In both good and bad ways, "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" is exactly what you'd expect.
Resourceful plumbers Mario and Luigi look and — depending on whether you thought they'd have an Italian accent or a Brooklyn accent that occasionally slips into pretend Italian — sound just like you'd expect them to. Their adventures in the movie are fairly clever extensions of the way they behave in the enduring game. There are lots of obstacle courses, sudden height shifts, invisible bridges ("Oh, these bricks are just floating here?" Mario asks, in a wink to players who know how to maneuver him across them) and the ability to borrow characteristics from other species, such as cats.
The video game has changed a lot over the years and the movie looks like the best possible version of it: multidimensional, bright and, at cineplexes across the country, enormous.
In terms of servicing fans who want more of their "Super Mario Bros." than they can get at home or in an arcade, the movie gets the job done. The Mushroom Kingdom is here, ruled by plucky Princess Peach, and so is turtle-esque bad guy Bowser (voiced by Jack Black), whom the brothers help the princess defeat when they're sucked into that fantasy world.
What the movie doesn't do is go above and beyond. It doesn't offer us surprising perspectives on how its two-dimensional characters might think or behave, the way the "Toy Story" movies do. The presence of Chris Pratt, as the voice of Mario, also reminds us that "Mario" doesn't bring fresh wit or unexpected characters and situations to the party, the way Pratt's "Lego" movies did.
How the "Lego" movies treated that, err, intellectual property was a stellar example of how humor and imagination can broaden the appeal of a concept. It didn't even matter if you cared about Legos because those movies, especially the first two, provided so many clever, fun ways to think about the characters. There are some possibilities here — Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, is a given a bit more agency and the brothers' family seems like a lively bunch, especially their famous Mama — but "Mario Bros. Movie" doesn't spend enough time with them.
We do learn a little about the brothers. Shorter, rounder Mario is the slightly more daring one, while slender Luigi (Charlie Day) faces trouble only when he must (there's lots of it in the movie, which keeps waves of bad guys coming at our heroes).
There are a couple of scary moments featuring zombies and fire but, unlike "Toy Story" or "Lego," "Mario Bros. Movie" aims exclusively for a young audience. That makes sense, since it's the video game many youngsters begin with, and their parents will admire the brothers' cooperation and their insistence that "Nothing can hurt us as long as we're together."
In fact, Mario Bros. fans probably won't find anything wrong with the respectful, handsomely made movie, other than this: Maybe they'd rather be playing the game than watching it?
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'THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE'
2.5 stars (out of 4)
Rated: PG (for action and mild violence)
Running time: 1:32
How to watch: Now in theaters
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