I wonder if part of why they didn't pull any old tricks was because of Nintendo all seeing eye. And if true, that definitely played a part in the overly faithful narrative.
But who cares, right? We are more than a month away from the initial release and it simply faded from any discourse. It was uncharastically forgettable in the public eye. You can say it is the New Super Mario Bros. of Mario movies except with a thin layer sex doll uncanniness provided by the voice actors.
But that's it. The movie is fine, and I am fine moving on with my life. I can go back to the typical Nintendo fan day to days of wondering when some underused franchise will get another installment, overhyping upcoming titles, and praying I don't get sued by Nintendo for pirating Yoshi's Crafted World. Oh, and bum rushing through a Zelda game so the Internet doesn't fucking spoil it. You don't get this problem with Pikmin or Donkey Kong. By the way, are any of you guys excited for Pikmin 4? I think it is going to be the best game ever made.
