The Mario movie makes Wreck-It Ralph look better than ever

The Super Mario Bros. movie, the animated comedy starring the iconic mustachioed platform-hopping plumbers, is a huge hit. Featuring an all-star voice cast including Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black and more, the first adaptation of Nintendo’s beloved video game franchise in three decades grossed more than $377 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

Those are some big numbers, but not everyone is excited about Mario and Luigi’s latest movie adventure. As my colleague Joshua Rivera described in his review, The Super Mario Bros. movie is “overwhelmingly beautiful and scrupulously faithful [to Nintendo’s worlds and characters]’, but has ‘frustratingly brief moments of quirkiness that would make demonstrable [for] a more memorable movie.” Maddy Myers, Polygon’s deputy games editor, had her own opinion: It’s a straight forward, light-hearted, risk-free movie – which makes it feel dull compared to the disastrous but memorable 1993 live-action cult classic starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Mario and Luigi.

Everyone and the Koopa Troop weigh in with their two cents on the movie, so I thought, hell, I might as well walk into the Discourse coliseum with my opinion: The Super Mario Bros. movie is good. Aggressive fine. It’s the kind of low-calorie, high-fructose, corn syrup-infused entertainment you’d expect from a custom-made movie that appeals to kids and “kids of all ages.” Apart from a handful of notable scenes (the Rainbow Road sequence, Mario and Luigi’s Kamen Rider/Neon Genesis Evangelionstyle combo kick in the finale), it’s the kind of animated comedy that will fade from your mind as soon as you walk out of the theater.

But at various points during the movie, I felt like I’d seen a version of the exact same movie before, but better. (And no, I’m not talking about the very, terribly similar premise of 1993’s Super Mario Bros.) I’m talking about Wreck it Ralph, the 2012 Disney comedy about a sentient arcade villain who rebels against his role as a “bad guy” to become a hero himself. It is the best Super Mario Bros. movie not about the Super Mario Bros. is about, and it deals with a defining element of Mario’s cultural legacy that goes completely unnoticed in the universe of the Illumination’s 2022 feature: Mario is a video game character.

You’re probably saying, “What the hell are you talking about?” There are more video game references in the Mario movie than I can count.” You’re right about that. There are so many video game Easter eggs tucked away in the creases, cracks, holes and corners of damn near every frame of The Super Mario Bros. movie that making an extensive list of them can be both useless to compile and boring to read. But I’m not talking about references, I’m talking about Mario as a relatable, fleshed-out character who also reflects what we love about him most.

During its 40 years of existence, Mario has been of many things: a doctor, a postmanan Olympic athlete, a football player, a golfer, a parkour-hopping vigilante janitor featuring a talking water hose backpack, a race car driver, a carpenter and yes, most famously, a plumber. But before all those things, Mario was a video game character, plain fact that The Super Mario Bros. movie obliquely alludes, but never fully acknowledges. Within the film’s universe, Mario and his lovable klutz of a brother Luigi are “real”; they have one Real family of extended relatives and Real jobs as entrepreneur plumbers. They have Real accounts payable, and a Real asshole of a former boss with sun shades that make him look like the kind of guy who films himself behind the wheel of his big old car, rants on social media about how minorities are scary and that women are wrong about not finding him attractive find.

Image: Nintendo, lighting/Universal Pictures

Video games really do exist in the world of The Super Mario Bros. movie: A Jumpman arcade cabinet is briefly seen in the film’s Punch-Out Pizzeria, and later Mario himself plays gruff Child Icarus on what appears to be a Nintendo Entertainment System. (Which raises a whole host of existential questions, I don’t have the time or space to unpack them here.) When Mario’s legacy as a video game character is touched upon in the movie itself, it’s done obliquely, through scenes where he and his brother parkour through a Brooklyn construction area as if you were navigating a platforming section or walking an “obstacle course” created to ensure that Princess Peach is ready to take the throne of the Mushroom Kingdom. (Why the Mushroom Kingdom’s rule is determined by a floating platform level is never explicitly stated, but whatever. Monarchies are patently nonsensical to begin with.)

I suspect that a possible reason why Mario’s existence as a video game character never comes up is not because of any particular lack of creativity or insight on the part of some of the film’s creators, but simply because Wreck it Ralph already did that premise better than they could.

Wreck it Ralph is for video games what Who framed Roger Rabbit is to the so-called golden age of American animation: a loving, long-lived tribute to a hugely influential medium, brimming with viewing gags lovingly crafted to pay homage to that medium’s history. Both films also tell memorable, distinctive stories separate from those homages. The latter is perhaps the biggest bone of contention between critics and fans of The Super Mario Bros. movie. The film is certainly a crowd pleaser, but its focus on throwing visual gags at a presumably video game savvy audience while offering very little to anyone outside of that demographic inadvertently reflects the insularity of video game culture itself.

Image: Walt Disney Pictures

Therefore Wreck it Ralph stands out in comparison. It’s a video game comedy with characters and events strong enough to appeal to even an audience that doesn’t necessarily play video games themselves. The barometer of satisfaction for that movie doesn’t just depend on how many references are in the runtime. Wreck it Ralph has tons of game references, from character cameos to make direct references to arcade culture, gameplay and much more. But the story itself does not depend on that; it depends on the personalities of the protagonists and the performances of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Alan Tudyk and more. Compared to the charisma and heart they bring to their movie, Mario in The Super Mario Bros. movie has very little personality, attributable both to the character’s reputation as an archetypal video game protagonist and to Chris Pratt’s “Xerox of a La Croix-esque” vocal performance.

If you loved The Super Mario Bros. movie and think it’s the best imaginable expression of a video game character, that’s fine. I’m not here to screw up your yum or pillory your taste. This is not the article for you. It’s for people who don’t enjoy The Super Mario Bros. movie. And my message to them is this: go and see Wreck it Ralph instead of. It’s a fun, charming, original cinematic take on the legacy of arcade games that fully adheres to the idea that you, the viewer, are actually playing and enjoying games. It tells a compelling story of unlikely friendship and redemptive self-actualization, while also paying loving tribute to the medium’s most iconic franchises and characters. You’re not going to get that The Super Mario Bros. movie, so stop looking there. Your entertainment is in another castle.

Wreck it Ralph streams on Disney Plus and can be rented or purchased on Amazon, Vuduand other digital platforms.