The Super Mario Bros. Movie understands something essential about Mario: the appeal has never depended on complicated dialogue or an elaborate backstory. It is the thrill of entering a colorful world, discovering what everything does, and trying again after a spectacularly stupid mistake.
That is what I want from a Mario adaptation, and Nintendo and Illumination deliver it with obvious affection. Watching the Mushroom Kingdom become a fully animated playground is a pleasure. My frustration is that the movie sometimes rushes through that playground before its characters have time to do anything particularly interesting.
Released by Universal Pictures in April 2023, the film earned approximately $574.9 million in the United States and Canada and $1.36 billion worldwide. That domestic figure includes Canada, as North American box office reporting typically does. Either way, this was an enormous Hollywood success, far beyond the scale of a niche gaming crossover.
The reception was more divided. As of October 2026, Rotten Tomatoes lists a 58% critics’ score and a 95% verified audience score. Those percentages measure positive responses, rather than average ratings, and the audience figure is not specific to US viewers. Still, the gap captures the conversation surrounding the film remarkably well.
Is this an enjoyable movie with a thin story, or a thin story rescued by familiar characters? My answer sits somewhere between the two, with a fairly big smile on its face.
Visual Spectacle and Nintendo Easter Eggs: Where Mario Really Shines
The best thing about The Super Mario Bros. Movie is how confidently it embraces the look and movement of the games.
Illumination gives the Mushroom Kingdom depth without making it feel unnecessarily realistic. The rounded buildings, floating blocks, ridiculous geography, and brightly colored creatures belong together. Nothing needs an embarrassed explanation for why a mushroom grants superpowers or why a kingdom’s infrastructure includes so many opportunities to fall to your death.
I appreciate that confidence. A Mario movie should trust its own weirdness.
An early sequence following the brothers through Brooklyn uses side-on movement and obstacles to suggest a platforming level. It is a clever piece of adaptation because the reference works through action. Even someone who has never held a Nintendo controller can understand the joke and follow the movement.
Rainbow Road Deserves Its Big-Screen Moment
The Rainbow Road sequence is the film at its most gloriously excessive.
There are customized karts, dangerous overtakes, weapons, and a track suspended over an enormous drop. The scene captures the cheerful hostility of Mario Kart, where a friendly race can become a personal grievance in seconds.
What works for me is the way the sequence turns recognizable mechanics into physical stakes. A shell is suddenly more intimidating when the characters cannot simply restart the race. The spectacle feels connected to how the games play, rather than just how they look.
The power-ups work on a similar principle. Mario’s training turns repeated failure into a running joke, while his fight with Donkey Kong finds humor in the gap between receiving an ability and knowing how to use it.
That is a very Mario kind of comedy.
The References Are Fun, but the Music Does More
There are enough Nintendo Easter eggs here to keep dedicated fans scanning the backgrounds: familiar enemies, recognizable locations, nods to older games, and small details tucked into the Brooklyn scenes.
I enjoy those touches, but Brian Tyler’s score, incorporating Koji Kondo’s game themes, gives the nostalgia more emotional weight. Kondo also served as a score consultant. A familiar melody can establish a mood faster than another recognizable object in the background.
That makes the use of familiar pop songs slightly frustrating. Occasionally, the movie reaches for a conventional Hollywood montage when its own musical identity would have served the scene better.
I wanted more of Nintendo’s sound, especially when the images were already doing such a good job of bringing its worlds to life.
Voice Cast and Performances: Hype vs. Reality
The casting attracted almost as much attention as the film itself, especially the decision to make Chris Pratt the English-language voice of Mario.
For me, the useful question is whether these voices support the characters over an entire movie. Matching a familiar catchphrase is only part of that job.
Chris Pratt’s Mario Works Better in Conversation
Pratt’s performance is most effective when Mario is being an ordinary person: arguing with family, reassuring Luigi, or stubbornly insisting that their plumbing business can succeed.
His Mario has an approachable, slightly bruised optimism. He wants to prove himself, but his strongest motivation is protecting his brother. That gives the character enough warmth to carry the adventure.
I understand why some fans miss the distinctive personality of Charles Martinet’s game performance. Pratt’s interpretation is less immediately recognizable, and occasionally it feels like a fairly standard animated lead.
Still, I think the film makes a sensible choice by giving Mario a conversational voice. The performance becomes easier to accept once the story gets moving and he has something to do beyond delivering familiar lines.
Jack Black’s Bowser Steals the Movie
Jack Black understands exactly how ridiculous Bowser should be.
He makes him threatening enough to drive the action, then lets insecurity and romantic desperation puncture that authority. The contrast is the joke: this enormous, destructive creature also needs reassurance about whether a princess might like him.
The Jack Black Bowser “Peaches” song became a breakout moment for good reason. The performance commits completely to Bowser’s wounded sincerity. It even reached the Billboard Hot 100, taking one of the film’s strangest jokes into mainstream American pop culture.
What I like most is that Black does not sound as though he is standing outside the character and laughing at him. Bowser believes every ridiculous second of it.
That commitment makes the joke work.
Anya Taylor-Joy Gives Princess Peach Confidence
Anya Taylor-Joy’s Peach is capable, direct, and comfortable taking charge. Making her Mario’s guide creates a useful contrast: she knows this world, while he can barely survive its obstacle course.
I like that dynamic. It gives Peach an active role and allows Mario to earn his competence through persistence.
However, the writing makes her so accomplished that she has fewer opportunities to surprise us. There are hints of curiosity and vulnerability, but the film rarely slows down to develop them. Taylor-Joy gives her composure; I wanted the screenplay to give her a little more personality beyond being good at everything.
Charlie Day’s Luigi has the opposite problem. His nervous energy fits beautifully, but separating the brothers leaves him outside much of the adventure. For a film with “Bros.” in the title, I wanted more time with the brothers together.
Plot vs. Fan Service: Why Critics and Audiences Disagreed
The story is straightforward. Mario and Luigi discover a mysterious route out of Brooklyn, become separated, and land in a conflict involving Bowser and the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario joins Peach and Toad to find his brother and help stop Bowser.
A simple premise is perfectly reasonable for this material. My issue is how quickly the film moves between its major attractions.
Training course. New kingdom. Arena fight. Kart chase. Next destination.
Individual scenes are entertaining, but the transitions can make the adventure feel assembled around a list of things that needed to appear.
I Understand the Criticism
The movie gives us the beginnings of an emotional story. Mario feels underestimated, Luigi depends on him, and their family questions their decisions.
Those are useful foundations. Yet much of that material gets pushed aside once the Mushroom Kingdom adventure begins.
Mario’s determination remains consistent, but his relationships receive less development than the action sequences. Friendships form quickly. Conflicts resolve efficiently. The film often reaches the next joke just when a conversation might become interesting.
I do not need Mario to deliver a dramatic monologue about his inner life. A few quieter scenes could have made the adventure more satisfying.
I Also Understand the Audience Response
The pleasure of recognition matters here.
An adult familiar with the games can enjoy seeing their mechanics translated into action, while a child can respond to the colors, slapstick, and clear stakes. A joke about a power-up can operate at both levels without requiring anyone to explain Nintendo history.
That helps explain the Super Mario movie nostalgia vs. critics debate. Different viewers bring different priorities. Someone looking for a tightly developed animated story may find the film underwritten. Someone hoping for an energetic celebration of Mario may leave delighted.
Both reactions make sense to me.
Where I disagree with the film’s strongest defenders is the idea that it should be exempt from criticism because it is faithful to the games. Familiarity adds pleasure, but it cannot do every job that characterization and storytelling usually perform.
I enjoyed the fan service. I also noticed when it was filling space where a stronger scene could have been.
Breaking the “Video Game Movie Curse”
The “video game adaptation curse” has always been a slightly misleading phrase. Successful and enjoyable adaptations existed before Mario, including Detective Pikachu and the Sonic the Hedgehog films.
Still, the phrase reflects a recognizable frustration: Hollywood repeatedly acquired beloved games and produced movies that struggled to capture their appeal.
Mario carries that history particularly visibly because of the troubled reputation of the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. film. The 2023 animation takes a much more direct approach to the source material, and its enormous commercial success made that choice difficult for Hollywood to ignore.
The film became the first video game adaptation to pass $1 billion worldwide. That milestone demonstrated just how large the audience for a Nintendo movie could be.
In my opinion, its most useful lesson is that an adaptation should understand the pleasure of the original medium.
Mario’s pleasure comes from movement, experimentation, colorful surprises, and persistence. This film captures those qualities, even when its screenplay falls short elsewhere.
A Hollywood Hit Beyond the Theater
The movie also arrived during a particularly visible moment for Nintendo in the United States. Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Studios Hollywood on February 17, 2023, shortly before the film’s April release.
That timing matters culturally. American families were being invited to watch the Mushroom Kingdom, play in it, and physically walk through a version of it.
That connection has since expanded to Orlando, where Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Epic Universe on May 22, 2025.
I see the film as both an enjoyable adventure and a very effective introduction to that larger Nintendo experience. Its world is appealing enough to make the connection feel natural, although the constant parade of recognizable attractions sometimes reinforces the sense of watching a feature-length brand celebration.
What I Want From Nintendo’s Other Movies
Nintendo’s expansion into film has already moved beyond a hypothetical next step. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie arrived in US theaters on April 1, 2026, while the live-action The Legend of Zelda is scheduled for April 30, 2027, through Sony Pictures. For me, that makes the 2023 Mario film an important starting point in Nintendo’s wider move into cinema.
My hope is that each property receives its own approach.
A Zelda adaptation needs room for atmosphere, discovery, and a sense of mystery. A Luigi’s Mansion movie could build an excellent family comedy around Luigi being terrified but continuing anyway. Donkey Kong has the physical humor and personality to support a different kind of adventure again.
Those last two are creative possibilities I would like to see explored, rather than evidence of a confirmed shared cinematic universe.
I am less interested in every Nintendo character eventually meeting than in seeing filmmakers understand what makes each world worth visiting.
Verdict: A Joyful Mario Movie With Room to Grow
My rating: 7.5/10.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie succeeds most convincingly as a lively, affectionate translation of Nintendo’s world. The animation is expressive, the action understands the games, and Jack Black gives Bowser enough personality to walk away with the film.
Its weaknesses are easy to identify: rushed storytelling, limited character development, and too little time spent on the brothers’ relationship. I felt those limitations even while enjoying the ride.
For Nintendo fans, families with school-age children, and viewers looking for a colorful, fast-moving adventure, it is an easy recommendation. The PG rating still comes with cartoon peril and some spooky imagery, particularly around Luigi’s encounters.
For anyone searching for the best video game movie adaptations, this deserves consideration for how successfully it captures the experience of its source material. I would place it below the strongest animated films in terms of storytelling, but comfortably among the more enjoyable gaming adaptations.
What stays with me is Mario’s stubbornness. He fails, gets flattened, looks ridiculous, and tries again. When the movie builds its humor and heart around that quality, it feels like Mario all the way through.
I’m Alex Mercer, a senior gaming and esports writer at GamingImba. I’ve been involved in gaming for as long as I can remember, and for more than a decade I’ve been writing about competitive play, industry trends, and the culture that grows around games.
My work focuses on esports, online gaming platforms, and how technology continues to shape the way people play, compete, and connect. I’m especially interested in meta shifts, balance changes, and the business decisions that influence modern games behind the scenes.
At GamingImba, I aim to break down complex topics in a way that’s clear, honest, and useful—whether that means analyzing a major tournament, exploring new gaming platforms, or looking at how player behavior evolves over time.
I follow global esports scenes closely, experiment with different games and mods in my free time, and enjoy digging into the details that most players notice but rarely stop to question.
