The highly anticipated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” finally debuted on April 5th. While the divisive nature of its star-studded cast was the source of much publicity, Illumination and Nintendo produced a decent enough movie. The movie follows plumber brothers, Mario and Luigi, who are sent on a quest after a plumbing job gone wrong a la “Super Mario Super Show”. Mario is shunted off to the Mushroom Kingdom when Luigi gets separated, being sent to Bowser’s kingdom. It’s up to Mario and a few new friends to rescue Luigi and put an end to Bowser’s incoming invasion. 

The cast was actually not worse for wear in the roles of iconic Mario characters. Jack Black was really the highlight of the movie, making Bowser a charming antagonist and a sympathetic villain. Chris Pratt isn’t nearly as bad as he was seemingly made out to be (the accent is painfully missing though) and Charlie Day portrayed Luigi accurately.  My favorite character had to be Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong. Rogan was a good short time rival for Mario and great comedic relief for the in-comparison seriousness of the other cast. 

An eagle eyed and eared fan may notice a lot of familiar moments: the movie is chock full of references across the entire series, from things like Luigi’s ringtone being the Gamecube start-up jingle, to the existentialist Luma from Super Mario Galaxy. The movie also makes creative use of power ups from the games, and expands who can use the power ups and what they can do. 

There really isn’t that much else to say that wouldn’t spoil the experience of watching it. The film is genuinely pretty good compared to some of Illumination’s other projects, and yes, the Minions from “Despicable Me” do have a special cameo appearance during the beginning credits. The target audience is probably not reading this article right now, but it’s still a good movie to have running in the background, and more experienced players of the Mario series will be able to identify some of the references. If you get the chance to, I’d recommend seeing the movie for yourself.