95. THE SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE (2023) dir. Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic

I look down at my keyboard typing this and in my periphery, see my Mario Bros. pajamas, covered with Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi (characters my 2-year-old excitedly points out to me despite not ever having played a Nintendo console). I think back to last night, after the post-credit scene of THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE finished, and the amount of grown-ass men that left the theater at said time made me laugh. It still does. You've got a generational split in folks watching this movie - the kids who know Mario either from merchandise or Nintendo Switch games or these crusty fucks (myself included) who either raise these kids or know Mario from back when counting pixels was an effective marketing tool.What do I, a crusty fuck, want? I really just want the game. Give me a red-capped Italian plumber hopping on blocks and weirdly designed characters in service of a princess and the greater good and I'll be pretty much set. I think this movie gives me about 80% of that. Illumination Entertainment makes beautiful animations; that's almost undeniable. So when you give them over 40 years of a template from which to work off of, it's almost idiot-proof. Expand the visuals of a side-scrolling game into 3D movements. A clip's made the round on my Tiktok showcasing a level from New Super Mario Bros alongside its movie counterpart and it exemplifies this concept beautifully.I'm not totally sure who decided to add in some fish-out-of-water ideas and world-building that marks the escapades of the Mushroom Kingdom as squarely "not OUR WORLD" within this story. I'm sure some screenwriter was told to explain the nonsense for people who've never played a video game. Why would the Mushroom Kingdom rest its fate on a plumber? What's up with the high-pitched Italian stereotype of a voice? Why are Mario, Luigi and Peach the only human beings in the universe?It didn't matter to me as a child and it matters a lot less now. It's the element of video game adaptations that still, to this day, triggers my disappointed smirk. I don't need Sonic the Hedgehog to dimension-warp his way into San Francisco. I certainly don't need something similar from Mario (whose last name doesn't need to be a mystery because Lord knows I don't need a geneological examination of the Mario clan).I just need a good guy who loves his brother trying to save adorable living toadstool mushroomed strangers from a dragon. It's simple, and the sooner we get that, the sooner we'll get the best Mario movie. But for now? This is a good start....Could we seriously not have gotten Luigi's flutter jump or Peach's side-scrolling float? Ok, ok, I'm done.---Follow The Movies on ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠Financially support the podcast via the ⁠⁠tip jar!