Video game media is having a bit of a moment. Sonic the Hedgehog and Uncharted both became unexpected box office smashes in recent years, and The Last of Us just finished a well-reviewed and well-seen run on HBO. It’s an area of adaptation that’s struggled for decades, yet here we are seeing hit after hit.
Enter The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which hopes to capitalize on the momentum and establish the first truly dominant film franchise based on video game IP. While this first attempt stumbles slightly out of the blocks, there’s enough there that Mario’s power-up to the big screen is probably here to stay.
In a way, it was surreal watching this film. There they are, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, and Donkey Kong, legends of video game culture going on 50 years, on the big screen in a loving and accurate rendering. These are characters with which hundreds of millions of people over time have spent billions of hours of time, and it’s tough to overstate how big of a deal it was for Nintendo to finally give the go-ahead to take a big swing and allow an adaptation on this scale.
However, the weight of those 50 years and the accompanying pressure on this film to satisfy three generations’ worth of expectations bleeds through, and tips and nods to the game franchise’s history drowned out the experience. I’d be very interested to see if there were any Mario references left on the cutting room floor because it was a non-stop onslaught from minute one. The set design, the characters, the worlds, the clothing, and especially the music were stuffed with references, and it caused whiplash. Almost nothing had room to breathe, and everything being included made everything feel less special.
For the rest of the review, head over to the Martin City Telegraph’s site.
