Muma Mia. Ever since the announcement of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, fans of the long running series
have been dealing with a lot of excitement and skepticism regarding how the finished project
will turn out. While many believe this will be completely serviceable as an animated adventure,
others think that the bizarre choices made behind the scenes
will be enough to weigh down the final product. Love or hate the idea overall,
we’re going to be taking these opinions on a case-by-case basis to determine
which ones we feel are warranted and which ones miss the mark in our eyes.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is The Super Mario Bros. Movie Opinions We Love and Hate.
Let’s start this off by looking at the biggest point of contention people have had with this
movie ever since it was announced; Chris Pratt is a Bad Casting Choice for Mario. One of the biggest
memes on the internet is the seemingly bizarre choice to have this Guardians of the Galaxy and
Parks and Recreation star play an Italian plumber. It’s true that Charles Martinet,
the man who we associate with Mario’s voice, isn’t an Italian either, but as revealed in this recent
trailer, Chris Pratt isn’t even attempting an Italian accent for this portrayal. Now,
this is likely a decision made by others, and Chris Pratt seems to be getting all the heat
for it… It’s true that Mario hasn’t always been portrayed with an Italian accent, Bob Hoskins
and Captain Lou Albano certainly didn’t in their portrayals, but at least in those cases, those
were acted before Charles Martinet created the iconic voice we’ve come to know and love. We’re
going to say we although we kind of agree with this opinion. We do feel Chris Pratt was somewhat
unfairly singled out, his voice performance in the trailer isn’t too bad. However, this
is still a casting decision based upon star power rather than who would be best fit for the role.
Beyond the casting choice, the second biggest point of contention people
have with this movie is the reputation of the studio behind it. Many people believe
This Movie Will Be Bad Because It’s Produced by Illumination. For those of you who don’t know,
Illumination is the studio responsible for the Secret Life of Pets and Sing movies as
well as creating those annoying yellow blobs that have invaded the internet,
the Minions. This studio is often criticized for making bland, unchallenging children movies on a
low budget that don’t have any appeal outside of their target demographic. While in our opinion
this is no problem when the studio is making movies with their own original franchises,
this becomes a bigger issue when Illumination adapts works from outside properties that we
care about, as demonstrated with their awful Dr. Suess adaptations. While we can see both
sides of the argument, we’re going to say we have mixed feelings. Illumination wouldn’t have
been our first choice to spearhead this movie. We’d feel much more confident in Sony Pictures
Animation or even DreamWorks taking the charge in favor of the studio we got. However, Illumination
still has the chance to prove themselves so we won’t write them off completely. And,
based on the billing on the poster… Nintendo is watching over their production’s creative
decisions like a hawk. Which makes sense, given what happened with the 1993 Mario Movie,
that basically was so bad that Nintendo pulled the plug on a Mario feature film for over 25 years.
Moving on to brighter territory, the recently released teaser trailer for the movie showed
off the movie in action to a positive response. Indeed, many people believe that The Animation
Looks Amazing. Remember how we said Illumination still has the chance to prove themselves with
their involvement in the film? Well, they certainly did so visually as the animation
in the movie has received a lot of praise. Illumination’s films usually are known for
their cheap, cookie cutter character designs that usually lack any sort of creativity. They’re kind
of like the Funko Pops of animation. The animation in The Super Mario Bros. Movie is so breathtaking
that its hard to believe its even from the same studio. We have to say that we love this opinion.
You can definitely tell that Nintendo had a very active hand in making this project a reality,
as the designs and animation are very accurate to the game. Err, for the most part, we’ll get
to that a little later. Beyond that, the lighting, backgrounds, and fluidity in the characters’
movements are jaw dropping and the mood portrayed in these scenes are incredibly atmospheric.
While high quality animation is not necessarily a guarantee that the film will be great as a whole,
at we’re positive the film will be visually striking based on the clips which we have seen.
With all that said, some people do seem to be taking issue with the character design of the
main man himself. A lot of people feel Mario Isn’t Round Enough. It’s true that Mario’s
design in recent years portrays him as a little thinner than he used to be. While his design in
this recent movie goes show the plumber still has a bit of a gut, a lot of people seem to be
concerned with the shape of Mario’s backside. So much so that after the trailer dropped, it was
trending on Twitter. Even though a large portion of this criticism is probably ironic, Mario does
noticeably have a flatter butt than what we’re used to. He looks more like Hank Hill than Super
Mario in this regard. Some Twitter users have gone as far as to compare Mario’s design in this movie
to that of Fix it Felix from the Wreck it Ralph movies. We don’t see this as a very important
criticism, but we will say that we agree with this opinion… because, well look… it’s undeniable. .
While Chris Pratt’s role as Mario has been criticized by numerous people,
the opposite can be said for Mario’s adversary. Many people think Jack Black Sounds Great as
Bowser. When it comes to Bowser’s voice, the character is shown to have many speaking roles
throughout the series, but most of them are in text form. One of the few exceptions to
this is Super Mario Sunshine which featured Bowser being voice acted by Scott Burns.
Jack Black could have taken cues from Chris Pratt and not changed his inflections to
sound like the character. However, judging from Jack Black’s voice in the trailer,
he’s putting a lot of effort into changing his voice to sound more menacing. Personally,
we love this opinion. Jack Black could have easily used his regular voice for the character,
as that worked well for him as Po in Kung Fu Panda, but we feel Bowser needs a much
darker voice which Jack Black happily provides. We’re willing to bet that Jack Black had a lot
of fun voicing this character and the fun is contagious based on the reactions we’ve seen.
While Chris Pratt received heat and Jack Black received mostly praise, one character’s voice that
has more of a split reaction is that of Toad. From we gather, the consensus is that Keegan-Michael
Key Sounds Inaccurate as Toad. Inaccuracy isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, as liberties
naturally need to be taken when adapting anything. It is true that Toad’s speaking voice is heard
in many Mario games, possibly more than Bowser’s, many people seem to think that the little Mushroom
man can sound a bit grating at times. Because of this, Keegan-Michael Key has received mixed
reactions, with many panning him for not sounding like Toad and others praising him for the same
reason. Personally, we like this opinion. We agree that Keegan-Michael Key does sound inaccurate as
Toad and we are in the camp of people who believe that to be a good thing. Toad’s voice would be
both grating on the ears and probably grating on Keegan-Michael Key’s throat if he kept that
voice for the entire runtime of the film. We’re at least hoping this Key and Peele star will get
the opportunity to tell Mario that his princess is in another castle at some point in the film.
While the voice cast of the English dub of the movie have received mixed responses,
the cast featured in other countries seem to have gotten more praise, even from English speakers. In
particular, fans point out that The French Dub of Mario’s Voice Sounds Much Better Than Chris Pratt.
Whenever transitioning animated movies from one country to another, voice actors will often times
have a much different interpretations on how a character should be played. Any anime fan can
relate to this as English dubs often have much different interpretations than their Japanese
counterparts. In the case of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, it seems that the French voice
actor who plays Mario plays his part much closer to that of Charles Martinet’s original vision.
Not only is the Italian accent used, but Mario sounds much more energetic
than Chris Pratt does based on the few lines in the trailer. Personally,
we love this opinion. We’re happy our French speaking friends will have a
character who sounds much more like the original moustached man they grew up with. This actually
may inspire us to watch the film in French as long as we get the necessary subtitles.
One criticism that we’ve seen is It Would Be Better If It Wasn’t an Origin Story. As we can
see from the trailer… Mario falls through a warp pipe and arrives in the Mushroom Kingdom for the
first time. This is obvious because it’s clear he’s never seen it before. Some critics have
said that it would be better if the origin story was skipped because it focusing on Mario’s first
contact with this world essentially requires him to fall into the standard “fish out of
water” plot that is redone over and over. In our opinion, although we definitely
understand this criticism… we disagree with the opinion. Maybe we’re just hoping that this movie
can set itself up for a sequel or ongoing series… but we think if that is the case,
we’d like to see the original origin story of the Super Mario Bros. And realistically,
this is also something that hasn’t really been explored much even in the games… and even less
so in recent years of the franchise. So, we’re optimistic for the origin story.
Now, moving onto another controversial opinion… Mario Should Throw a Penguin Off a Cliff. Okay,
this one is just cruel… It’s pretty universally agreed upon that the Penguins featured in the
Super Mario Bros. trailer are awesome, hilarious and adorable… So it’s kind of
a surprise how many people are asking Mario to yeet one off a cliffside.
For those confused why this is… Well, in Mario 64… One of the Power Stars required
you to return a baby penguin to it’s mother. And, well, as we all did at one point… you can,
technically, throw the baby off a cliff instead. We will admit… This would be a pretty hilarious
easter egg to throw in the film… but because of how much we love the penguins featured in
the trailer… we’re going to say… we have Mixed Feelings on this opinion.
While this is the first time Mario and Luigi have been seen animated on the big screen,
but in 1993 the brothers did make their big screen debut in Super Mario Bros.
Comparing the two films, many fans seem to agree that The Super Mario Bros. Movie Will Be Better
Than the Movie “Super Mario Bros.” The 1993 movie is weird, inaccurate and full of crazy
over the top special effects that are about the furthest thing away from a Super Mario Bros.
game you can imagine. Toad are humans, Yoshi is a regular dinosaur, King Koopa is hybrid Dennis
Hopper dinosaur thing… and the less said about the Goombas the better. Super Mario Bros. tanked both
critically and financially when it was released in 1993, which is part of the reason Nintendo took so
many years to greenlight another movie based on the plumber, or any of their other properties for
that matter. With all that said, we like this opinion because of how bad the original was…
But, that doesn’t mean we write the 1993 movie off completely. The live action movie
may be bad, corny and overproduced, but it’s awful in an entertaining way. Like,
it’s so bad it’s kinda pretty good. We’re hoping the existence of this new
movie doesn’t make people totally forget about the wonderful trainwreck that was the 1993 movie.
Let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking, and tell
us what opinions you love and hate for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. 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 games. But most importantly, stay wicked!