The Super Mario Bros Movie is a 2023 animated family adventure film from Illumination Entertainment based on Nintendo’s Mario Bros. characters.

As I write this, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is about to cross $1 billion at the global box office. I saw it a little late with my three brothers as a birthday treat to my youngest brother. We grew up on Nintendo and Mario, and we thought it’d be fun to reminisce on our childhoods with the Nintendo’s second foray into cinema (the first time infamously in 1993).

But is The Super Mario Bros. Movie more than just a bag of references?

The Movie, The Good

The movie is a fun family adventure film, with references galore for the adult fans and enough humor, heart, and action for the parents bringing their kids to the theater. My main criticisms come in a few weird decisions, the plot structure, and the depth, but overall, the movie is a complete package for everyone who’s going to watch it.

There are aspects of the film that are good. The central dynamic between Luigi and Mario is a lot of fun. We get enough of their relationship in the beginning to see the loving and supportive dynamic between them; when they’re separated, you believe that Mario would give anything to find Luigi. The moment Luigi protects Mario instead of vice versa almost made me cheer. It was a great internal dynamic that kept me cheering for the main characters.

Another “good” aspect relating to that are all the character relationships in general. Peach and Mario have a lot of fun together; you believe them being friends. While they never kiss, and the only characters that comment on their relationship are others like Donkey Kong and Bowser, the two are a believable friendship-maybe-something-more. Bowser has a lot of fun with the koopas and Kamek. Donkey Kong doesn’t have too much going on, but he’s also a fun addition to the cast.

There are great aspects to this movie, too. The movie reverences its source material, and that is shown nowhere more strongly than the music. The music is littered with Mario Bros. references (even in just single lines, such as the whisper of the Super Mario Galaxy home screen fanfare when Peach looks up to the many galaxies in the sky), Mario Kart references, Donkey Kong references, Super Smash Bros references, and more. These references are also all throughout the background, in posters or characters or details, but the music instantly transports me and I’m sure many other fans right back into the games where the themes came from. The music is an incredible achievement of the film.

Another aspect I’d call “great” is the animation. Holy cow. The design is excellent, holding to something like the games while merging the styles of several of the games together into a complete package. While the design is impressive, so is the rendering and detail of the animation. You see very single one of Bowser’s scales as he runs his finger under Luigi’s chin. The animation is an incredible achievement of the film, especially for Illumination, who I don’t think has ever necessarily had impressive sheer quality of animation, although having some neat or bold design choices in the original Despicable Me.

I’d also call the action “great.” It’s another reference to the games, with two “platforming” action segments standing out in particular (in the beginning as Luigi and Mario navigate the construction, and in the beginning of the third act when Donkey Kong and Mario try to get to Bowser’s floating castle). The Mario Kart segment was a particular standout, allowing all of the characters to use their various abilities and tap into references from Mario Kart as well.

The Movie, The Weird

However, there are some choices that stand out as “weird” to me. For example, the primary Toad character is an adventurer devoted to protecting Mario and Peach. Why not just make that Toad the fan favorite Mario character “Captain Toad?” It’d be a fun reference and show why he’s different from the other Toads. In addition, for me personally, Seth Rogan was a really weird choice to play Donkey Kong. While many of the other actors, like Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser, largely disappear into the characters, Donkey Kong just sounds like Seth Rogan, especially when he laughs, and it’s off-putting.

The next three are more spoiler-heavy, so skip this paragraph if you’re really against spoilers. First, the general character of Bowser was very off-putting to me. While Bowser has been more funny in some of the Mario games, like Paper Mario or Super Mario RPG, in the mainline games I believe he’s only ever been serious and threatening. It was weird to have him be the butt of so much comedy, and him really being in love with Princess Peach was a weird development. While he was hilarious on his own and Jack Black gave a good performance, I’m not sure how I feel with it as an adaption of the source material. Second, the fact that a “real world” Brooklyn actually existed was very off-putting. It has huge ramifications for any “shared universe” storytelling going forward. Having the climax take place in the real world was just a strange development: why have the “real world” exist if you’re just going to destroy it and change it so that it’s no longer the “real world” parallel to our own? Finally, the third is that the “third act”, from rescuing the princess at the wedding to the battle in Brooklyn, felt like a whole half of the movie; the third act was super imbalanced compared to the rest of the movie. Compare that to the “rescue the princess” mission in the original Star Wars movie, which is separated solidly from the third act. There would be a way to do this plot without making it feel so stretched.

Here ends the spoilers. Those are choices I thought were strange. However, there were some that I felt were concerning.

The Movie, the Concerning

Does an animated movie need to be “deep” to be good? Does any children’s or family film need to be “deep” to be good? Does there need to be hidden messaging about divorce (The Incredibles) or fatherhood (Finding Nemo) or aging (Up) or just epic plotlines (The Lion King) in order to be “good” or “great?” Can a movie just be fun and wacky without making too much sense?

But I think a really fair comparison is with The Lego Movie, a movie already 9 years old, which makes me feel old. It’s another movie I saw in theaters with my younger brother, but also my dad and my best friend. That’s a movie also loosely adapted from a childhood favorite of many people.

It also features crazy “magic” and “fantasy” elements that are never really explained, just like the Mario movie. It also features an everyman protagonist who must realize what is special about themselves and overcome their doubters (both of them, ironically, voiced by Chris Pratt). The two have some amazing art direction, care, and animation: I still don’t understand how they animated The Lego Movie. Both of them also feature a “real world” touched by the fantasy elements (Mario and Luigi start off in Brooklyn, before traveling to the Mushroom Kingdom; Emmett finds out he’s in a child’s imagination the whole time but can still move and jump in the real world when he’s fallen off the table). Both are even stuffed to the brim with references to their source materials to please children as well as long time fans. Both also parody their source materials too (Luma and Lego Batman come to mind as examples in their movies).

However, while The Mario Movie features little more than adventure, with action scenes seemingly occurring every two minutes or so, and characters that aren’t particularly deep even if they do have some semblance of character arcs, The Lego Movie is much more. It has a fun adventure, yes. But it also has several moving character arcs (Emmett and Lord Business being at the forefront), commentary on the nature of the source material, and really profound and moving things to say about the nature of Legos themselves. What is childhood imagination? What does it mean? What does fatherhood mean? Yet it does all of these in a way even a kid would understand; a kid gets that this was all imagination the whole time. A kid gets that it’s about the dad and the son getting along again. And an adult can also see all of the hints, winks, references, and profound commentary along the way.

It’s also sad because while someone might say “Mario never has had plots,” that’s simply not true. Lots of the main games do; the side games, like Paper Mario or the Super Mario RPG, even more so. And Mario games are so careful, so precise, at telling stories through their gameplay and innovating within their genre. The Mario Bros. Movie is a fun adventure movie. The Mario games are some of the best games of all time. I wish this movie could stand out in its genre, too; but something like The Lego Movie sticks out much more for me.

The Mario Movie has references to tickle the adults while giving enough fun to keep the kids and parents entertained. The Lego Movie has references, yes, and fun for kids; but it also has lots to say that takes the best of the source material and brings it into a medium with much to say. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a pretty, reference-stuffed adventure. Yes, it’s an achievement in some ways. But it’s also just what it is, when it could have been much more.

The Verdict

Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it deserve its time in the sun?

The Super Mario Bros. Movie could have been worse, yes; but… it really could have been better. Did I have a lot of fun? Yes. Loads of fun. But will I remember it as fondly as I do The Lego Movie, a movie that has a lot of eerie parallels to this one but with lots of depth and commentary on the nature of the source material itself? No. Not really. It’s fun, but it’s not much more.