#this is the real raw shit

[bowserphobia]

the 3k word mario movie review

here are my first thoughts on the mario movie. i'm probably gonna end up watching it again but i think ive had enough time to think about it to get my thoughts straight on what i think! even with how long this is, i'm sure i forgot stuff, but i hit on everything major i think.

tl;dr: 7/10. preddy good.

alright so under the cut is gonna be me being wayyyy too much about super mario brothers, so be ready for that. (but if you're following me then that's probably what you want LOL.) half mario review, half personal essay. very little chris pratt talk. i make fun of a lot of stuff but only because i love Mario so much. if you're mad at me for my Hot Mario Takes, just remember that i care about this more than anything and i'm going to die alone probably.

this is REALLY long and i'm sorry. spoilers, obviously.

my background/perspective: i'm closer to 30 than 20, and i've been a fan of mario since i could look at a tv screen. my introduction was the first Mario Kart game. Mario was my first ever online fandom, going on mario fansites like Lemmy's Land and Neglected Mario Characters was how i learned how to use the internet. a lot of my sense of humor and artistic style comes from the mario franchise, especially Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (if you can believe it lol.) i wrote a mario high school au fic when i was 8 years old. i'm cringe and i'm proud.

i also went to school for animation. i fucking love cartoons. so, needless to say, i was hyped for this movie, even not being the biggest fan of Illumination as a studio. i had measured expectations, but i really went in wanting to like the movie. (which i did, but not in so few words.) i was just as prepared to not like it, and i didn't want to get too excited for something that might not live up to my expectations. yeah yeah, it's just The Mario Movie. well, i love movies and i love mario.

i avoided watching a lot of trailers past the first couple, but i was aware of the content of them. mostly through tumblr gifs, lol. so i went in medium-cold.

as expected by now, the movie looked amazing. Illumination has always had great character animation, but imo this is the best looking movie they've ever made. the environments, especially the ones with mushrooms, were gorgeous. The movie started with that Bowser scene from one of the trailers where he destroys the ice castle. it was cool seeing the full version of the scene, and when Bowser said, "...or DIE!" i was like "oooh. he's a little scary 😈"

before i get any deeper into it i just want to say: this was a movie for babies. obviously, it's the Super Mario Brothers movie. i think everyone is going to go in knowing that. the showing i was at was full of kids, a lot of them in costume or carrying Yoshi plushies. They would cheer at stuff and laugh at the silly slapstick humor, and i honestly think that enhanced the experience. a kid yelled "RAINBOW ROAD, BABY!" and it was amazing! that's Mario, fun for the whole family.

second thing: kid's movie ≠ bad movie. everyone should know this by now, in this post-puss-in-boots world. i would not compare the mario movie to puss in boots, by the way, it's just fresh in my mind and also based off existing kid's media. the only thing they truly have in common is the medium. their target audience is different, even if the vast majority wouldn't notice. like, i wouldn't bring a toddler to puss in boots, but i would to the mario movie. Bowser is not actually going to murder anybody. mario is also not gonna kill him at the end. nobody is gonna DIE in the mario movie.

all this to say. i was dazzled by the imagery in the opening scene for the usual reasons i like Illumination - the set pieces were huge and detailed, the lighting is amazing and atmospheric, the synergy between the character animation and the voice acting is solid. i especially liked the part when Kamek enchanted the pieces of rubble to make stairs for Bowser to walk up, it showed what their relationship is like and what a toady (ha-ha) Kamek is. (not the characterization i would go for with Kamek but *big heavy dramatic sigh* WHATEVER)

so, that scene ends. we cut to Mario and Luigi's commercial, which i LOVED. i thought it was so fun, and i love the analog quality to it and how DIY it was. and the best part for me - i love that we're in Brooklyn, NY!! when that first trailer dropped and i realized the movie was gonna be an isekai, i was so so happy. it's my favorite version of mario bros canon, and one of the few things in actual canon that i think gives Mario depth. it's compelling to me, the idea of a regular blue collar dude who's maybe in his 30s (mario is not 24 and i will die on this hill) who gets spirited away to a magical land where he doesn't belong, but he helps save the day because he wants to (and maybe he falls in love along the way??) uh put a pin in that thought i guess.

so, the dialogue starts, and it hits me - okay, this move is gonna be kinda stupid.

maybe that's harsh? let me try to explain what i mean. it was immediately apparent that this was going to be a funny, silly movie that wasn't gonna be too serious. the comedy is broad. when they walk by Foreman Spike and he's like "YOU'RE A LOOSAH, MARIO! YOU'LL ALWAYS BE A LOOSAH" or whatever, i was like, okay. we're not getting a Deep Mario Character Study. not that that's what i expected, of course, i'm just a weirdo who has dedicated his life to Deep Mario Character Studies. That's a me problem. but i still half expected mario to go "oh yeah, Foreman Spike from Wrecking Crew for NES (1985)? You won't be laughing when I become Nintendo + Illumination: The Super Mario Bros. Movie!" so i don't LOVE that vibe

okay, i'm like 2% of the way into the movie and this is already spiraling out of amuck. my point is that i'm not going to knock this movie for the things it isn't. it has that sorta glossy rounded-edges writing that movies from this studio have. in a way, it the writing is like a mario game. illumination + nintendo is kind of a match made in heaven.

for the rest of this manifesto, i'm going to divide my thoughts into three sections: stuff i liked, stuff i didn't like, and stuff i had complicated feelings about.

stuff i liked

Firstly, MARIO'S FAMILY! maybe the highlight of the whole movie for me. i knew we'd get Brooklyn, but seeing the whole Mario fam was a shock. not a lot of fanworks give them a big family like that, so it was nice to see! everyone looked great, and it was so cool to see mario and luigi in that context.

and Mario's bedroom?? was SO cute. im gonna have to pause and zoom and see what's in there because i dont remember the details but like i said, the environments are SO solid, and that doesn't stop for the Real World scenes. Brooklyn is just as gorgeous and detailed as the Mushroom Kingdom. the movie was never boring to look at.

seriously, the look of this movie is INSANE. That initial little Mushroom Grove location knocked my socks off, it reminded me of The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach, which is the highest compliment I can give to this movie. the visuals were absolutely off the hook.

the character design was also really nice, which i was a little worried about going in. there's this tendency with some artists to make Peach an ethereal boobie goddess and Mario a little baby goblin sprite, so i liked that they looked like they could smooch if they wanted to. (they didn't.) i knew it would be a fine line to walk between staying true to the in-game renders of the characters and keeping things visually interesting/fresh and new, and I think they walked that line well. everybody looked like they were drawn from the same hand. the visual style of the film was the most cohesive part of it.

the action scenes were really fun to watch, and i loved that scene in Brooklyn when Mario is parkouring around the city with Luigi stumbling behind him. they did a good job making Brooklyn really lively and exciting in its movements. everything was super bouncy!

the Mario Kart sequence was REALLY fun and I'm mostly putting this here for how much my dad loved it. it had everything you could want from Mario Kart on the big screen, and the little speedrunning maneuver Mario does was great.

Bowser. maybe the best performance in the movie, which is par for the course for Jack Black showing up in movies. i think everyone agrees on this so i won't go on too much, but for the most part i liked his characterization. i love a goofy bowser, and i like that his actions had consequences in the end, too. i always loved the games where Bowser is on your side. in my opinion, he's at his best when he's a petulant manlizardbaby, not the Supreme Lord of Darkness.

bowser in a jar at the end was really funny. Make That Guy Tiny! i also love the implication that without Bowser telling them what to do, the Koopa army just kinda chills out. i like that vibe.

stuff i didn't like

The trailers gave too much away. I feel bad because this isn't a knock on the movie on its own, but like, EVERYTHING luigi did the whole movie was in the trailers. like, for how short the movie was, it's insane how much they showed. speaking of which...

god bless Illumination and their tight 90 minute runtimes. (this was 92, actually! yay!) the movie overall felt very fast, which in the action/platforming scenes was great! but most of the time, it just forces the plot to happen to the characters while they're tossed around like ragdolls. at one point i remember saying to my dad, "why is mario like this? he's just down for whatever." (put a pin in that. meanwhile...)

here's that pin from earlier! this is a big one for me - i thought every piece of dialogue between Mario and Peach was disappointing. their first meeting was weird as hell, and it gets worse. it's a symptom of the larger problem of things being really rushed - there's almost no time for characters to interact with each other. a lot is resting on existing relationship dynamics. Mario and Luigi as brothers, Peach and Bowser as old enemies, Peach and her toads' bond, ect. The most developed relationship between two characters who meet during the events of the movie is Mario and Donkey Kong, which... sorry DK stans, but it just isn't my jam.

with Luigi being the one kidnapped, i thought maybe we'd have some sort of relationship form between Mario and Peach in the meantime, and i guess it did? kinda? like i said a million words ago, nothing ever really gets too deep. they have conversations looking out onto vast beautiful landscapes, and in romantic fire flower fields, but... i don't know, they just seem like work friends. they don't really talk about anything serious, and even when they do, it just feels like the scene ends right when it's gonna get good. and the one moment where mario is "flirting" with her gets ruined by Donkey Kong. so, that's cool.

Luigi didn't do shit! not even a hot gay sex scene with Bowser he just gets captured, almost dies in lava, and then Mario rescues him. as a Mario stan (and comparing this to the live action movie for a sec) i did appreciate the focus on Mario, but it's such a shame that Luigi didn't really get to do much besides sit in a box. :(

To me, the overall structure of the movie was pretty weak. There were so many cool parts, but it just never really coagulated into anything cohesive narratively to me. a huge part of that was that the stakes weren't really there. and it's not that big, dramatic things didn't HAPPEN, the characters just didn't give the weight and gravitas to them one might expect.

the licensed music fucking sucked, but thats par the course for this studio so it didnt surprise me. it made me angry the same way Suicide Squad did, because i'm not against licensed music as a concept. (see: breaking bad/bettercallsaul, shrek, ect.) it's just like, don't go with the FIRST song you think of, y'know? or, like, why BOTHER with something like Mario, which has SO much established score you could do instead.

Mario Not Liking Mushrooms is on the tier of Cruella de Ville's mom being killed by dalmatians or whatever. it made my dad laugh, though.

this is not a knock on finding the movie funny - i was laughing throughout most of it - but it has this self-aware thing about it that a lot of movies have nowadays that i just do not find charming. the whole "oh, these bricks are just FLOATING here? well THAT just happened" or "you mean i have to EAT mushrooms?? but i HATE mushrooms! this is the OPPOSITE of what i want!" it's just so... bland. it doesn't have its own identity. it's studio-funny and really, really safe. (it's Nintendo + illumination: The Super Mario Bros. Movie.)

this last point might be controversial, but i hated the scene with Mario and Luigi as babies. i thought it was dumb and bad. by far, was my least favorite scene. it just felt so... i don't know. it was just a bit much. i'll expand more on why in the 'complicated feelings' section, but i just want to shine a spotlight on that scene as the low point of the movie for me. but my grandma liked it, so i'm probably just a hater.

(VERY close second was the one where Bowser is practicing what to say to Peach, then it cuts to Kamek in a wig. booooo! *throws tomatoes*)

stuff i had complicated feelings about

pratt did fine. it's really easy to forget about the man and just see the character, which is a huge compliment. celebrity voice actors are an industry problem (one that Illumination contributes to a LOT tbf) and i think the fact that pratt kinda 'disappeared into the role' was a plus. it still kinda feels like a silly casting choice overall, though. i remember watching the Nintendo direct live where they announced it, and i was gasping for air from laughing so hard, i had to pause it. but anyway, this is just my own taste, and probably nostalgia from the Super Show, but i prefer a more curmudgeonly, Brooklyn-accented Mario. so for me, pratt did fine.

bowser. i loved jack black's performance and he struck the tone for bowser that i was looking for, but as a big fan of Tenacious D, some parts were less "bowser as a character" and more "Tenacious D song from Bowser's POV." Of everything i've talked about so far this feels the most like nitpicking because Jack Black's performance really was a highlight of the movie, but hey, we've made it this far!! you're locked in this Confessional Box with me and you're getting everything!!

one thing i can point to in regards to this - and i can't believe i'm about to say this because it's so ridiculous sounding - but they gave Bowser a little bit of a "yandere" vibe, right?? *sniper dot appears on my forehead* but they could've leaned further into it, and it was kinda overshadowed by the Jack Black of it all.

here's that second pin! it's for Mario's Daddy Issues! it's not a bad idea per se, like, yeah, you can do that sort of arc with Mario, why not? (he's got a couple daddy issues in my own fanon to be fair!) but the way it was integrated into the plot just felt SO cookie cutter, like literally ANY character could have had Mario's arc in this movie. it didn't feel related thematically to what was actually happening in the movie, and the reason that bothers me is because Mario is just so BLASE about everything happening to him! Like, sure, he's bumbling around all confused like a cheep-cheep out of water, but since there's just no room to breathe, we can't have anything more than narrative shorthand for arcs you've seen before. but the potential for depth is there!! it is!!!

i think what i mean is that there's not really levels to how characters react to things, almost like they're not allowed to have too extreme emotions. it feels like they had constraints, and they couldn't establish too much about the characters. Nintendo is a tightly controlled brand, right?

so, because of that, it's REALLY strange to me that they not only gave Peach a backstory, but to my knowledge, a backstory that doesn't come from any of the games or past adaptations. in a way, her story is the reverse opposite of Daisy from the live action Mario movie. if this movie had been twenty minutes longer, i would've loved to see this resolved in a more satisfying way! it really feels like there was no emotional resolution to her story, which surprises me because there were obvious parallels to Mario's angst about his own family/desire to Save Brooklyn in Peach's struggle to protect the toads. like i said earlier when i was talking about Mario and Peach's conversations, it felt like it stopped right before it was about to get good.

it just doesn't seem like the characters in this movie feel things deeply. most characters end in the same place they started. that isn't a bad thing, by the way, which is why it's in the "complicated feelings" section. lots of movies do that - Back to the Future does that, my favorite movie of all time.

it's all very, very down-the-middle. it's for everyone, it's for no one. it's Nintendo + Illumination: The Super Mario Bros. Movie., and everything that entails.

i think the reason the Baby Mario scene bothers me is because it reminds me too much of the fact that this movie is a product. all movies are, don't get me wrong, but there are so many parts of this movie that felt especially product-y. it was just kinda blatant about it in the stereotypical way that b-tier animated kid's movies are. it was packed with references, which in a way was cool to see. i'm sure that when i watch it again i'll catch all sorts of things i didn't catch before. but this movie kinda just feels like a PILE of stuff all mashed together without much thought put into how the actual world is supposed to work, or what the lives of the people who live there are like, or how they feel that their kingdom is being destroyed.

let me just be totally real for a second. *unzips clown costume a little*

art means a lot to me, obviously. and if i'm being totally real and baring my soul or whatever, nothing has impacted my artistic life and process more than Super Mario Bros. There's nothing I can do about it. the sky is blue, water is wet, and i love mario.

i saw this move sitting in a row with my family, in seats we'd all reserved in advance. i was sitting between my parents, who taught me how to play Mario. i had a smile on my face the whole time, even during the Baby Mario scene. every time something cool or flashy happened, a tiny voice from somewhere in the theater would GASP, or yell "LET'S-A GO" or "IT'S PEACH!!!"

among my group was my youngest cousin, who's eight years old, and i realized that she's the same age i was when i created my account on Lemmy's Land and made a Koopaling OC. (that used to be the Thing to do in mario fandom.) that realization almost gave me a fuckin stroke. the passage of time, am i right?

but anyway, if this movie had come out when i was a kid, it would've blown my mind and changed my life. i felt a weird ennui after the movie ended, and everyone was asking me what i thought. people at work the next day were asking me about it, because i'm the Mario Guy even in real life. and i didn't have an answer. i didn't know what i thought.

what i said to them was, "i'm weird, i'm not a good example of a normal opinion on this movie. 7/10." and then i went home and i wrote the 3000 words you see above you.

this is longer than most of my Mario fics, let's-a wrap this up.

hopefully i've given a little bit of a sense of what i thought of the movie. It's everything, it's nothing. you are in its target demographic whether you like it or not. it's the movie some of you have been waiting for your whole lives. it had expectations that it never had a chance of living up to. it has jack black. it's a pile of mush. (no pun nintended.)

[batbrainrot]

Jason, walking into the kitchen:

Jason: Tim what the fuck are you doing

Tim, confused: ...c-cooking?

Jason: what are you doing to that chicken?????

Tim, holding one fork in each hand: ...seasoning ...it?

Jason, offended: no, the fuck, you're not! why are you using forks to do it instead of grabbing it with your hands like a normal fucking human being?

Tim, feeling personally victimized by raw meat: I'M NOT FUCKING TOUCHING THAT! IT'S A SENSORY NIGHTMARE!

Jason, pointing a gun at him: OUT. NOW.

[gideonisms]

I become 300% more of both a lover and a hater when I'm on my period. just a time of the month when I have strong opinions I would say

[mamawasatesttube]

i do genuinely think an adult, fully-realized kon would be able to defeat superman in a fight. not just saying that bc he's my fav or whatever but because like. ttk is so op. telekinetic power with the range and raw strength to destroy every single gun in LA, and the finesse of control to not destroy anything else? that alone is a huge force to be reckoned with. add kryptonian abilities on top of that and you've got a fucking powerhouse. like um devs? op tbh pls nerf (except don't, because i find that sooooo tasty.)

because to clark, i think this is a good thing! it isn't quite so lonely when he's got a little brother/son/they really can't label it but they're family, who understands the alienation. the burden of having so much power. the fear of what your own hands can do. he sees in kon a kindred spirit, although it also saddens him that kon has to feel this burden too.

but kon?

oh, kon is terrified of himself.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

.

[m0shpitpup]

hey guys!! hopefully i’ll have some of my own dom dom content to share, as i’m going to raw this monday!! i’m super excited and lowkey wanna cry because it feels surreal to me

[heelhausen]

So since we updated the TV plan and put a box in my room, I now have access to watch wwe, tna, & aew all live so uh. Watchin dynamite tonite!

[pigswithwings]

Jpeg japejgfjje

Jpeg.

Angels that start out completely featureless. Almost like statues without real detail. They pick at themselves to shape themselves. Dig little pits for their feathers and paint themselves with whatever color they want. Eyes aren't usually a thing they have. Eyes appear when they dig deep enough to touch the holy light below their flesh

An eye is more like a scar. Angels with many eyes tend to pick and dig at themselves more frequently

MAN....

[daystie]

maturity is realizing john and abigail are as accurate and real as any couple would be in their situations/combined traumas and finding, after all that and their hard work, they really are a beautiful couple.

[liu-yu-xin]

its literally just photoshop 😭 like an ungodly amount of photoshop

[chaoticdarkacademiachic]

'Currently dying, trying to live while waiting to be turned into ashes with promises of no reincarnation' is my motto right now.

[gorillaxyz]

iSOMEONE WHO DRAWS HITLER YAOI JUSY WAYCHED ME ON DEVIANTART

???????????????????

[ashfdhfgdsfk]

might remake to a new account entirely and change the name i go by

[byanyan]

oops getting drunk & staying up until almost 6am with ur mom watching bts content and crying together talking about irl shit

[iftari]

i think. that ppl in north gaza are some of the most incredible humans that have ever existed. for staying. for experiencing the worst of the worst. for being the bravest possible. and it is because the unarmed palestinians are still there that hamas and any other resistance fighters are able to continue to fight and hold onto the landscape. that is how each palestinian is an automatic resistance fighter. that i show existance is resistance in this moment for palestinians in gaza. there is so much bravery i think people will spent centuries just trying to articulate it. i think the journalists and story tellers in north gaza, they are so brave. i think the beings are so brave. i think the beings there are so revolutionary. every being. the earth being in existance, the plants that continue to grow in the face of bombs and weapons i cannot imagine. the other animals like cats and birds and every being i cannot name still surviving, still finding refuge, still breathing and not just giving up si so incredible. i am in beyond awe. i am so irrevocably changed by genocide. i am so fundementally different.

[cryptidwrestling]

M I X E D T A G M A T C H?????