“Super Mario Bros.” features great action supporting bland story

Illumination, the studio that made “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” has a reputation for prioritizing elements like humor and action over the narratives of its movies. “Super Mario Bros.” is chock full of colorful, exciting action sequences that bring its video game source material to life, yet its story is as bland as plain cottage cheese.
That’s a long way of saying that you’d probably be able to tell Illumination made “Super Mario Bros.” even if it didn’t have the studio logo at the head of the film.
“Super Mario Bros.” introduces us to Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), two brothers who’ve just started a plumbing business in their hometown of Brooklyn. An encounter with a strange pipe sends them hurtling into a strange land and getting separated. Mario joins forces with Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the quest to find Luigi and recruit the Kong army to help them thwart the Koopa invasion led by Bowser (Jack Black).
The main reasons to see “Super Mario Bros.” are Black’s performance as Bowser and the wonderful action scenes. Black is easily the best thing about this movie. His deep, thundering voice possesses real menace and yet he deftly bounces back and forth between scary and funny. Oh, and the piano ballad he sings for Princess Peach? The brightest highlight of the movie.
Not far behind that, however, are the movie’s action scenes. They are so full of imaginative camera work, kinetic movement and vivid colors that you can’t help but smile. In particular, the Rainbow Road sequence involving speeding karts was more fun than anything I’ve seen in any recent Marvel movies and took me back to warm memories of watching “Wacky Races” cartoons as a little kid. It was kind of magical.
If all you’re looking for from this movie is a faithful, fun adaptation of some old video games, I suspect you’ll be plenty happy. Unfortunately, Illumination Studios movies do Illumination Studio movies things and once you get past Black and the action sequences, “Super Mario Bros.” doesn’t have much to offer in the story department.
“Super Mario Bros.” follows the well-worn plotline of “ruler seeks help to stop an invading force from destroying their picturesque kingdom.” Taken at its most basic level, “Super Mario Bros.” treads the same story path as movies like “Star Wars – Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.” In a world as colorful and imaginative as the Mushroom Kingdom, that just feels like a let-down and it really put a damper on my enthusiasm for this movie.
That’s not to say that “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is bad. Pretty far from it. It’s got some laughs. Although Black steals the show, the rest of the cast is pretty solid. It’s a beautiful-looking film, and the action is terrific. It’s not quite on the level of “Dungeons & Dragons,” another recently-released game adaptation. Still, if you grew up playing the “Mario” games or if your kids are into them, this movie is the best way to spend an hour and a half.
Next to playing the actual games, of course.
3 Indy Fedoras out of 5
MPAA Rating: PG
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