The Super Mario Bros. Movie

[Tanooki | 5,125]

So yet another know nothing dim bulb of a reviewer that entirely missed the point.  Figures.   It's Mario, not MacBeth.

[Sumez | 3,165]

Or maybe they got the point, and the point wasn't very good

[Tanooki | 5,125]

Given the rotten tomatoes score has Mario in the low 90s from personal accounts so far, and the reviewers are in the mid 50s that is a sharp divide.  If you read the commentary from some of the negative ones they blend together whining mostly how the plot is as thin as the ones in the games, it's all flash, flare, surprise, nothing too deep.  They're basically bitching it's fan service and not some thought provoking cinematic experience.

I think some reviewers are just dumping on it because they either don't get it, or they want to come off as edgy.   There isn't some running critique of the thing being full of holes, badly written, poor animation, etc.  it's anti-fan service nitpicks.

[Sumez | 3,165]

If review scores are averaging somewhere around 50, and contrasting ridiculously praising user scores, that's usually a pretty surefire indicator of a shitty licensed movie designed entirely to appeal to a zealous audience who's gonna eat up the product no matter how good or bad it is (and/or kids).

9 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

They're basically bitching it's fan service and not some thought provoking cinematic experience.

Translation: They are giving a movie a bad score because superficial fanservice doesn't make a movie good.

[RH | 5,226]

Simply put, movie reviewers want something new and fresh.  If you have an ounce of nostalgia for Mario, from any decade, it was obvious what this movie would be.  They even advertised "we hope you have fun finding the many, many easter eggs we've put in the movie for fans of the games."

This is 100% a fan service.  I've given my gripes about Pratt and I'm not going to dig that up.  That said, I am 100% for a movie like this that is nothing but a throwback to everything Mario and Mushroom Kingdom reference imaginable.  Even if the story is weak, if they've made it so that ever shot references something specific from a past game or licensed media, I'd eat it up 100% with a spoon.

Yeah, sure, sometimes  I do want a fresh story but with a franchise like this I don't think that's what many of us really want.  In fact, that's exactly what we got in the early 90s--a "fresh" take on the Mario universe and we see how that turned out.  I mean, I do love the old SMB movie, and I did as a kid but it was too weird so it didn't reach mass-appeal.

I might go take my kids to see it tomorrow night. Maybe, if we can make the time.  But whenever I get too I expect it will be good.  Pratt will annoy me for about 5 minutes, I'll get over it, and my kids and I will enjoy the rest of the fun and we'll probably be talking about it for an entire week.  That's fine in my book.

[JamesRobot | 6,030]

1 hour ago, RH said:

Simply put, movie reviewers want something new and fresh.  If you have an ounce of nostalgia for Mario, from any decade, it was obvious what this movie would be.  They even advertised "we hope you have fun finding the many, many easter eggs we've put in the movie for fans of the games."

Mario got the "fresh" treatment in '93 and it was barely a Mario movie.  Although, Bob Hoskins may be the perfect Mario.

The fan service version is 30 years overdue and should be a great popcorn flick. 

[Tanooki | 5,125]

@Sumez You're a fool, but you're fun.   More often than not I agree with you, but in this case not in the slightest.  American movie reviewers have been largely self absorbed disconnected fools for the last couple decades you just can't listen to.  If you go through the years of non-art piece movies, the sci fi, adventure, anime/cartoon, etc stuff you get the same lame diatribes off them.  There's a reason it went so far that in the US we had this cartoon that ran for some years called 'The Critic' which was open mockery of these fools who have no grasp of reality, stuck in their own bubbles crying how 'IT STINKS' when it doesn't.

Just re-read what RH said, I don't want to make some bigger post, he basically wraps it up very well. What the more self absorbed stuffy critics want is what he said, something new and fresh.  This movie on a game, following the game format and thin plot to a fault(it appears) would be an instant turn off even if it were perfection, they'd find fault after fault.

 

James there makes a good point, the 30 years past movie which black eyed any effort to get Nintendo to make another franchise movie all this time ended up having a positive critic score.  Enough said.  it wasn't exactly a bad movie but it wasn't a Mario movie in the sense of the franchise either as it got creative.  This one IS a Mario movie on the franchise and stuck to it this time, and it gets the the negative backlash.

[RH | 5,226]

34 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

James there makes a good point, the 30 years past movie which black eyed any effort to get Nintendo to make another franchise movie all this time ended up having a positive critic score.  Enough said.  it wasn't exactly a bad movie but it wasn't a Mario movie in the sense of the franchise either as it got creative.  This one IS a Mario movie on the franchise and stuck to it this time, and it gets the the negative backlash.

Wait, it did review well?  I thought/assumed it didn't and also wasn't well received by a wide audience.  I need to check out those old reviews because I  agree with you that, if this is true, reviewers are just clueless on these things.

[Tanooki | 5,125]

4 minutes ago, RH said:

Wait, it did review well?  I thought/assumed it didn't and also wasn't well received by a wide audience.  I need to check out those old reviews because I  agree with you that, if this is true, reviewers are just clueless on these things.

Reviewers in the era took it at face value I guess.  Back in the day the old 1993 movie ended up with a split down the middle on reviews much like the one here is.  It's the context of them though, the old movie was appreciated by reviewers for being more distopian, a take on society and power, struggles, etc.  Not so many knocked it because it went into the weeds and didn't follow the game, it got more liked for being an artistic take.  Obviously the game lovers were tweaked off because it was a true WTF moment as this was no Super Mario World, Bros1-3, or Land1 or 2.  It was like mad max meets Mario.  So what you had 30 years ago was a contrast of the reviewers being split but liking it for those values, and the game players largely panning it and getting upset.  Now 30 years later we're with the gamers loving it, and reviewers knocking it for the opposite reasons which to me says a lot.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,963]

I think my 6 year olds are going today for their birthday.

I'm sure they'll adore it.

I'm not in a huge hurry to watch it.  I've had to watch a lot of Illumination stuff recently.

[MegaMan52 | 2,574]

Critics giving a video game-related movie low or mixed scores? What a surprise. I don't take their ratings and reviews of these kind of movies too seriously.

While the movie obviously won't be a "masterpiece" and probably won't be "great", I doubt anyone really expected it to be. Who cares what the critics have said about it? It's not really aimed at them. It's for kids and us long-time Mario fans. The fact that the movie is full of easter eggs and references, as the trailers and posters show, proves that.

I already mentioned this in a previous post, but I'll be watching the movie in Theaters and buying it on Blu-ray when it's released on that. I enjoyed watching the Sonic the Hedgehog movies in Theaters and again on Blu-ray. I suspect the new Mario movie will be reasonably good as well.

I got a Mario McDonald's Happy Meal in January, and am going to see if I can buy a poster for the new Mario movie (I have a Sonic 2 movie poster). Looking forward to seeing the new movie on the big screen this month.

Edited April 5, 2023 by MegaMan52

[Sumez | 3,165]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Just re-read what RH said, I don't want to make some bigger post, he basically wraps it up very well. What the more self absorbed stuffy critics want is what he said, something new and fresh.  This movie on a game, following the game format and thin plot to a fault(it appears) would be an instant turn off even if it were perfection, they'd find fault after fault.

He's saying basically the same thing - that the critics are rating the movies based on something it isn't and isn't supposed to be.

And I get that, you don't need a Mario movie to be great art, you just need to enjoy all the fun references to things you enjoy.

But that's what I'm trying to say - A movie critic's job isn't to tell you whether a Mario movie has recognizable Mario references in it. You know it has. Their job is to say how much it has to offer as an individual *movie*. The fact that a Mario movie isn't trying to be something you would posit alongside A Clockwork Orange, The Godfather, or Cuckoo's Nest, doesn't exactly argue in favor of it getting a comparable rating to those movies.

And yeah, I know a lot of movie critics are being really snobby about movies (again, it's kind of their job), but in general most of them are still understanding of general moviegoers and how low-brow fun can be enjoyable. One of the core inspirations for The Critic is Roger Ebert, and I'd say he was a good example of that. The thing is, the Mario movie isn't getting a ~55% from a few haughty art critics, it's getting it as an average across the entire board of every critical outlet recorded on Rottentomatoes.  

[Link | 2,884]

I didn't mean to start a discussion about the validity of film critics, lol. fwiw I enjoy reading criticism (a word that doesn't deserve the always-negative connotation) when it's well written and insightful. And there is a lot of it. I just think the particular one I randomly saw was not that. Which is probably why he's writing for Polygon and not AV Club.

Positive reviews from 4 of the 6 first results when I searched "super mario movie review"
IGN, The Verge, IndieWire, and THR. (One was a rather dim view from another outlet and the other was a Rotten Tomatoes roundup summary). So we can all relax.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,963]

For reference, both Sonic movies and Detective Pikachu are all in the 60s

[Sumez | 3,165]

And do you consider those good?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,963]

22 minutes ago, Sumez said:

And do you consider those good?

I've never actually sat and watched any of them, but I've been around my kids watching them and seen most parts a couple times.

I would say all three movies are pretty funny and my kids adore them.  But I'm not the prime demographic and wouldn't bother if it wasn't for my kids.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,963]

Pikachu is actually pretty clever, and is a neo noir sorta thing.  But being a fan and enjoying fan service goes a long way.

[RH | 5,226]

As someone who's not a Pokemon person, but been around Nintendo games for 35+ years, I really didn't understand Detective Pickachu.  It just seemed so out of left field.  One of the few things I know about Pokemon is that all they can say is there name.  And then we get this movie... with Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu... who's a detective?!  I mean.  Wut?!

[Reed Rothchild | 9,963]

7 minutes ago, RH said:

As someone who's not a Pokemon person, but been around Nintendo games for 35+ years, I really didn't understand Detective Pickachu.  It just seemed so out of left field.  One of the few things I know about Pokemon is that all they can say is there name.  And then we get this movie... with Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu... who's a detective?!  I mean.  Wut?!

Writers who were big fans of cyberpunk and film noirs (specifically Who Framed Roger Rabbit), and who realized the traditional Pokemon "storylines" are moronic

[Gloves | 12,270]

4 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

traditional Pokemon "storylines" are moronic

I mean, it's a kids' anime. If the message isn't "friendship is the solution" then it doesn't exist.

[Sumez | 3,165]

I actually watched Detective Pikachu. It's not very good, but it's not awful either, it made me chuckle a couple of times.

And there's actually a silly plot reason why the main character is able to talk to his Pikachu (and iirc he's the only person who understands him)

[Gloves | 12,270]

The same goes for this Mario movie as what I just said re: Pokemon. 

By and large it's not for you. If you happen to enjoy it as an adult, you're being largely driven by nostalgia and/or heavy fanaticism. We're a bunch of adults talking about the merits of a movie very explicitly made primarily for kids, and the major downside of the reviewers is that they're being very serious about a fuckin' kids' film.

"It entertained my 10 year old for an hour and a half" is a winning review.

[RH | 5,226]

39 minutes ago, Gloves said:

The same goes for this Mario movie as what I just said re: Pokemon. 

By and large it's not for you. If you happen to enjoy it as an adult, you're being largely driven by nostalgia and/or heavy fanaticism. We're a bunch of adults talking about the merits of a movie very explicitly made primarily for kids, and the major downside of the reviewers is that they're being very serious about a fuckin' kids' film.

"It entertained my 10 year old for an hour and a half" is a winning review.

But this doesn't have to be entirely true.  When Disney bought Star Wars, of course the mass amounts of their media has appealed to children, but in the past several years, they've branched out into TV shows and movies that are more geared toward adults.  I've heard rumor (not sure if it's true) that a Darth Vader-centric film has been considered that might even be Rated R because, you know... that dude was evil.

Star Wars and Mario aren't apples to apples, but if this film does well, then I could see Nintendo making a sequel, then considering branching out into something like a Zelda film and then maybe, maaaybe I could see there being a Metroid film that might not be super gorey,  but could be geared toward late teenagers and adults.  At least, I hope the people running Nintendo in the next 10 years (which could be a realistic time frame for the 3rd movie from now) will allow themselves to grow and consider such an option. I  don't see a day when there's a Rate R Nintendo film, but maybe an honest PG-13.  And I want that film to be Metroid.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,963]

46 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I mean, it's a kids' anime. If the message isn't "friendship is the solution" then it doesn't exist.

Well, if the Toy Story movies are the high bar for that kinda thing, I'd say Pokemon is something of a low bar 

[Gloves | 12,270]

4 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Well, if the Toy Story movies are the high bar for that kinda thing, I'd say Pokemon is something of a low bar 

anime