Walking out of the theater after seeing The Super Mario Bros Movie, I thought it was too short. Start to end, the movie is diverting in exactly the way it wants to be – as a rollicking riff on one of video games’ longest running franchise (running, left to right across the screen, jumping occasionally). It’s not heavy. It shouldn’t be. This is based on a game about plumbers eating mushrooms and bouncing off the heads of turtles, after all. Go-carts hit banana peels and spin around like tops. Monkeys barrel blast through the jungle canopy. Our heroes wear their first initial on their caps.
I think there should be more of it though. The animation team at Illumination do such a good job rendering Mario’s world, I wanted to spend more time in it. I wanted more cart racing, more varieties of lands, more Koopas to kerplunk. Every scene in The Super Mario Bros Movie seems to end just as it’s getting good.
Initially, I thought the movie was too short and that there should be more of it, but a few days later, I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s perfect just the way it is. Mario games have never been heavy on plot and character development. They don’t really have cut scenes filling in the narrative. The closest you get to a break in the action of the Mario game is the over-world that lets you choose which level you want to play next, and then it’s back to the action. During this Twitch era, this is a video game franchise renowned for speed runs where players exploit glitches in the code to flash through the game like lightning. The Super Mario Bros Movie is true to the spirit of what a Mario game is, to what they’ve always been, to that certain something that keeps us coming back for more after we’ve been “killed” by a turtle in a cloud throwing spiky turtles at us for the hundredth time.
So part of me wants there to be more meaning in the Mario Bros movie, but then I make myself think about what meaning there is in the Mario Bros games. All the meaning that is there for me is the memories I have of playing the games with my friends and family. The Mario games give us a fun thing to do together. To their credit, Nintendo has always been devoted to making Mario games exactly that.
And then I think about all the photos I’ve seen on social media of parents taking their kids to see The Super Mario Bros Movie, and I think, yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s what a Mario Bros movie should be – something fun to do as a family. It is that, and that’s more than enough meaning for me.
Walking out of the theater after seeing The Super Mario Bros Movie, I thought it was too short. Start to end, the movie is diverting in exactly the way it wants to be – as a rollicking riff on one of video games’ longest running franchise (running, left to right across the screen, jumping occasionally). It’s not heavy. It shouldn’t be. This is based on a game about plumbers eating mushrooms and bouncing off the heads of turtles, after all. Go-carts hit banana peels and spin around like tops. Monkeys barrel blast through the jungle canopy. Our heroes wear their first initial on their caps.
I think there should be more of it though. The animation team at Illumination do such a good job rendering Mario’s world, I wanted to spend more time in it. I wanted more cart racing, more varieties of lands, more Koopas to kerplunk. Every scene in The Super Mario Bros Movie seems to end just as it’s getting good.
Initially, I thought the movie was too short and that there should be more of it, but a few days later, I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s perfect just the way it is. Mario games have never been heavy on plot and character development. They don’t really have cut scenes filling in the narrative. The closest you get to a break in the action of the Mario game is the over-world that lets you choose which level you want to play next, and then it’s back to the action. During this Twitch era, this is a video game franchise renowned for speed runs where players exploit glitches in the code to flash through the game like lightning. The Super Mario Bros Movie is true to the spirit of what a Mario game is, to what they’ve always been, to that certain something that keeps us coming back for more after we’ve been “killed” by a turtle in a cloud throwing spiky turtles at us for the hundredth time.
So part of me wants there to be more meaning in the Mario Bros movie, but then I make myself think about what meaning there is in the Mario Bros games. All the meaning that is there for me is the memories I have of playing the games with my friends and family. The Mario games give us a fun thing to do together. To their credit, Nintendo has always been devoted to making Mario games exactly that.
And then I think about all the photos I’ve seen on social media of parents taking their kids to see The Super Mario Bros Movie, and I think, yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s what a Mario Bros movie should be – something fun to do as a family. It is that, and that’s more than enough meaning for me.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
