The Super Mario Bros. Movie is nostalgia bait without its own hook

In the world of video games, you can always count on Mario. Nintendo’s mascot is a cheerful plumber whose decisive attitude and penchant for jumping have made him an avatar for all kinds of family fun: charming games of skill where you jump over monsters and obstacles to reach a flag and save a princess, chaotic racing games where sabotage is more important than driving, and sports games that somehow appeal to both those who love sports and those who would rather die than turn on ESPN. It’s not too hard to say that there’s no such thing as a bad Mario game. There’s a perfect Mario game for almost every kind of person – giving the little plumber and his endless incarnations the kind of magical appeal every modern movie franchise craves.

The animated adventure of Illumination The Super Mario Bros. movie tries to bottle that appeal, but mostly just hints at it. Directed by Teen Titans Go! creators Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, with a script by Minions: The Rise of Gru And The Lego Movie 2 co-writer Matthew Fogel, The Super Mario Bros. movie feels like it was made to be screened more than watched. Nearly every frame is packed with a dizzying array of Easter eggs and references to Mario games and other Nintendo franchises. Cataloging them all is perhaps the most fun way to watch the movie, because when it comes to common movie things like plot and character, that all turns blue in color. (If you have that reference, you’ll probably like this movie more than the average viewer.)

A portal fantasy (pipe dream?) aimed directly at a younger audience, The Super Mario Bros. movie introduces Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), two brothers from Brooklyn who dream of getting their independent plumbing business off the ground. Unfortunately, they haven’t landed a single customer yet, making them a laughing stock to the neighborhood and a disappointment to their family. Desperate to prove himself, the self-proclaimed “Super Mario Bros.” try to fix a burst water pipe nearby, only to get sucked into a strange green pipe that transforms them both into the colorful world of the Mario video games.

The problem is that Mario and Luigi move to very different places: Mario ends up in the idyllic Mushroom Kingdom, populated by mushroom heads named Toads (the main one voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) and led by the human princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). But Luigi wriggles right into the clutches of Bowser (Jack Black), king of the turtle-like Koopas, who is on a mission to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom. Hoping to save his brother, Mario embarks on a journey with Peach to ask Cranky Kong (Fred Armisen) for permission to engage Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and the Kong army in battle against the Koopas.

It’s a light-hearted plot that’s mainly meant to take viewers on a scenic tour of Mario locations, with some slapstick along the way. Illumination’s depiction of Nintendo’s worlds and characters, as envisioned by legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, is stunningly beautiful and painstakingly faithful, filling every corner of the screen with something interesting to look at. Everything else about the film is serviceable, with frustratingly brief moments of quirkiness that are arguably The Super Mario Bros. movie a more memorable movie.

The comedy is big on the pratfalls of cute creatures, but also has the baffling and bizarre inclusion of a Luma, a cute star-shaped creature that craves oblivion, and gets plenty of laughs from lines about desperation and death that are guaranteed to ring. even more creepy when kids start repeating them. When The Super Mario Bros. Movie segues into action – which happens often – the scenes oscillate between generic superhero-style combat and dazzlingly inventive set pieces that combine ambitious CG animation with 2D video game homage.

Reverence is the goal here, haunted perhaps by the ghost of 1993 Super Mario Bros., a legendary live-action boondoggle that failed to please Nintendo, its fans, or moviegoers with its weird, dystopian take on the plucky Plumbers’ journey through the Mushroom Kingdom. (Even if it’s slowly crept toward cult-favorite status in the intervening 30 years.) This new take on Mario is so faithful in its attempts to recreate iconography from four decades of video games that it’s running out of energy to reaching the unconverted. The Super Mario Bros. movie is a sermon to the Nintendo believers and their children, and a few others.

Image: Nintendo, lighting/Universal Pictures

There has been a lot of concern about the vocal performances in The Super Mario Bros. movieAnd it’s all for nothing in the end. Most of them – especially Chris Pratt as Mario – are serviceable and frankly don’t impress enough to stick in the mind or inspire kids to imitate them, as Charles Martinet’s iconic performance of the games has done for years. (Mario’s longtime voice actor has a few brief cameos that are easily spotted and heard by those looking for him.)

The big exception is Jack Black as Bowser. An exuberant presence on and off screen, Black brings an unparalleled energy to The Super Mario Bros. movie, resulting in a take on Mario’s nemesis that reads as both true to the games and original to the movie. It’s the only part of the movie that legitimately feels collaboration between Illumination’s animators, Nintendo’s source material, and an actor’s performance, creating something that feels both familiar and new. (It’s also the source of one of the movie’s best jokes, a moment that’s hard to imagine anyone but Black pulling off.)

Image: Nintendo, lighting/Universal Pictures

The Super Mario Bros. movie arrives in a cinematic landscape that frankly needs it. Major Hollywood studios are looking for a reliable IP address that comes with an ingrained audience – an audience that can turn on, say, at the sight of a Nintendo production card. And movie theaters are, like ScreenCrush’s Matt Singer recently noted in a post that sparked a major online kerfuffle, often devoid of children’s theatrical releases. Who better to save the day than our trusty friend Mario, with his amazing video game record and impossible-to-hate overalls?

But the point of Mario is that he can do anything. He has a permit to play in a world that requires us to take so many things seriously. For Mario, reverence feels wrong, and contrary to the boundless feeling that comes when his familiar themes play through the speakers. There’s a bit of poetry to why Mario’s iconic move is a jump: when you’re playing and your feet come off the ground, for a very brief moment, it feels like anything could happen. All it takes is a little imagination. The Super Mario Bros. movie doesn’t have one.

The Super Mario Bros. movie premieres in theaters on April 5.