“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was a surprising but welcome addition to the video game movie genre. The Mario Bros. Movie has grossed over 350 million at the box office since its release on April 5. 

But are the numbers justified? I believe that they are. The Mario Bros. Movie is a love letter to Mario fans new and old with references from almost every Mario property, they even referenced the 90’s tv show “The Mario Brothers.” This movie definitely delivers as a Mario fan. 

While yes, this movie does showcase and reference many Mario properties, it wouldn’t be a good movie if the plot and characters weren’t good. The plot is relatively simple with Bowser being the big guy and the protagonists working together to stop him. 

Although the plot is simple it allows the characters as to be better developed. I think that they nailed the characters each of them is a great portrayal. The relationships between the characters are exactly how I would have imagined these characters interacting with each other.

Some characters were slightly changed such as Peach, Who was actually on the adventure with Mario to help rescue his brother. This is a change of pace for Peach but still going off the original Idea being the Mario game of rescuing someone.

Bowser was the other character who was changed slightly, but in this case, had more to do with the actor who was playing the character than the creative direction. Bowser within the game is a typical big guy who carries a presence with him wherever he goes. This is not lost with this version of Bowser, but being played by Jack Black gave the character more of a comedic undertone that is normally somewhat lacking.

This comedy also works pretty well with jokes landing most of the time, and with this being a family film there aren’t any distasteful jokes so it works well for all ages. There are also some really cool scenes during some of the action shots where the camera does a sort of side-angle shot making it feel like a video game. 

In my opinion, I believe that this is a film worth watching for many different reasons as a Mario fan such as cool filmmaking techniques, the execution of the characters as well as the actors playing them.