The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The target audience for The Super Mario Bros. Movie is kids, but it is also for people who grew up playing the Nintendo video game on which the film is based. Not everyone had a Nintendo, though. Some had an Atari 2600. Not everyone was good at video games, either. Add in the 1993 live-action movie, Super Mario Bros., which is terrible turd of a movie, but the behind-the-scenes stories of that disaster are far more entertaining than the film itself.

Set in 1984, the plot follows Nike marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon). The basketball division at Nike is struggling badly and CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) is considering shutting it down.

Affleck’s last directorial effort, Live By Night, was a bit of a disappointment, but Affleck has proven himself a reliable director of original, adult-oriented films (Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo are all worth seeing if you haven’t). Air is a good bet for grown-ups looking for a change of pace from the avalanche of sequels and superhero movies. —Fritz

Esker

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has a fairly simple plot. Italian-American brothers from Brooklyn, Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), have started their own plumbing business, and while attempting to fix an underground leak, they are separately sucked into a Warp Pipe. Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom, while Luigi ends up in the ominous Dark Lands. With the help of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), Mario must travel to the Dark Lands to rescue his brother from the nasty fire-breathing Bowser (Jack Black), King of the Koopas.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is very vanilla. Despite an earcleansing music score by Brian Tyler and good animation by Illumination (Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets), this movie is average and lacks surprises or energy. And why, why, why does the movie have to include the ubiquitous song “Holding Out for a Hero” during an action montage? The song was produced in 1984 for the Footloose soundtrack and has been overused in movies and television shows ever since. In the recently released Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, elements from the board game are integrated into the plot in mostly sly ways. Here, in Super Mario, placing set-pieces of the video game into the plot comes off as forced and clumsy. The movie also lacks a good sense of humor. Most of the jokes that are here come off as lame. The voice cast seems willing. It doesn't sound like anyone is just phoning it in, so give them some clever and funny lines to say.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie does have colorful images and it moves along at a quick pace, so small fry should enjoy it. If you are an adult looking for a nostalgia fix, have at it, but most would probably prefer to sit back and watch Tron —David Vicari