The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Without overplaying its hand, it hits all the major notes within the wild, inventive universe of block-breaking and Goomba-stomping.

This lively computer-animated take on the video game just opened and it’s already the biggest box-office smash of 2023. Despite lapses into dull and disposable, it’s also a godsend for parents seeking family entertainment for the 5-year-old in all of us.

Among the many errors of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, screenwriter Matthew Fogel plops him and his brother Luigi into a milquetoast Brooklyn family that doubts them and disrespects their small-business dreams.

It is the laziest possible version of a Mario movie, and for most viewers, young and old, that’ll be totally acceptable.

The whole package is a deranged mishmash of overstimulating elements.

A frantic Easter egg hunt of a film that does the bare minimum to please its loyal existing fanbase.

The iconic plumber’s big screen re-do is a proud celebration of the character’s appeal.

All movies exist to sell, but this exists to sell everything but the movie. It’s not a love letter – it’s soulless capitalism. The Super Mario Bros Movie is an imagination-free wasteland where cinematic storytelling goes to die.

A specific sequence set across the streets of Brooklyn is a gorgeous nod to the 2D platformer aesthetic. It might be my favorite adaptation of the gamified visual look to the big screen since “Tron: Legacy.”

The Super Mario Bros. Movie, on the other hand, is so cynical and dated right out of the gate that it makes something as inherently positive as Mario feel just a tad distasteful.