THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
If the video game has infiltrated all aspects of popular cinema (war, action, superheroes…), the fact remains that a curse has always struck the cinematographic adaptations of the major video game franchises (Uncharted, Max Payne, tomb Raider…): success seems unattainable. Nintendo knows this better than anyone. After the monumental flop of the live adaptation, elevated to the rank of nanar (Super Mario Bros.., 1993), it had been thirty years since the brand had tried to adapt the adventures of the most famous plumber in the world. But since then, Nintendo’s mascot has invaded homes around the world to even become more famous than Mickey, a bet that its creator Shigeru Miyamoto had launched.
Therefore, nanar or not, this new Super Mario Bros. is guaranteed to meet his fanbase. We find the brothers Mario and Luigi within the Italian community of Brooklyn who, between two dishes of spaghetti, try to revive their small plumbing business. While working on an underground pipeline, they find themselves sucked into a magical world where they must help Princess Peach save the Mushroom Kingdom from the grip of the evil Bowser.
sense of burlesque
A minimal scenario, which we will follow with one eye, since the film never seeks to endow its characters with any depth which, here, would be too much. It is probably for this reason that the studio abandoned the live-action for animation ignoring any photo-realism. In this endeavor, he is ideally chaperoned by the Illumination studio (Minions, like beasts) who has made available his graphic charter and his sense of burlesque at the service of the Mario universe.
If the film draws from all the generations of the game, it wants to be modest on self-reference, convinced that each plot of pixel of a Mario game is an integral part of the collective imagination that it is not a question here of overselling . The ambition of Super Mario Bros. restricts itself to translating the sensations offered by the gameplay of the game in a pure visual pleasure: we move gracefully from the 2D of the first versions to a beautiful and large part of Mario Kart saturated with acid colors. With efficiency and modesty, the film never comes to disavow its origin, that of a pure video game almost emptied of any content – but also a masterpiece which offers itself a mischievous detour through the dark rooms.
Animated film by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (1h32).