Movie Review: ‘Super Mario’ movie is eye candy for kids, a head trip for Mom and Dad
You’d except a movie based on a colorful video game to echo the childlike world of the Teletubbies. But to fill that rainbow world with a level of anxiety straight out of Franz Kafka? However improbably, that’s exactly what the creators of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” have pulled off, delivering a consistently inventive animated feature that builds its dreams (and nightmares) around that most mundane but essential of grown-up concerns: plumbing.
As in the original game, Mario (voice of Chris Pratt) and his dimwitted brother, Luigi (Charlie Day), are plumbers, here struggling to jump-start their new business in Brooklyn. At the family table populated with Italian stereotypes out of a 1970s sitcom, their father (Charles Martinet) tells Mario, a finicky eater who picks the mushrooms out of his pasta, that he will never amount to much.
After a disastrous first job, it looks like dad may be right. Still, Mario assures his brother that everything will be OK as long as they’re together. That idyllic promise doesn’t last long. As they try to repair a massive water main break, the brothers descend into a cavernous sewer system that spits them out into two rival underworlds: Mario in the vibrant Mushroom Kingdom, a place with clear echoes of “Alice in Wonderland,” where he meets Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), a talking, humanoid fungus. Luigi, unfortunately, gets sucked into the Dark Lands, ruled by the evil Bowser (Jack Black), who has the power to destroy the kaleidoscopic Mushroom Kingdom.
Can Mario, with help of the land’s leader, Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), rescue Luigi and save the world?
Screenwriter Matthew Fogel (“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part”) takes what seems like unpromising gameplay and works it into a story that takes more twists and turns than the plumbing under your sink. Meanwhile, co-directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic keep the waterways flowing, infusing the narrative with a host of colorful characters – including a thingamabob called a Lumalee (Juliet Jelenic, the director’s daughter) who says things like, “There is no sunshine – only darkness,” in the most adorably nihilistic little squeak of a voice.
While the pretty production design will, overall, almost certainly appeal to children, the apocalyptic Dark Lands may be too intense, with scenes of fiery destruction that earn the film’s PG rating. The murky design of these scenes is the film’s weak point, as is a villain who, despite some entertaining flourishes, isn’t terribly interesting.
The Mushroom Kingdom is another matter, its flavors bright and intense yet somehow not stooping to the saccharine tone of a Thomas Kinkade painting. When a sea of mushroom people gather around the palace, there’s a moment when the film looks like a brightly colored kids’ version of the art-house film “Last Year at Marienbad.”
The artistry is enough to keep children and adults watching. It may help that Mario gains power by eating mushrooms – a good message about healthy eating, on the one hand, yet one with an obvious psychedelic resonance at the same time.
At its 8-bit heart, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is ultimately about family. (You know, the people you spend time with when you’re not playing video games.)