anticipate THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (2023) not to be confused with SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993)

Chris Pratt definitely seems wrong for this but anyone who thinks they should've just used Charles Martinet is insane. who would want to hear that over the course of an entire movie? no one would understand a word

it looks gorgeous though. they definitely captured the colorful and vibrant look you see in every Mario game, particularly the Galaxy ones. just hoping it won't have too much self-referential bullshit, though let's be real, I'm only excited for this because my kids will wanna see it, and I'm sure they will love it

Mario begins the movie as a "Dr", but he's really just a chiropractor, crackin rich old folks' backs and claiming he aligned their quantum energy.

no one would understand a word

Yeah, this always kind of stuck out with me whenever I saw another campaign to get him to replace Pratt. He's perfect for the limited times they need him in a video game, but wouldn't work at all over the course of a full movie. But fuck Pratt anyway though.

this year's minions movie is far and away the most fun and gorgeous illumination production and i hope that carries through into this

I would’ve cast Jon Benjamin as Mario personally

I’ll only see this if Kuribo’s Shoe shows up, but points for actually setting it in and rendering the actual Mushroom Kingdom instead of cheaping out and doing the usual “fantastic licensed animated character shows up in the real world for lazy fish out of water jokes” that like every other franchise adaption from He-Man to Smurfs to Sonic did.

This and the theme parks are shaping up to be Miyamoto’s swan songs more or less, and I guess Pikmin 4

Kinda coming around on this, or at least I'm digging the orchestral score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO_Dby7G48E

Koji Kondo the goat

Also the voice almost sounds fun in this clip

Does Mushroom Kingdom have universal basic income? They seem to be collecting coins freely from the coin blocks.

maybe that's their job

8-Bitcoin mining

chances seem slim that this movie will produce the same level of profoundly erotic merchandise that the 1993 versh did, sadly

most erotic phrase uttered by these SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993) action figures

saw this with the kids (8 and 6) over the weekend. they both absolutely loved it. so did the other kids there. the movie seems very aware that its core audience is people who grew up with the NES and SNES, taking their kids who are now obsessed with the Switch. obviously you should not expect this movie to be surprising or interesting in any way. it panders a ton and made me groan a few times but it was fun.

yes it is sort of an "origin story" but really it's not much of a story at all. the plot is so thin and cliche that you kinda know everything that's gonna happen ahead of time. doesn't matter much though since the plot isn't really the point. like there are scenes where Mario looks all sad and says stuff like "oh my Dad never believed in me either" but they last about 15 seconds and the next thing you know he's jumping around again. you do get to see Mario's Dad, by the way. anyway, it's very colorful and there are tons of action scenes that really do feel like a video game. parts of it are like a glorified version of someone speedrunning Mario 64. if you can see it in 3-D you should.

the thing I couldn't stop thinking about was how absolutely nonsensical the entire movie would seem if you somehow were not familiar with the Mario games. I mean basically every single thing that happens here is a reference to one of the games. I would really love to see an older person who never gave a shit about video games see this and then try to describe the plot later. they'd probably think it was one of the strangest movies they'd ever seen.

as for the voice acting I thought it was pretty good. you kinda forget you're listening to Chris Pratt. you definitely do NOT forget you're listening to Charlie Day and most of the time he was speaking I was thinking about It's Always Sunny. Jack Black does a little song and it's kinda funny. the rest...whatever. I really don't see why they had to use famous people for this. like this is one of the biggest IPs on the planet who gives a shit if Seth Rogan is in it. actually it is a little distracting because nearly every voice in it, not just the main characters, is someone who you kinda recognize. like you know how in 90s animation it was the same few people doing all the minor characters? its like that here too.

anyway. I had fun.

Is there a Kuribo’s Shoe appearance?

Saw this on Friday night, had a good time, mostly because my kids were having so much fun and it was a packed theatre with a mix of kids and nintendo nerds who were all very enthusiastic. That bowser song got a lot of laughs.

The whole thing of animated movies using big name actors has always been a pretty contentious issue in the voice acting community; I sometimes listen to VA interview podcast I Hear Voices and the subject comes up quite a lot. Do kids really care if it’s Angelina Jolie voicing a fish?