The Super Mario Bros. Movie is Nintendo and Illumination’s newest animation, released in 2023. 

Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic directed this film and it was written by Matthew Fogel. The movie itself is a fun time, but nothing groundbreaking; a budget of $100 million and a current box office of $878.1 million, it is safe to say that the Mario Movie is a hit with a rotten tomatoes audience review of 96 percent and a critic score 59 percent. The movie stars Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.

The Plot is nothing spectacular; It focuses on Mario’s adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom with Princess Peach and Toad as he goes to rescue Luigi and stop Bowser. Nothing too serious but very entertaining for the one hour and thirty minutes runtime. The part of the movie that impressed me was the voice acting and how good it was. Mario as Chris Pratt was a surprise since his previous works, as Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy and Owen Grandy in the Jurassic Park series, you don’t really see him as an Italian plumber. Still, was so surprised at how good he was throughout the film. Anya Taylor-Joy is an actress I’m not familiar with. Still, her role as Princess Peach is a surprise to me since her previous works I’m familiar with are her in The Queens Gambit as Beth Harmon and The Menu as Margot. One of the reasons I wanted to see this movie was to see Jack Black as Bowser, and his performance was great and hilarious. His song “Peaches” has made it into the Billboard Hot 100 at No.83 with over 5.8 million streams; his recent works include Captain Bombardier in The Mandalorian, Joseph Stalin in History of the World, Part 2, and Po in Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight. Charlie Day is an actor I’m not familiar with, but his role as Luigi was great, but it sucks to see him being underused in the film. He has roles in I want you back, how it ends, and The Lego Movies. 

Brian Tyler and Koji Kondo made the soundtrack of the film. The soundtrack is made up of iconic Mario tracks from the games, which really fits the story. Still, one gripe I had was the use of songs that used songs like Take-on Me by a-ha, Thunderstruck by AC/DC, which cool songs themselves but the moments they were used in were unfitting but it wasn’t that bad; one song that was perfectly used was Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler when there was a training montage.

The Mario movie is nothing groundbreaking, but it is a great time, especially for its run time of one hour and 32 minutes. The only problem I had was the lack of Luigi throughout the film; Charlie Day is an excellent fit for Luigi, and the fact that they underused him negatively affected me. The Mario movie was directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and written by Matthew Fogel, and released on April 5, 2023, with a budget of 100 million and a box office of 878 million. The film is a fun time to watch with your friends or family members; the actors really did well in bringing life to the characters. Overall, I give the movie four out of five stars.