The first Super Mario Bros. Movie reviews are in — and they’re not quite super. The new animated movie from video game company Nintendo and Minions studio Illumination is earning high scores as a faithful adaptation of the Mario games, but as one critic puts it: the Mario movie “may complete the level, but it doesn’t quite nail the leap to the top of the flagpole.” On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, only 55 percent of critics gave The Super Mario Bros. Movie a positive reaction, which is below the 60 percent threshold to qualify as “fresh.”
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Mario‘s 55 percent “rotten” score ties 2015’s Minions as Illumination’s third-worst rated movie in the studio’s 13-year history: only 2011’s Hop (24%) and 2012’s Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (54%) fared worse. The score is also lower than 2018’s Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch (58%) and 2017’s Despicable Me 3 (59%).
Outside of Illumination, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is scoring lower than other big-screen video game adaptations like Pokémon Detective Pikachu (68% fresh), Sonic the Hedgehog (64%) and Sonic 2 (69%), and the wholly-animated The Angry Birds Movie 2 (73%). See a round-up of critics’ Super Mario Bros. Movie reviews below.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Reviews
ComicBook: “Rather than feeling like any one plot point leads to another, the entire experience feels more like we’re traveling through levels … viewers hoping for even a glimmer of an engaging story will be left disappointed.”
Entertainment Weekly: “It’s all quite fun, with a good sense of humor and a consistentcomputer-animated aesthetic — plus, at 90 minutes including credits,it’s short, sweet, and over before anything can get annoying. But it’shard to escape the feeling, especially during the RainbowRoad sequence, that you would probably be having more fun just playing agame together instead.”
The Independent: “To the film’s credit, it’s certainly not as dull and self-serious as screenwriter Matthew Fogel’s bare-bones plot suggests. The many, many nods to Mario lore are charmingly staged … and there are some nicely executed sequences, including a Mad Max: Fury Road-inspired take on the popular Mario Kart game. It’s hard to demand all that much from a Mario Bros film when its source material has been historically devoid of plot, but shouldn’t we be allowed to demand a little more than mere competency?”
Inverse: “With a pixel-thin premiseand a plot propelled by a candy-induced sugar rush, The Super MarioBros. Movie is an overstuffed 90 minutes of colorful, inoffensive fun.”
Variety: “There have been approximately 50 movies based on video games, and most of them are terrible … Mario presides over a digital playground that lifts the spirit to a place of split-second wonder, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie stays true to that. Its ingenuity is infectious. You don’t have to be a Mario fan to respond to it, but the film is going to remind the millions who are why they call it a joystick.”
ScreenCrush: “The Super Mario Bros. Movie could definitely be better, but it couldn’t be more slavishly devoted to the look, feel, characters, design, gags, settings, music, power-ups, sound effects, gameplay, level construction, and even the dialogue of the Super Mario games … As a movie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie ain’t much; barely 80 minutes of colorful action and winking game references. As a feature-length commercial for the Nintendo games, it’s reasonably effective.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “The plot is as basic as can be, and character development is clearly not a priority … deliver[s] a reasonably faithful big screen adaptation that, while it features plenty of juvenile humor, wisely doesn’t lean toward broad satire. Fans will be delighted by the many Easter eggs liberally scattered throughout the proceedings … including the vocal cameos by original Mario voice performer [Charles] Martinet and other game veterans.”
Starring Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, and Jack Black as Bowser, The Super Mario Bros. Movie opens only in theaters April 5th.
