Super Mario Bros. – The Movie: review

Super Mario Bros. – The Movie is a 2023 film, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic.

“Thanks, Mario, but the princess is in another castle!”.

Even those who have never picked up a pad to venture among mushrooms and pipes following the exploits of Super Mario and his brother Luigi know this phrase, due to the numerous memes it has inspired. It is now in common use. And it also seems to be the perfect synthesis of the history of video game film adaptations, a story of defeats and attempts, rarely successful up to now. Do they perhaps remember the Prince of Persia with Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010, the two chapters of the saga of tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, maybe the first Mortal Kombat…but it was tough. Until today. Super Mario Bros. – The Movie brilliantly overcomes the main problem of any video game film: not being playable. It goes without saying: what works when spiced up with interactivity often doesn’t work when it comes to just watching, and this also applies to films not specifically based on video games but which behave as if they were, like the recent and boring John Wick 4. If it’s just the director playing, what are we to do? Well, Mario has the answer: we’re about to “to be played”, which – yes – also means being deceived, as in a skilful game of illusionism where, however, we are perfectly aware and consenting. After all, isn’t this the cinema, or the “grand illusion?”

Through this inversion of concept, the film still manages to create a sort of simulated interactivity that involves us. It engages us when it pairs familiar jingles and sound effects with the action that match what we see scrolling across the screen. It sees us involved when the 3D environment – ​​to which the mustachioed plumber has already been accustomed since the days of super mario 64 – flattens out (but always with a rational justification on the narrative or at least visual level) to simulate the two dimensions, the platforms, the bricks and the singer company. He sees us involved when he obviously mentions all the games in living memory of the Mario saga, from the NES classic to the car variant Mario Kartto the combat one Super Smash Bros.to the laptop Super Mario Land. It also sees us involved when it fiddles with our expectations, often making Princess Peach, originally a damsel to be saved, more protagonist and more capable than Mario himself, but be careful, it is not a question of “market stall inclusiveness” as we see all too often happening in modern Disney productions, because Peach is a playable character already starting from Super Mario 2so why not? Maybe this is just a game where the player chose to play her instead of Mario. So who is he, the character to save? Well, here perhaps the game is unbalanced a little, because it is really about Luigi, the Player 2 par excellence, who here is not on a par with the hero as in classic video games but is fearful and awkward, however largely redeeming himself in the finale.

There is also a corollary of not bad supporting actors: from the mushroom Toads to the bad Bowser (or Koopa, if you prefer the Japanese version), passing through Donkey Kongwho here carves out the space for a more nuanced role than the simple villain, to the very first version of Mario, that Jumpman which appeared right in the game of Donkey Kong and that up until yesterday we identified with Mario himself… but instead! At the plant level, however, the directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and the screenwriter Matthew Fogel keep – and do well – on a simple development, good family entertainment, not too far from the 1993 live action version with Bob Hoskins And John Leguizamohowever abandoning the dark and para-realistic veins that made it in some ways a bizarre antecedent of the cinema of Christopher Nolan. Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario, instead appears as a producer together with Chris Meledandri of Despicable Me. In the Italian edition, Mario is given a voice by none other than Claudius Santamaria. Perhaps it’s true that video games that basically don’t have a real story are easier to transpose, allowing for greater creative freedom and more powerful inventiveness. The fact is that this time we are there: “Thanks Mario, the princess is right in this castle!”