Granted, this film is not going to appeal to people who have never been fans of any games featuring the titular brothers. But given the fact that these filmmakers were tasked with making a movie that caters to a fan base that spans four decades and thus have a myriad of tastes and expectations, they did a pretty good job. In fact, a slightly better job than I was expecting.
The voice cast was the subject of much controversy, and I thought that for the most part it was actually spot-on. A couple of characters were horribly miscast in my opinion, but in particular Jack Black as Bowser and Charlie Day as Luigi shine as perfectly encapsulating the spirit of the characters.
Platforming elements from the games was very efficiently worked into the action sequences, and some of them were quite thrilling. This is easily Illumination's most visually stunning film, and a massive step up from every one of their other films since the first Despicable Me.
As for the plot, it's just the plot of every Mario game. And for the most part, that's all it needs to be. Every beat plays out almost exactly like you'd expect it to, with a couple subversions pleasantly thrown in there.
The messiest parts of the movie, if I'm going to get critical, are the dialogue (which is often quite stupid) and the characters. They just try to deal with too many of them, and although four or five characters are strongly introduced with background and desires, almost none of these introductions actually amount to a payoff, and even when there is a payoff, it's haphazardly thrown together for a rushed ending.
Although I think 85-90 minutes is actually the perfect length for an animated film normally, this one could've benefitted from an extra 10-20 minutes to flesh out these points a bit more. We move so quickly from location to location that there's never any time to breathe or get invested.
But that's my adult perspective. I had a pretty breezy, fun, and heartwarming time, though I would've liked more meat on the script.
My theater was PACKED, and probably 75% young children, and they all seemed to have the time of their lives. Your kids will probably love it, and you will probably more than tolerate it.
The voice cast was the subject of much controversy, and I thought that for the most part it was actually spot-on. A couple of characters were horribly miscast in my opinion, but in particular Jack Black as Bowser and Charlie Day as Luigi shine as perfectly encapsulating the spirit of the characters.
Platforming elements from the games was very efficiently worked into the action sequences, and some of them were quite thrilling. This is easily Illumination's most visually stunning film, and a massive step up from every one of their other films since the first Despicable Me.
As for the plot, it's just the plot of every Mario game. And for the most part, that's all it needs to be. Every beat plays out almost exactly like you'd expect it to, with a couple subversions pleasantly thrown in there.
The messiest parts of the movie, if I'm going to get critical, are the dialogue (which is often quite stupid) and the characters. They just try to deal with too many of them, and although four or five characters are strongly introduced with background and desires, almost none of these introductions actually amount to a payoff, and even when there is a payoff, it's haphazardly thrown together for a rushed ending.
Although I think 85-90 minutes is actually the perfect length for an animated film normally, this one could've benefitted from an extra 10-20 minutes to flesh out these points a bit more. We move so quickly from location to location that there's never any time to breathe or get invested.
But that's my adult perspective. I had a pretty breezy, fun, and heartwarming time, though I would've liked more meat on the script.
My theater was PACKED, and probably 75% young children, and they all seemed to have the time of their lives. Your kids will probably love it, and you will probably more than tolerate it.