It’s been a pretty wild ride, but the Super Mario Bros. Movie is finally here! So,
let’s break down these famous characters and see where exactly the residents of
the Mushroom Kingdom land on the morality scale.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is the Super Mario Bros. Movie: Good to Evil.
Just a fair warning, this video is going to contain massive spoilers for the movie. So,
if you want to go into the Super Mario Bros. Movie completely
blind, we’d suggest clicking off now and coming back after a quick trip to the theatre.
As always, we’re starting off with the purest and most noble
characters. These characters are the Good.
Earning our Gold Medal of Good is Princess Peach. Being the noble leader of the Mushroom Kingdom,
Peach does all she can to protect her loyal toads. She’s brave and determined,
but also shows her kinder side when it comes to Mario, as we see her comforting
and encouraging him when he ends up not being able to fully complete the obstacle course.
Even when she’s focused on her main goal of stopping Bowser, she’ll still keep the people
she cares about as a top priority. We see her save Toad during the Rainbow Road sequence,
and later on she’s willing to play along with Bowser’s wedding, still putting herself at risk
even if she did have a back-up plan. Some might see her as a bit TOO perfect, but regardless
of whether or not we agree with that critique, she’s still the Most Good character in the film.
For our Silver Medal of Good, we’re giving it to the one and only Mario. Although we’re used
to seeing Mario play the hero role, here we get to also see him be a good older brother. While
of course he cares about stopping Bowser and helping out Peach and the other residents of
the Mushroom Kingdom, his main goal is to save his brother. When it comes to this, he’s willing to do
anything - from eating multiple mushrooms, which ironically happen to be his least favorite food,
to getting in a fight with a giant ape. It’s a tough journey, but he is eventually able to
save his brother from certain doom in what is an incredibly sweet moment. Though he can sometimes
be a bit of a hot-head whenever people insult him or Luigi, Mario’s heroic side easily shines
through in both big and small ways - from helping a toad get their dropped coin back,
to saving Donkey Kong’s life after they both fall in the ocean. A true hero through and through!
Getting our Bronze Medal of Good, it’s going to the original Player 2,
Luigi. Although Luigi unfortunately doesn’t have as much screen time as his older brother,
Luigi is still portrayed as an incredibly nice guy. When Mario ends up leaving
dinner early after being frustrated by his father’s words, Luigi is the one to check
up on him and bring him a plate of leftovers. Later on during the Bowser interrogation scene,
while he does eventually reveal that he knows who Mario is, Luigi still tries to keep his
brother a secret for as long as he can. His true Big Heroic Moment comes during the film’s
climax, however, when Luigi ends up grabbing a manhole cover and protecting Mario from one of
Bowser’s fire-breathing attacks, showing both his big bro and the audience just how brave he can be.
Finishing off the Good, we have Toad. For being such a little guy,
Toad sure does have a lot of spirit. Despite only knowing him for a few seconds,
Toad immediately claims Mario as his best friend and goes out of his way to help him by leading
him to the Mushroom Kingdom and then distracting the castle guards with food so that Mario can go
speak with Peach. Later, when Mario and Peach depart on their quest to the Jungle Kingdom,
Toad volunteers to go with them and help out with the cause. While he’s not much of a fighter,
Toad remains loyal to both Mario and Peach, cheering the former on and continuing to
help the latter out even when it looks like Bowser has an unbeatable advantage. Overall,
though he’s not the strongest character around, he easily sets the bar for all other toads.
He’s not the most important character, but he does have a lot of spirit:
next we have The Penguin King. His presence is important to help establish the danger that is
Bowser’s army. And although his efforts were futile, to say the least… His strong will and
leadership ability is quite commendable. He did his best to defend his kingdom,
but… you know… snowballs maybe aren’t the best weapon of choice.
Stepping down one tier, we’ve come to those who land right
in-between good and evil. This is the Grey Area.
Starting off this tier, we’d like to give one quick mention to a rarely seen member of the
Mario family, Mario’s father. Although he only gets a couple scenes, it’s still kind of cool
to see both him and the rest of the brothers’ extended family. Unfortunately, Mario’s father is
a bit on the gruff side and comes off as somewhat unsupportive at first, calling his son “nuts” for
leaving a steady job to start their plumbing business. We’re sure he was just trying to
look out for his boys in his own way, but telling Mario that he was “dragging his brother down with
him” was pretty harsh. Thankfully, by the end of the movie, their father is amazed by what both his
sons are able to do and lets Mario know how proud he is of him. Which makes us very happy to see.
Following him, we have King of the Apes, Cranky Kong. Not exactly a noble king,
Cranky is about what you’d expect from someone with a name like that. In spite
of Peach being pretty respectful towards him when they first meet,
Cranky in turn is dismissive and rude regarding her request. He also goes out
of his way to taunt Mario and forces him to fight his son, Donkey, in order to earn access
to his kong army. But, first impressions aside, Cranky proves to be a strong ally once Mario
and Peach truly earn his respect. Not only does he agree to grant them the use of his army, but
he also provides Mario, Peach and Toad with go-karts to use. We can’t
place him much higher as he ends up not doing much to help in the final battle,
but we do still appreciate what he was able to do for our heroes prior to it,
as well as his willingness to happily give his own son some praise when it's due.
Last in the Grey tier is the enemy-turned-ape-ally, Donkey Kong. Being the
Jungle Kingdom’s strongest fighter, Donkey Kong is a brute, a show-boater and an incredibly sore
loser. He doesn’t take things too seriously at first, taunting Mario before threatening to kill
him during their big fight. But even after Mario beats him fair and square in the arena and they
officially become allies, Donkey Kong still goes out of his way to antagonize and threaten him. He
does soften up to the plumber a bit after Mario saves his life and he also tries to help fight
off Bowser in the final battle, so we know that he’s by no means selfish. He just also happens to
be more than a little crude and can sometimes let his ego and his rivalries get the better of him.
Finally, we have the truly dastardly and wicked. These characters are the Bad to Evil.
Though not your traditional bad guy, we’d like to give a quick mention to Foreman Spike. Spike
is the former boss of the Mario Bros. When the brothers leave him to start a plumbing
business of their own, Spike makes it clear that he has absolutely no faith in them. He
even goes out of his way to both verbally insult them and physically threaten Mario
when Mario gets up in his face. Spike also seems like he just cares very little about
the brothers in general, given that he nearly hits Mario but only cares about
whether or not his car was dented. But eventually, he does cheer on the brothers
alongside everyone else after they defeat Bowser, so we suppose he’s not ALL bad.
For our Silver Medal of Evil, we’re giving it to Kamek. Being Bowser’s right-hand wizard,
Kamek’s only role seems to be to support Bowser in any way that he can - whether
that’s providing some extra defensive magic during an attack, or helping build his king’s
confidence when it comes to his proposal to Peach. He very much enables Bowser’s
evil behavior and doesn’t seem to mind all the destruction at all, looking almost amused as he
watches the ice penguin’s castle get melted away and being more than happy to tell Luigi
and the other prisoners that they’re going to be sacrificed during his king’s wedding.
There’s very little that’s redeemable about Kamek, but at the very least you could argue
that he was just following orders. With our last entry, you can’t really make that excuse…
Finally, our Gold Medal of Evil is going to none other than Bowser, king of the Koopas. Naturally,
Bowser is in classic form throughout this movie. He’s threatening, intimidating, hostile,
aggressive and, when it comes to his crush on Peach, actually kind of adorkable? But don’t
let his lovestruck nature and charming Jack Black voice fool you, this guy is a villain through and
through. His main goal throughout the film is to force Princess Peach into marrying him, either by
impressing her with the Power Star or threatening to use it to destroy her kingdom. With this being
the only thing he wants, Bowser lets nothing stand in his way and makes it VERY clear that he
is willing to kill whoever tries to stop him. For as funny as he may be, Bowser still proves to be
incredibly dangerous as well as, unsurprisingly, the most evil character in the movie.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next! Remember to hit that notification bell
and binge our Good to Evil playlist, where we break down the morality of
the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!