‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Passes $500 Million Globally, Becomes Biggest Video Game Adaptation Ever
Crushing the hopes of those that thought this movie would be a huge flop, the Super Mario Bros movie, has already soared passed $500 Million dollars globally.
Will The Super Mario Bros Movie Join The Billion Dollar Club?
Most likely as Nintendo has a strong fan base and many were anticipating this film.
We are all looking forward to seeing how much it will make once it releases in Japan (April 28th, 2023), South Korea (April 26th, 2026), and Poland. Mainly Japan and South Korea as it will not release in Poland until May 26th, 2023.
The Super Mario Bros Movie was released in North America on Wednesday, April 5, 2023, and I had no intention of going to see this movie, but I’m glad I did.
The Super Mario Bros Movie Was Extremely Enjoyable and a Kart Full of Thrills.
So, why do critics abhor this family-friendly movie? In this post, we will go through the criticisms, and wrap it up with my official Super Mario Bros Movie review.
A Summary of Critiques
The common denominator in many Rotten Tomatoes critiques is that the Super Mario Bros movie has either no or minimal story. The other criticism… Here’s a list of what I gathered.
- The movie is offensive because the whole revolves around who gets to be with Princess Peach at the end.
- The movie is only for fans. As it doesn’t bring those that aren’t familiar with Nintendo’s beloved (Super) Mario Bros video games into consideration. Nothing is explained, leaving many to not understand anything that is happening. They just know there are a ton of easter eggs that they just don’t get.
- What is up with all the 80s music? It just doesn’t make sense. None of the kids watching this movie will recognize this music, which doesn’t make the movie any more enjoyable.
- Princess Peach is a girl boss! How can she finish the obstacle course, but it took Mario several attempts before he got it?
- The movie’s pacing is too fast.
Before we go through each one of these remarks together, I’m going to give an overview of The Super Mario Bros movie.
This will include spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t want it spoiled, I highly advise you to click here to skip to the critique commentary, read other articles on Nerdsleaze, or just exit this page completely.
Despite What People Say, The Super Mario Bros Movie Does Have A Story
Contrary to popular belief there is a story in the Super Mario Bros movie. Some may say it is a simple story but regardless there is a story here.
The movie kicks off with a commercial for the Mario Bros plumbing company. Mario, the main character, and his brother Luigi previously worked for the Wrecking Crew. They used the bit of money they had to make this commercial.
Their former boss from the Wrecking Crew, Spike, happens to be in the same restaurant as the brothers when the commercial broadcasts. He asks if they have received any business yet from their goofy commercial, Luigi says yes and goes into how their mom contacted them.
It was a very cute scene, but during the conversation, they do gain an actual customer.
The brothers’ van dies leaving them no choice but to platform their way to their new client’s home to fix their home plumbing issues as The Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” plays in the background. They make it, and a few other funny things happen, but they get the job done.
They make it home and they’re eating dinner with their entire family. In this scene, we find out that Mario doesn’t like mushrooms at all, as he picks them all out and Luigi says he will take them from him.
During dinner, we find out that Mario’s father in particular doesn’t think highly of the choices that Mario has made and the fact that he influences his younger brother, Luigi.
Mario gets upset, leaves dinner, goes to his room, and is playing Starfox. The television screen is taken over with breaking news reported by Pauline. Brooklyn is experiencing a leak that cannot be stopped this is when Mario comes up with the idea to fix the leak as it will bring media attention to his small business.
Mario and Luigi get to the location of the leak and realize that the people there aren’t able to fix it because they aren’t even in the correct place.
The brothers make their way into the sewers to find the leak, however, Luigi has disappeared but leaves behind an item that Mario finds which gives him a clue as to what direction he went.
Mario takes the same path and is quickly sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom, but his brother Luigi was sucked into the Darklands.
Mario must find his brother Luigi and get back home to Brooklyn.
Welcome To Mushroom Kingdom
They have their own set of problems down here. In addition to Mario’s problem of having to find his brother, Bowser has just obtained the Legendary Super Star from the Penguin King’s castle and plans to use it as a bribe when asking Princess Peach for her hand in marriage. If Peach declines, Bowser will destroy everything.
Upon arrival Mario is greeted by Toad who welcomes him to the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario tells Toad about his problem and Toad leads him to Princess Peach’s castle.
We see that Peach’s kingdom is in jeopardy and that they have to come up with a plan.
Here’s the plan: Mario is to assist Peach in their fight against Bowser otherwise they are doomed. Plus, they know that Bowser has Luigi. They will be killing two birds with one stone.
Mario has to prove his abilities by completing a ridiculous obstacle course, but it is training that is needed especially when going up against Donkey Kong as they need their assistance to defeat Bowser because it is quite obvious that the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom will be smashed immediately if they even try to fight Bowser and his army of Koopas, Goombas, and whatever else.
Mario in his cat suit defeats Donkey Kong despite being so adorable. The citizens of Donkey Kong Island/Kong Isle keep their promise of assisting Peach in her fight against Bowser. At this time it is decided they need karts to make it to the battle.
They pick out their karts in this Mad Maxesque place with elements of Pimp My Ride while getting their karts customized. They ride out on the rainbow road where Mario flirts a bit with Peach, but everything is interrupted when Bowser and his crew roll up on them.
Mario and Donkey Kong end up falling into the belly of a sea fish while the rest of Peach’s aid is captured by Bowser, except for Peach who makes it back to the Mushroom Kingdom within seconds to announce that Bowser is coming and that they all need to vacate. They do.
Bowser proposes to Peach and she accepts the proposal, but it is obvious that she has no intention of actually marrying Bowser.
The Super Mario Bros Save Brooklyn
During the final act, Princess Peach uses her ice powers at the alter but doesn’t finish the job, instead, it only angers Bowser into sending off the largest bullet, Banzai Bill to destroy her castle head-on. Mario sports his raccoon suit and smacks the bullet in the eye so that it chases him.
Mario fakes out Banzai Bill sending them into the same pipes that spit his brother and himself out into the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario believes that everything is back in order, but Banzai Bill explodes in the pipes which sucks everyone from the Mushroom Kingdom into Brooklyn.
Bowser can easily defeat Mario when in Brooklyn which sends Mario into hiding out in the restaurant until he sees their commercial which is a reminder of how they want to save Brooklyn.
Mario picks himself up and goes out to fight Bowser. They end up in a tussle over the Super Star, and as Bowser blows the hottest fire breath to melt Mario, Luigi runs out and shields his brother from harm by using a sewer tunnel cover allowing Mario to grab the Super Star.
The Super Star turns Mario and Luigi Super Saiyan so there’s no way for anyone to beat them. You see the brothers doing all sorts of cool moves while their parents and all of Brooklyn watch them Super Smash Bowser is given a mini blue mushroom that shrinks him into a cute miniature Bowser that is now the perfect size to be placed into a birdcage. The end.
Okay, the surprise end credit scene is you see Yoshi’s egg in the sewer where Luigi and Mario were when looking for the power leak that had Brooklyn in panic mode.
My Honest Super Mario Bros Movie Review
Have you ever been on an amusement ride that you were terrified of and once it was over you were begging to ride it again? That is exactly how I felt after watching the Super Mario Bros Movie.
I adored the movie it was a non-stop joyride. I honestly do not have anything negative to say about this movie which is rare since most people would classify me as a pessimist.
Here are my takeaways from the movie.
The entire Super Mario Bros Movie has a lot sprinkled throughout if you watch the movie instead of just getting upset that you don’t know anything about the video games. Behind all those easter eggs you will see that these video game characters have to deal with the same issues as us.
Mario has a few arcs going on in the movie. He is a new small business owner, and he lives with his parents, and his father doesn’t like that he “forces” Luigi into participating in Mario’s shenanigans, and it is considered a problem that Mario just doesn’t know when to quit.
Mario is a new small business owner and just wants to be successful, but his family doesn’t believe in him. This is the story of so many small business owners. It is heartbreaking when you want to follow your dream and no one supports you, but it especially hurts when it is primarily your parents.
Mario and Luigi both live with their parents. Most people are ashamed of this, but a lot of people live with their parents due to cultural and/or financial reasons.
He is also shown as someone that no matter how much you throw at him he is just going to keep going, but even though his spirit is strong he, too sometimes has moments of weakness which is shown towards the end in the final battle against Bowser.
Luigi is the cowardly brother the one who is cautious but will do anything for his older brother which is shown when he shields Mario from Bowser’s blazing fire breath.
Princess Peach is not the stereotype that people crafted when they think of princesses. She is the ruler of her kingdom so of course she knows how to protect her people, but even she knows she cannot do it all herself. Also, they touch on the fact that she doesn’t know where she is from and just popped up in the Mushroom Kingdom as a baby and the mushrooms took care of her. So does that make Peach an orphan?
The Critique Commentary
As promised at the beginning of the post here are my remarks to the Rotten Tomato critics.
This movie is offensive because the whole story is about who ends up with Princess Peach.
This is false. The only person who is trying to end up with Princess Peach is Bowser. Mario is trying to rescue his brother Luigi. Peach is trying to protect the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser and his goons. This person wasn’t paying attention to anything in the Super Mario Bros Movie and decided to just go with this.
The strange thing is that the critics eat up everything that Marvel spits out. How many ridiculous boring nonsensical stories are just the absolute best because it is from the MCU?
The Super Mario Bros Movie is only for fans!
Not true. I am not the biggest Mario Bros fan. I have played a few of the games, but none of them to completion, but how hard is it to figure out the basics as you watch?
C’mon, they’ve even color-coordinated the brothers for you. Mario is red, and Luigi is green. Princess Peach is the majestic being that lives in a castle and they call her Princess Peach. Bowser might be the only character who might be hard to place, but I figure since it is obvious he is the villain and everyone keeps saying Bowser when talking about fighting that we would put the clues together.
This honestly just sounds like a reach because I am sure you don’t understand everything that is happening in those MCU movies.
Yet, I do remember that Grace Randolph said that since the movie is so poorly executed that she had no idea where Mario was when he was not in Brooklyn and that she had to google it. Laughable because Toad clearly says to Mario “Welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom!” I guess it is hard to pay attention when you are ready to rip a kids’ movie to pieces.
The 80s music just doesn’t fit the movie at all.
It is called fan service, but yeah it does fit.
It does. These are songs throughout the years that are familiar to most. They may not know who performs it or the song title, but they’ve heard bits of it.
Also considering that the first Super Mario Bros game was released in 1985 and most of the songs came out during that time it makes absolute sense in addition to the fact that most of the people going to see this movie are those that played the game during that time.
I guess they were expecting the Super Mario Bros video game music throughout the movie.
Princess Peach is a girl boss! How can she complete the obstacle course on the first try, but Mario can’t?
WOW, completely false. It is explained that Princess Peach grew up in the Mushroom Kingdom. She is also the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, so why would she not know how to complete the obstacle course on her first go? Plus Mario just fell in through some random pipes, but somehow people expect him to know how to do everything without any resistance.
The pace of this movie is too fast!
This is understandable. If you are someone that enjoys long thoughtful spoon-fed content this movie can be jarring. However, if you are someone that is constantly wanting to speed things up even when they’re already going rather quickly then you won’t have a problem with Super Mario Bros Movie.
Have You Seen The Super Mario Bros Movie?
I watched the Super Mario Bros movie on a Sunday and opted for the 3D option simply because of the rainbow road feature in the film. Right after watching this movie, I wanted to see it again immediately. I do plan on viewing it at least once more before it leaves theatres.
If you are planning on skipping the theatre because you prefer to watch it at home, the Super Mario Bros movie will be available for purchase on May 9th via Amazon Prime, then it will be available to stream on Peacock June 23rd, 2023 and lastly, it will come to Netflix on October 23rd, 2023.
Even though I adored the Super Mario Bros movie it doesn’t matter, what matters is what you think. What are your thoughts? I would love to hear them. Drop a comment on the post or holler @nerdsleaze on Twitter.
