If last year's _Top Gun Maverick_ gave everyone the slightest bit of hope in regards to films that click with the general audience and blow up at the box office, this is the kind of film that'll make any self-respecting film fan lose all hope. Here's the deal: kids will pretty much like this by default, adults who are looking for validation of their childhood obsession will like it, and people who show up to see an actual movie won't. It's pretty much the blandest, calculated, do-nothing film they could've made out of this material. The animation is devoid of style and looks like it was originally rendered for a Dreamworks project back in 2008, the voice acting is mostly ass, it triggers the nostalgia & reference button way too often, the story & characters are watered down to a point where they're almost non-existent, it's not funny and its boomer rock soundtrack choices makes absolutely no sense. It's irredeemable trash, like every product that rolls of the Illumination Entertainment conveyor belt. Nevertheless, I'm willing to bet that due to the large fanbase of the IP, this will be one of those films where in the short term some of the discourse will insist that "some people/critics don't know how to have fun" or "it's made for the fans" (only for those same people to deny ever liking it in the long haul, of course). Here’s hoping Illumination doesn’t listen to those voices in the same way that DC did after the release of _Suicide Squad_. This is not a foundation to build a franchise on.

2.5/10

All my three kids used to play Super Mario Bros games and two of them played them a lot when they were younger so this movie was kind of a must-see movie for us.

For myself , this felt very much like a movie made for Super Mario Bros fans and less for the general audience.

The characters, the completely illogical platform jumping everywhere and the rather childish story are certain to appeal to younger people still playing the game or those that grew up with the Mario Bros games.

For me though the movie was ranging from okayish to, sometimes, cringe worthy. Especially the scenes with Bowser starting to sing. Ouch, my ears are still hurting.

The best parts of the movie was when they entered the ape kingdom. That was quite fun and so was the car chase on the rainbow road.

The rest of the movie was, for me personally, rather forgettable. Not bad just not that good. That said, it is not really a bad movie either. The rotten rating on Woke Tomatoes is entirely undeserved.

Probably the best thing about the movie is that it doesn't take itself seriously. There's no attempt to make this an epic movie. It just brings the game's characters to life.
They do so while keeping the art style in line with what you see in the game. The story of the very simple game is expanded without adding too much like how everything works. The game's story is simple and this one is too. Fear not, there's a lot of room for sequels.

Go in expecting nothing, otherwise you'll be disappointed. It's a good film to turn off your brain to and just let the light drizzle onto your eyeballs.

About as good as a Mario movie can be I suppose. It hits all of the reference points from the game, then shoe horns in some toxic bro dude politics. Overall just found it exhausting after a while. There is this new mode of pleased with itself mentality that so many of these types of movies hit. Its the corporate product as film in particular. They merged the marvel movie franchising with their endless line of whats for sale. Not really sure what the mechanism is yet, but Mario the movie shows off how this well oiled machine is cranking out this mid level trash en mass.

It's a good!

My experience of 'Mario' starts and ends with 'Mario Kart', which I haven't actually played since back in the day on my Nintendo DS and even then I had no understanding of the franchise itself; just treated it as a normal racing game. I was an Xbox kid growing up (thanks, ma!), so that be the reason. Anyway, that's a long way of saying I'm no Mario know-it-all.

Despite all that, I do remember most of the characters from the aforementioned video game and it was cool seeing them come to life in 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie'. Chris Pratt feels an odd cast for Mario but does do a solid job in fairness to him. Jack Black and Charlie Day are very good in their roles as Bowser and Luigi. Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen and Anya Taylor-Joy are also positives as Toad, Donkey King and Princess Peach.

No doubt whatsoever that this will be the first film of a crap tonne from this franchise. Still, if they do as well as they did here then they'll be successful, I'm sure. I'd be up for exploring the world via film, tbf.