The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Animated / Family
92 minutes / 2023
Rating 7/10

80’s nostalgia for mom and me, and a couple of animated American Italian heroes and their cute mushroom sidekick for the kids – The Super Mario Bros. Movie seemed the perfect film to see in the theatre with my girls. The reviews all checked out. Now all I had to do was get the girls prepped. They’d played Mario Kart, but hadn’t even heard of Donkey Kong or any of the Super Mario Brothers games, so I showed them this Studio C skit about how the franchise first got started.

Now they were ready to go!

Unfortunately, I hadn’t accounted for the movie previews: there was nothing explicit, but the action-packed trailers were way more tense than anything in the film. Fortunately, my youngest was happy to have me cover her eyes. Next time we’re showing up later.

Mario’s backstory has been updated a bit: he’s now Italian-American, a second-generation immigrant with no hint of an accent except in the TV commercial he and his brother Luigi made for their plumbing business. When a downtown water main breaks, the two brothers race down to see if they can help. But instead of getting the water to stop, they both get washed down a pipe into a strange, very colorful land. They also get separated.

Mario ends up in Mushroom Kingdom and meets Princess Peach, the only other human in this land of living, talking mushrooms. She’s quite nice, but also part ninja, which will come in handy when she has to get Mario ready for his training montage.

Luigi ends up in the land of the evil King Bowser, a very large, piano-playing, dog/turtle-like, flame-breathing creature set on conquering everything and also marrying Princess Peach. Booooo!

So that’s the set-up: Mario has to save his brother and everyone else from the evil Bowser. And he’ll do it with a little help from his friends, Peach, and Toad their mushroom man sidekick.

Cautions

There are a few cautions to consider, with the biggest being the comic violence. There’s a lot of chasing and fighting. Donkey Kong and Mario have a pretty long battle, and while older kids will understand that Mario is going to win – and isn’t getting nearly as hurt as it might seem – this could look pretty brutal to the littles. Most of the movie takes place in a bright outdoor hyper-colorful setting, but the villain of the piece, Bowser, lives in a volcanic lair that is both dark and fiery. Combine that with the brief appearance of some skeleton turtle minions, and again, this might be too much for kids 9 and under.

There’s also a weird floating star character that shows up a couple of times in Bowser’s dungeon. It’s super cute, but what it says is dark and depressing: “The only hope is the sweet release of death” and “There is no sunshine, only darkness.” The contrast between her adorable appearance and her prophecies of doom are supposed to be funny but just come off as weird. Fortunately, she’s only onscreen for about a minute.

Conclusion

Despite the cuddly cute characters, this is not a movie for little kids. This is aimed at nostalgic parents and their kids, 10 and up, to go have a nice family movie night together. If you rent this, be sure you’re getting The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and not the really terrible 1993 live-action version Super Mario Bros. 

You can watch the trailer below.