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The Super Mario Bros. Movie - Review Thread
- Thread starter Draugoth
- Start date
I finally watched this last night. I don't know how it was so well-reviewed. It's a standard Illumination kids movie that uses the flimsiest of plots to loosely tie together a bunch of visual references. It's technically very well crafted, but I thought it was overall a bad movie. It's fine that it's a kids movie - not everything has to be made for me - but there are far better children's movies that they could've used for inspiration.
Pejo
Member
I saw this today on Netflix with the gf. Terrible movie. There were lots of memberberries and references though, so I guess Millennial dads ate that shit up. Peach was damn near insufferable with her new attitude, and the voice acting was mostly bad except for like Toad (Key nailed it). Everyone else sounded just like themselves poorly reading a script. I was shocked at how bad Jack Black did Bowser, I assumed he was going to be a slam dunk.
Visuals were ok but it was just "off" enough from the general Mario artstyle that it bugged the shit out of me the whole time. Like why just go 80% of the way there? Reminded me of how awful the original movie Sonic looked.
Plot was stupid but I expected that. I enjoyed the depressing star but they milked it just a bit too much so that by the end it lost the humor. Then it felt like they were just beating us over the head with it, like "HEY LOOK IT'S STILL FUNNY RIGHT?" Just overall felt like a waste of my time, and I'm shocked it was so successful.
Visuals were ok but it was just "off" enough from the general Mario artstyle that it bugged the shit out of me the whole time. Like why just go 80% of the way there? Reminded me of how awful the original movie Sonic looked.
Plot was stupid but I expected that. I enjoyed the depressing star but they milked it just a bit too much so that by the end it lost the humor. Then it felt like they were just beating us over the head with it, like "HEY LOOK IT'S STILL FUNNY RIGHT?" Just overall felt like a waste of my time, and I'm shocked it was so successful.
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AJUMP23
Gold Member
Here is a man with no joy.
Werewolf Jones
Gold Member
Everything he says is right though, the Puss in Boots movie is a better kids film in every way. This movie is just prepping kids into being good consumers like their parents.
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Pejo
Member
For kids it's fine, but kids have a very low set of standards. Kids can watch videos about singing shapes and colors with faces on repeat for 8 hours. Plenty of movies hold up outside of just handwaving that it's for children.
Anyways, with as much bluster and bravado the movie got from fans and critics, I just expected something that was going to wow me.
nkarafo
Member
The worst part for me by far was the "remember this trendy pop song?" soundtrack and pop-culture references that weren't necessarily Nintendo references. I gave up midway through the movie because these made me cringe.
Also, Peach was your usual, modern movie Mary Sue.
And how does it fare if you don't add the "its for kids" label, to lower the standards?
I mean, we used to have movies that were good enough to not have to even mention this. Toy Story, Aladdin, Lion King... I don't remember anyone ever having to lower the standards to justify those.
Also, Peach was your usual, modern movie Mary Sue.
And how does it fare if you don't add the "its for kids" label, to lower the standards?
I mean, we used to have movies that were good enough to not have to even mention this. Toy Story, Aladdin, Lion King... I don't remember anyone ever having to lower the standards to justify those.
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AJUMP23
Gold Member
You should have gone to the theater.
For kids it's fine, but kids have a very low set of standards. Kids can watch videos about singing shapes and colors with faces on repeat for 8 hours. Plenty of movies hold up outside of just handwaving that it's for children.
Anyways, with as much bluster and bravado the movie got from fans and critics, I just expected something that was going to wow me.
6502
Member
If you watch the movie with your kids, having introduced them to Nintendo previously it will be a great deal of fun. The references are spot on, it looks and sounds great and has a sense of humour all the family can enjoy.
It is better than 95% of kids CGI movies. I know as I have suffered through hundreds of them multiple times. Mario is not as good as Shrek 2 (the goat in my book) but is far better than Dispicable Me, Frozen 2, Sharktale etc.
Applying standards of absolute classics such as Lion King / Aladin is just as troublesome for modern Disney as anyone else. But even they are taken as "kids movies", as the script (how they try to engage the whole audience), performances (effort considering it would rarely be an artists defining role) and visuals are all taken in that context and are all held up highly today as they exceeded expectations of a kids movie on all those fronts.
The joyless Mario was had back in the day, it was more gritty, more adult and a truly fucking grim film. A travestly second only to MJ's Moonwalker.
The success and acclaim may partly be due to the slate of dross being pumped out the last few years and a competent fun family movie being a welcome relief; but even if this came out around toy story it would still have been a huge hit.
Parents, I recommend this movie.
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