It’s not every day that a movie or tv series based on a video game goes well with audiences who played the original games, but Hollywood is finally starting to crack the formula, with projects such as the live-action adaptation of The Last of Us hitting it off with both original fans and new audiences worldwide, and now Illumination and Nintendo’s animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie coming in strong, could the video game adaptation curse be over, can gaming fans expect their beloved franchises to be adapted properly? Let’s not forget the massively popular and live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movies, plus now greenlit Pokemon: Detective Pikachu 2, it’s safe to assume that film studios have the right idea nowadays.
Nintendo had the right idea to team up with Illumination, who is well-known for using a unique animated style in projects such as Despicable Me and Minions, as the studio’s treatment of the Super Mario Bros. franchise works perfectly on screen, with a look that feels both familiar to the original gaming fans but also a style that modern cinemagoers will also be used to, especially those who are fans of Illumination’s work.
‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Review
When it came to the casting announcement prior to the movie’s release, let’s just say fans of the franchise were slightly anxious when finding out that Chris Pratt would be voicing Mario, along with various other casting choices, however, Pratt delivers an excellent voice to the character, with an accent a bit less stereotypical, while staying true to the iconic catchphrase words like “Wahoo” and “It’s a me”, the same goes to all the cast members, it’s hard to fault any of the voice work, maybe besides from Rogen’s Donkey Kong voice, which is just Rogen’s normal voice behind the animated Nintendo character but seems to work nonetheless.
This new adaptation of the iconic game franchise is a complete redemption in regard to the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie, if you can even call that attempt an adaptation, as it took everything that Nintendo had created in the franchise and tried to change everything up which did not go down well with… well anyone really, however, this new animated feature-length movie stays true to the source material and offers both die-hard fans plus new audiences a fun and visually stunning experience that can be enjoyed by all ages.
4 / 5 STARS.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now playing in theatres worldwide.